To proceed with the dependence of the morals on the character of the religion,—it is clear that in proportion as any religion encourages licentiousness, either positively or negatively,—encourages, that is to say, the excess of the passions, might will have the victory over right; the weak will succumb to the strong; and thus the condition of the poorer classes depends on the character of the religion of their country. In proportion as the religion tends to licentiousness, will the poorer classes be liable to slavery. In proportion as the religion tends to asceticism, will be the amount (other things being equal) of the hardship and want which they must sustain. In proportion as the religion approximates to the moderate, (the use without the abuse of means of enjoyment,) will the poorer classes rise to a condition of freedom and comfort.
The character of the religion serves, in like manner, as an index to that of the government. A licentious religion cannot be adopted by a people who are so moderate in their passions as to be able to govern themselves. One would not look for a display of meats offered to idols in the Capitol of the American Congress. An ascetic religion, too, inflicts personal and mutual wrongs which could never be endured among a people who agree to govern one another. There is no power which could induce such to submit to privations and sufferings which can be tolerable to none but devotees,—a small fraction of every society. Absolutism is commonly the character of the government of any country where either of these religions prevails;—a despotism more or less tempered by a variety of influences. It is the observer's business to bring the religion and the government into comparison, and to see how the latter is modified by the coexistence of the former.
The friendly, no less than the domestic and political relations of society, are dependent upon the prevailing religion. Under the licentious, the manners will be made up of the conventional and the gross. A Burmese minister was sitting on the poop of a steam-vessel when a squall came on. "I suggested to his Excellency," says Mr. Crawford, "the convenience of going below, which he long resisted, under the apprehension of committing his dignity by placing himself in a situation where persons might tread over his head; for this singular antipathy is common both to the Burmese and Siamese. The prejudice is more especially directed against the fair sex,—a pretty conclusive proof of the estimation in which they are held. His Excellency seriously demanded to know whether any woman had ever trod upon the poop; and, being assured in the negative, he consented at length to enter the cabin." The house fixed for the residence of an American missionary was not allowed to be fitted up, as it stood on ground which was higher than the king's barge as it lay in the river; and such a spectacle would not become the king's dignity. The prime minister of this same king was one day, for absence from his post at a fire, "spread out in the hot sun." He was extended on his back in the public road for some hours in the most sultry part of the day, with a heavy weight upon his chest,—the public executioners being employed to administer the punishment. Nor is the king alone authorized to perpetrate such barbarisms. A creditor is permitted to seize the wife, children, and slaves of a debtor, and bind them at his door to broil in the sun of Ava. Here we see in perfection the union of the conventional and the gross in manners; and such manners cannot be conceived to coexist with any religion of a higher character than Buddhism.
Under ascetic forms, what grossness there is will be partially concealed; but there will be no nearer an approach to simplicity than under the licentious. The religion being made still to consist much in observances, the society becomes formal in proportion as it believes itself growing pure. We must again take an extreme case for an example. The Shakers of America are as sophisticated a set of persons as can be found; with their minds, and even their public discourses, full of the one subject of their celibacy, and their intercourse with each other graduated according to strict rules of etiquette. So extreme an asceticism can never now spread in any nation to such an extent as to bear a relation to its general government: but it is observable that such societies of ascetics live under a despotism;—one of their own appointment, if the general will has not furnished them with one.
Under the moderate aspect of religion is an approximation towards simplicity of social manners alone to be found. There is as yet only a remote anticipation of it in any country in the world; only a remote anticipation of that ease of social manners which must exist there alone where the enjoyments of life are freely used without abuse. It matters not that the licentious and the ascetic parties each boast of having attained this consummation,—the one under the name of ease, and the other of simplicity. There is too much pain attendant upon grossness to justify the boast of ease; and too much effort in asceticism to admit of the grace of simplicity. It is the observer's business to mark, wherever he goes, the degree in which the one is chastened and the other relaxed, giving place to the higher form of the moderate, which, if society learns from experience, as the individual does, must finally prevail. When many individuals of a society attain that self-forgetfulness which is promoted by a high and free religious sentiment, but which is incompatible with either licentious or ascetic tendencies, the tone of manners in that society will be much raised. When, free from the grossness of self-indulgence, and from the constraint of self-denial, every one spontaneously thinks more of his neighbour than of himself, the world will witness, at last, the perfection of manners. It is clear that the high morals of which such refined manners will be the expression, must greatly depend on the exaltation of the religious sentiment from which they emanate.
The traveller may possibly object the difficulty of classing societies by their religious tendencies, and ask whether minds of every sort are not to be found in all numerous assemblages of persons. This is true: but yet there is a prevailing religious sentiment in all communities. Religious, like other sentiment, is modified by the strong general influences under which each society lives; and in it, as in other kinds, there will be general resemblance, with particular differences under it. It is well known that even sects, exclusive in their opinions and straitened by forms, differ in different countries almost as much as if there were no common bond. Not only is episcopacy not the same religion among born East Indians as in England, but the Quakers of the United States, though like the English in doctrine and in manners, are easily distinguishable from them in religious sentiment: and even the Jews, who might be expected to be the same all over the world, differ in Russia, Persia, and Great Britain as much as if a spirit of division had been sent among them. They not only appear here in furs, there in cotton or silk, and elsewhere in broadcloth; but the hearts they bear beneath the garments, the thoughts that stir under the cap, the turban, and the hat, are modified in their action as the skies under which they move are in aspect. They are strongly tinctured with the national sentiment of Russia, Persia, and England; and if the fond dream of some of them (in which, by the way, large numbers of their body have ceased to sympathize,) could come true, and they should ever be brought together within their ancient borders, they would find that their religion, so unique in its fixedness, though one in word, is many in spirit.—Much more easy is the assimilation between different forms of Christianity, and between Christianity and an elevated natural religion: and the search can never therefore be in vain for a pervading religious sentiment among the various religious institutions of any and every people.
