Atheism Among the People

LAMARTINE ON ATHEISM.
BOSTON: PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY, 110 Washington Street. 1850.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, BY PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.
STEREOTYPED BY CHARLES W. COLTON, No. 2 Water Street.
Through the past year, M. de Lamartine has published a monthly journal, called The People’s Counsellor, “ Le Conseiller du Peuple .” Each number of this journal contains an Essay, by him, on some specific subject, of pressing interest to the French people,—generally, some political subject.
As a companion to one of these numbers, he published the Essay which we here translate. We have thought that its interest and merit are by no means local; but, that it will be read with as much interest in America, as in France.
Edward E. Hale, Francis Le Baron.
Worcester, Mass. March 7, 1850.

I have often asked myself, “Why am I a Republican?—Why am I the partizan of equitable Democracy, organized and established as a good and strong Government?—Why have I a real love of the People—a love always serious, and sometimes even tender?—What has the People done for me? I was not born in the ranks of the People. I was born between the high Aristocracy and what was then called the inferior classes , in the days when there were classes, where are now equal citizens in various callings. I never starved in the People’s famine; I never groaned, personally, in the People’s miseries; I never sweat with its sweat; I was never benumbed with its cold. Why then, I repeat it, do I hunger in its hunger, thirst with its thirst, warm under its sun, freeze under its cold, grieve under its sorrows? Why should I not care for it as little as for that which passes at the antipodes?—turn away my eyes, close my ears, think of other things, and wrap myself up in that soft, thick garment of indifference and egotism, in which I can shelter myself, and indulge my separate personal tastes, without asking whether, below me,—in street, garret, or cottage, there is a rich People, or a beggar People; a religious People, or an atheistic People; a People of idlers, or of workers; a People of Helots, or of citizens?”