Public worship in Utopia.
The hatred of the Oxford Reformers for the endless dissensions of European Christians; the advice Colet was wont to give to theological students, ‘to keep to the Bible and the Apostles’ Creed, and let divines, if they like, dispute about the rest;’ the appeal of Erasmus to Servatius, whether it would not be better for ‘all Christendom to be regarded as one monastery, and all Christians as belonging to the same religious brotherhood,’—all pointed, if directed to the practical question of public worship, to a mode of worship in which all of every shade of sentiment could unite.
This might be a dream even then, while as yet Christendom was nominally united in one Catholic Church; and still more practically impossible in a country like Utopia, where men worshipped the Supreme Being under different symbols and different names, as it might be now even in a Protestant country like England, where religion seems to be the source of social divisions and castes rather than a tie of brotherhood, separating men in their education, in their social life, and even in their graves, by the hard line of sectarian difference. It might be a dream, but it was one worth a place in the dream-land of More’s ideal commonwealth.
All sects unite in public worship.
Temples, nobly built and spacious, in whose solemn twilight men of all sects meet, in spite of their distinctions, to unite in a public worship avowedly so arranged that nothing may be seen or heard which shall jar with the feelings of any class of the worshippers—nothing in which all cannot unite (for every sect performs its own peculiar rites in private);—no images, so that every one may represent the Deity to his own thoughts in his own way; no forms of prayer, but such as every one may use without prejudice to his own private opinion;—a service so expressive of their common brotherhood that they think it a great impiety to enter upon it with a consciousness of anger or hatred to any one, without having first purified their hearts and reconciled every difference; incense and other sweet odours and waxen lights burned, not from any notion that they can confer any benefit on God, which even men’s prayers cannot, but because they are useful aids to the worshippers;[578] the men occupying one side of the temple, the women the other, and all clothed in white; the whole people rising as the priest who conducts the worship enters the temple in his beautiful vestments, wonderfully wrought of birds’ plumage, to join in hymns of praise, accompanied by music; then priest and people uniting in solemn prayer to God in a set form of words, so composed that each can apply its meaning to himself, offering thanks for the blessings which surround them, for the happiness of their commonwealth, for their having embraced a religious persuasion which they hope is the most true one; praying that if they are mistaken they may be led to what is really the true one, so that all may be brought to unity of faith and practice, unless in his inscrutable will the Almighty should otherwise ordain; and concluding with a prayer that, as soon as it may please Him, He may take them to Himself; lastly, this prayer concluded, the whole congregation bowing solemnly to the ground, and then, after a short pause, separating to spend the remainder of the day in innocent amusement,—this was More’s ideal of public worship![579]
Such was the second book of the ‘Utopia,’ probably written by More whilst on the embassy, towards the close of 1515, or soon after his return. Well might he conclude with the words, ‘I freely confess that many things in the commonwealth of Utopia I rather wish than hope to see adopted in our own!’
IV. THE ‘INSTITUTIO PRINCIPIS CHRISTIANI’ OF ERASMUS (1516).
Some months before More began to write his ‘Utopia,’ Erasmus had commenced a little treatise with a very similar object. In the spring of 1515, while staying with More in London, he had mentioned, in a letter to Cardinal Grimanus[580] at Rome, that he was already at work on his ‘Institutes of the Christian Prince,’ designed for the benefit of Prince Charles, into whose honorary service he had recently been drawn.
Connection between the ‘Utopia’ and the ‘Christian Prince.’
The similarity in the sentiments expressed in this little treatise and in the ‘Utopia’ would lead to the conclusion that they were written in concert by the two friends, as their imitations of Lucian had been under similar circumstances. Political events must have often formed the topic of their conversation when together in the spring; and the connection of the one with the Court of Henry VIII. and the other with that of Prince Charles, would be likely to give their thoughts a practical direction. Possibly they may have parted with the understanding that, independently of each other, both works should be written on the common subject, and expressing their common views. Be this as it may, while More went on his embassy to Flanders, and returned to write his ‘Utopia,’ Erasmus went to Basle to correct the proof-sheets of the ‘Novum Instrumentum,’ and to finish the ‘Institutio Principis Christiani.’