It is, of course, more difficult to discover this religious sentiment among a nation enlightened enough to be divided in theological matters, than among a rude people who regulate their devotions by the bidding of a single order of priests. The African traveller, passing up the Niger, sees at a glance what all the worshippers on the banks feel, and must feel, towards the deities to whom their temples are erected. A rude shed, with a doll,—an image of deformity,—perched on a stand, and supposed to be enjoying the fumes of the cooking going on before his face;—a place of worship like this, in its character of the habitation of a deity, and of a sensual deity, leaves no doubt as to what the religious sentiment of a country must be where there is no dissent from such a worship. In such a society there are absolutely none to feel that their deep palm groves are a nobler temple than human hands can rear. There are none who see that it is by a large divine benignity that all the living creatures of that region are made happy in their rank seclusion. There is no feeling of gratitude in the minds of those who see the myriads of gay butterflies that flit in the glare of noon, and the river-horse which bathes in the shady places of the mysterious great stream. There a god is seen only in his temple, and there is nothing known of any works of his. That he is great, is learned only through the word of his priests, who say that yams are too common a food for him, and that nothing less than hippopotamus' flesh must be cooked beneath his shrine. That he is good is an idea which has not yet entered any mind.—In other places, the religious sentiment is almost equally unquestionable; as when every man in Cairo is seen in his turn to put on the dress of pilgrimage, and direct his steps to Mount Arafat. Here the sentiment is of a higher order, but equally evident and uniform.—A further advance, with somewhat less uniformity of sentiment, is found among the followers of the Greek church in a Russian province. The peasants there make a great point of having time for their devotions; and those who have the wherewithal to offer some showy present at a shrine are complacent. They make the sign of the cross, and have therein done their whole duty: and if some speculative worshipper of the Virgin with Three Hands is not satisfied about the way in which his patroness came by her third hand, he keeps his doubts to himself when he tells his sins to his confessor.—A still further advance, with an increased diversity, may be met with among the simple Vaudois, the general characteristics of whose faith are alike, but who entertain it, some more in the spirit of fear, others more in the spirit of love. The prevailing sentiment among them is of the ascetic character, as the stranger may perceive, who sees the peasantry marching in serene gravity to their plain places of worship on the mountain pinnacle, or under the shelter yielded by a clump of black pines amidst a waste of snow: but here the clergy are more guides than dictators; and not a few may be found who doubt their opinions, and find matter for thoughtless delight, rather than religious awe, when they follow the echoes from steep to steep, and watch for the gleams of the summer lightning playing among the defiles.—The diversity grows more striking as civilization advances; but it has not yet become perplexing in the most enlightened nations in the world. In England, in France, in America, there is a distinct religious sentiment: in England, where there is every variety of dissent from the established faith; in America, where there is every variety of opinion, and no establishment at all; and in France, now in that state which most baffles observation,—a state of transition from an exaggerated superstition to a religious faith which is being groped for, but is not yet found. Even in this uncertain state, no one can confound the religious sentiment of New England and of France; and an observation of their places of worship will indicate their differences. In New England, the populous towns have their churches in the midst, spacious and conspicuous,—not exhibiting any of the signs of antique origin which are impressed on those of Europe, and to be accounted for only by the immediate religious tastes of the people. In new settlements, the church rises side by side with the house of entertainment, and is obviously considered one of the necessaries of social life. The first thing to be learned about a fresh inhabitant is, how he stands disposed towards the church, whatever may be its denomination. In France, such of the old churches as are still used for their ancient purpose, bespeak a ritual religion, and therefore a religion light and gay in its spirit; all religions being so which cast responsibility into outward observances, especially where the outward observances are not of a very burdensome character. If nuns in their cloister, and Jews in their synagogues, have been characterized by the lightness of their religious spirit, well may the Catholics of an enlightened country be so, discarding the grossest and most burdensome of their rites, and retaining the ritual principle. The searchers after a new faith in France must increase by millions before they can change the character of the religious sentiment of the country; and perhaps before that which is now gross can be elevated into what is genial, and before a mixture of levity and fear can be changed into the cheerful earnestness of a moderate or truly catholic religious conviction, the ancient churches of France may be standing in ruins,—objects for the research of the antiquary.
The rule of examining things before persons must be observed in ascertaining the religious sentiment of any country. A stranger in England might interrogate everybody he saw, and be little wiser at the end of a year. He might meet a fanatic one day, an indifferent person the next, and a calmly convinced one the third: he might go from a Churchman to a Jew; from a Jew to a Quaker; from a Quaker to a Catholic; and every day be farther from understanding the prevailing religious sentiment of the country. A much shorter and surer method is, to examine the Places of Worship, the condition of the Clergy, the Popular Superstitions, the observance of Holy Days, and some other particulars of the kind.
First, for the Churches. There is that about all places of worship which may tell nearly as plain a tale as the carved idols, with messes of rice before them, in Hindoo temples; or as the human bones hung round the hut of an African god. The proportion and resemblance of modern places of worship to those which were built in dark times of superstition; the suitability or incongruity of all that is of late introduction into their furniture and worship with what had its origin in those dim ages;—such circumstances as these cannot but indicate whether the common religious sentiment is as nearly as possible the same as in centuries past, or whether it is approximating, slowly or rapidly, towards the ascetic or the moderate.