Common Sense Applied to Religion; Or, The Bible and the People

by Catharine Esther Beecher

Moreover, the enterprise has been looked upon with jealousy by many whose attention has been called to it as a covert sectarian movement to promote the interests of that denomination with which some of its movers have been connected. Then, too, because it really has not favored any one sect, it has secured the special favor and sympathy of none. There has never been a time when its movers have not been made to understand that success in raising endowments would be certain if the anti-sectarian feature could be relinquished, and the enterprise could assume a sectarian banner.

The most influential clergy of the large sects are engaged in denominational enterprises, to found colleges or theological seminaries, or to establish book or newspaper agencies devoted to the interests of their sect. The great body of laymen who have wealth to bestow in large sums are more or less influenced by their clergymen, either as personal friends or as spiritual advisers. Especially is this true of the few benevolent ladies who have such independent means as to be able to furnish endowments.

And thus it has come to pass that this first attempt yet known to organize Christians as Christians, to train woman for her great work of forming the physical, social, domestic, and moral habits of childhood by methods deemed indispensable by man for his professions, is on the verge of failure, after four years of trial. And this is not owing to the fact that the motives, or the plan, or the conductors of it have been extensively distrusted, or in any particular disapproved. On the contrary, the leading clergymen of most of the Protestant sects have given their unqualified approval, while the Board of Managers embraces a large proportion of the most distinguished female educators and authoresses, with some of the most distinguished business men and financiers of our land. At the same time, the agents and educators who have performed for four years the details of the enterprise have secured the entire approval and confidence of the public as to their qualifications.

The real difficulty at the root of all is the indifference to the training of the habits of childhood, resulting from the long-established dogma of a misformed mind, whose propagated incapacity is not within the reach of educational training. Meantime, the chief energies of the Christian Church are now tending to the extending of sectarian organizations, based on peculiarities as to baptism, ordination, and church officers, which no intelligent person believes are either indispensable to salvation, or even so important as to be subjects of direct Divine commands.

It is this view of the subject that has at last brought the author to relinquish any farther practical educational efforts, and now to attempt whatever may be in her power in directing public attention to what seems to be one grand impediment in the Christian world to the right training and development of the human race.

In presenting this work to the special attention of the laity, the author does not intend to imply that theologians are not to take the lead in all discussions and investigations that are to guide and enlighten mankind in their special department.

The aim is rather to lessen the general impression that the whole matter is to be left exclusively to them; that it is a professional concern, in which a layman is to resign his own judgment as he does to his physician or lawyer. Instead of this, there are some reasons why the laity have superior advantages to the clergy in cases where long-accepted theological errors are to be eradicated.

In the first place, they are free from the strong influence of a system into which the mind has been educated. The power of a system over men who are trained to reason, and who reason on that subject which involves all the greatest interests of existence both for time and eternity, is most insidious and incalculable. To this is added the reverence, love, and veneration felt by pious persons for those great and good men who, like Augustine, Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards, have been the revered masters of theological systems for ages. Under these two influences, every new opinion is compared with a system, and when it is seen to be inconsistent with it, all the veneration attached, both to that and to its authors and advocates, stands opposed to any innovation.

The powerful influence of educational training, and of love and reverence to a revered parent, has taught the author to understand and sympathize with other minds similarly influenced.

From all such biasing influences the laity are far more free than their clerical guides.