Soon after I had left this valley, I saw at a little distance from me a gentleman of my acquaintance, who with a stick was distributing some very vigorous blows in the air, as if defending himself from a swarm of bees, yet I could see no enemy against which all these efforts were directed. As I approached him, I heard an angry voice, very loud and voluble; and I then discovered his difficulty. He had been in the valley which I have last mentioned, where was a considerable quantity of his own wife's rhetoric, which, as soon as he approached it, had recognised him by a strange instinct, and swarming round his head, had assailed him with great fury. He instantly quitted the valley, hoping to leave this attendant behind, but it adhered to him with wonderful fidelity wherever he went, and he was now vainly endeavouring to drive it away with a stick, which instrument, whatever power it may sometimes have had to silence a similar clamour, was applied to this reproof without the least mitigation. I endeavoured to assist him in repelling it by disturbance of the air, but all we could do was to cut some of the words through the middle, and thus cause a little hesitation in the harangue. I could not forbear smiling to hear the lady's voice, which I knew very well, uttering a groundless invective upon domestic matters of very little importance. The husband perceiving my inclination to mirth, was much troubled that I should be a witness of the discipline he was undergoing. He said something about every family being liable to misunderstandings, and as the voice then entered upon a very private topic he walked hastily away, and carried his reproaches out of my hearing. I afterwards heard that he could not free himself from his incumbrance as long as he remained in the moon; but when he left it, the oratory could follow him no farther, and returned to its valley. I have been told that several other husbands who entered this valley were assailed in the same manner, and afterwards walked about the moon surrounded by these reprimands.
As I walked along, my attention was caught by a humming sound at a distance, which, as I was told, proceeded from the valley of lost sermons, whence an accidental wind had dispersed those discourses which had already assailed me in another part of the moon. I advanced into the valley, and stood surrounded by the uproar of divinity which filled it.
Notwithstanding the vast multitude of voices preaching in defiance of each other, I had no difficulty in distinguishing the words of each, but could single out any one that I chose to listen to. In all these valleys the same peculiarity is observable, that any voice can be heard without confusion, and separately from the rest.
The sermons in this place are divided according to their persuasion; the Church of England having its own district, and each body of Dissenters being limited to one place. The sects are sometimes confounded together by the wind, but when it is calm again they are all speedily reclaimed. Here are collected all the fruitless English sermons, that is, all which have failed to effect either of the two great ends of preaching,—the virtue of the hearers, and the preferment of the clergyman.
I heard much Christian anger uttered with great sincerity. Some of these compositions had more the sound of political speeches delivered to a body of electors than of discourses written for morality; and I imagined they must have been enrolled in the sermons by mistake.
Most of the sermons aiming at a reformation of manners which I here listened to were, as it seemed to me, guilty of wanton calumny in describing the vices of mankind; for they agreed that not one virtuous man could be discovered on the earth by the most diligent search. Had these preachers been any thing more than sound, I should certainly have remonstrated with some of them against traducing us to the moon with so much zeal.
This comprehensive invective has long been the established practice of the pulpit, and many specimens of it are found in our oldest divines. Indeed, it seems to be a common opinion, that no writing could be an authentic sermon unless it contained at least one bold assertion—that the whole world is abandoned to vice. But notwithstanding the authority of an established practice, if it were my function to make men good from the pulpit, I should certainly dispense with this rule, whatever uneasiness I might feel at the sacrifice of an old custom. To affirm the universal prevalence of vice, appears to me a most preposterous method of recommending virtue. The clergyman, in order to discourage those who are inclined to frailty, informs them that, although they gratify every bad inclination, they will always be countenanced by the similar conduct of all other men. Instead of engaging the influence of example on his own side, he exerts himself to make vice more pleasing by the attraction which there is in the practice of others. Our preachers in this might take a hint from our political orators, who, wishing to discredit any particular opinions, always represent them as embraced by a very small party. The most ignorant declaimer on politics has never endeavoured to make converts to his principles by affirming that there is not another man in the country who entertains them: yet by this argument virtue is enjoined from the pulpit, though against all common methods of persuasion; and I can hardly conceive, that when men are reasoned with from a small enclosed place, called a pulpit, they are to be moved by arguments exactly opposite to those which affect them from any other spot. I think, therefore, a preacher would furnish his hearers with a more natural inducement to virtue if, instead of labouring to convince them that by a dissolute life they will merely conform to established custom, he endeavoured to show that vicious practices will connect them with a small condemned party.
And, besides the attraction of example, these invectives against all mankind afford another discouragement to those who would practise morality; for he who learns from a sermon that there is not a good man in the world, must conclude goodness to be impracticable. Not having, therefore, the vanity to suppose that he can accomplish what no man living has succeeded in, and having heard that no man has been able to be virtuous, he infers, that he may spare himself the trouble and vexation of trying.
The sermons to which I was now listening, after having affirmed an universal depravity, proceeded to lament the uselessness of preaching, and to wonder how men could contrive their vicious enjoyments in defiance of so many sermons. Amongst all the reproaches with which a clergyman assails his congregation, there is none more frequent than imputing to them that he does not preach with any success; and he always concludes, without scruple, that the blame of not listening effectually must accrue to them.
It is observable, that the mind and the body, being committed for safety to two different artists, and many satirical observations being made against the success and utility of both, there is this difference in the two cases,—that all reflections on the art of medicine are directed against the physician by other people; while the satire concerning the efficacy of preaching is applied by the clergyman himself to his congregation. The preacher reproaches men with not becoming virtuous by his sermons; but a patient would think a physician very unreasonable, who should upbraid him with remaining ill in contempt of medicine. A sick man, who finds no health in the remedies prescribed, thinks himself entitled to call in question the skill of his physician: yet I believe there is no example of a profligate man complaining to his clergyman of not having been reclaimed. Now, I would propose it as a question to be considered, whether the preacher can justly claim this peculiar advantage of having his patients supposed incurable, because he has failed to cure them; whether he has in all cases a right to complain of having been heard without amendment of life, and should not rather share, at least, with his hearers the blame of their not being reformed?