The Fashionable World Displayed

by John Owen

I forbear to enter further into the system of Fashionable government, or to meddle with the inferior points of legislation. What has been said of the Law of Honour, will apply, with little variation, to every other institution of minor concern. To facilitate polite intercourse, and to exclude, as much as may be, duties to God and inferiors, is a considerable object in every regulation; and it is but justice to this people to say, that, in this respect, they are at once consistent and successful.

CHAP. III.

RELIGION AND MORALITY.

In attempting to give an account of the Religion of the people of Fashion, I feel myself not a little embarrassed. It were, indeed, very much to be wished, that one of their own number would, in the name of the rest, draw up a confession of their faith. This is, perhaps, expecting too much; and yet I cannot but think that it would be a very good employment for some of those modish priests, who pass so much of their time in the circles of Fashion. They give every proof that they have leisure for the undertaking: and the access which they have to these people, by attending them so familiarly at their theatres, their operas, and their routs, must render them perfectly masters of the subject. However, as I am not aware that any thing of this nature is yet taken in hand, I shall lay before my reader such observations as I have been able to make; partly because it seems necessary to the perfection of my work, that something should be said on the subject, and partly because I should be unwilling to afford by my silence any ground for suspicion—that there is no religion in the Fashionable World.

I am, then, in the first place, decidedly of opinion, that people of Fashion are not Atheists; though I am sufficiently aware, that some strict religionists have entertained an opposite conviction. It has been contended by the latter, in support of their hypothesis, that people who believed in a God would have some scruple about taking such liberties with his name, and his attributes, and his threatenings, and, generally, with all his moral prerogatives, as people of Fashion are accustomed to do. There is certainly something plausible in this sort of reasoning, and I must candidly confess, that I have never yet seen it fairly overthrown; but then I cannot think, that it proves their disbelief of a God, though it certainly does prove their want of reverence for him. It seems to me, at the same time, probable, that the ideas of this people, and those of stricter Christians, upon the subject of that reverence which is due to the Deity, may differ sufficiently, to account for these offensive liberties, without having recourse to the hypothesis of atheism. Indeed, when I consider the spirit and construction of that law by which these people are bound, I can find other reasons for their conduct in this respect, besides that which these theorists have assigned. For, to say the truth, those obnoxious expressions from which so much has been inferred, are in perfect unison with the exclusion of a Deity from the rules which regulate their intercourse with each other. The more therefore I reflect on this subject, the more I am confirmed in my opinion, that the charge of Atheism against them is without any just foundation; and that their appeals to God in levity, earnestness, and anger, are designed to shew their contempt of His authority, and not their denial of his being.

I was for a long time of opinion, that these people were believers in Christ; for I had observed, that his name was found in their formularies of devotion, associated with their baptismal designation, and frequently appealed to in their conversation with each other. There were, I confess, many things at the time which staggered me. Having taken up my ideas of the Saviour from those Scriptures which they profess to receive as well as myself, I was not a little astonished at the ultimate difference between us. Their belief of a God was, I knew, inevitable, and forced upon them by every thing in nature and experience; I could therefore conceive, without much difficulty, how they could subscribe to his being, and yet not hallow his name; but I could not with equal facility conceive, that people should go out of their way to embrace a solemn article of revealed religion, only that they might have an opportunity of trifling with the holy name of Him, who was the author and the object of that revelation.

I had, besides, occasion to remark, that this name was seldom appealed to, but by the ladies; and it did not appear in the first instance probable, that the gentlemen would leave them in exclusive possession of a mode of imprecation by which any thing was meant. These and other circumstances excited in my mind a great deal of speculation. I will not, however, trouble my readers with the many conclusions which I drew from them; since an event has occurred, which affords no indifferent evidence, that belief in a Saviour does not form an article of Fashionable religion. The event to which I refer, is the publication of a Memoir of the late Lord Camelford. In this Memoir the author professes to acquaint the world with the last moments of a Fashionable young man who had received a mortal wound in an affair of honour. In perusing this extraordinary narrative, I was much surprised at finding, that neither the dying penitent (for such he is represented to have been) nor his spiritual confessor ever once mentioned the name of Christ. But when, on further attention, I found his Lordship expressing a hope, that his own dying sufferings would expiate his sins, and placing his dependance upon the mercy of his Creator; [53] I had only to conclude, that the Divine was deterred from mentioning a name with which his office must have made him familiar, out of respect for that Fashionable creed from which it is excluded.

There is some reason for supposing that these people believe in the immortality of the soul, the existence of an evil spirit, and a place of future torment. It must, at the same time, be acknowledged, that their ideas on each of these points are so loose and confused, that it is difficult to determine in what sense they apprehend them.

In subscribing, for example, to the immortality of the soul, they give it a value which infinitely exceeds that of the corruptible body: the inference from this, in a fair train of reasoning, would be, that the care of the former is of infinitely more importance than that of the latter. And yet this is manifestly not the inference they draw: for the experience of every week proves, that if they give three hours to the soul, they think it too much; while they will give six days and nights to the body, and think it too little. This is, I confess, a part of their character, of which no satisfactory explanation has ever been given.

I have no other evidence of their belief in an evil Spirit, and a place of future Torment, than the report of their Prayer-books, and the tenor of their conversation. I must, at the same time, acknowledge, that the looseness and frequency with which they refer to Hell and the Devil, on the most ordinary occasions, have excited my doubts whether they use these awful terms in the same religious sense in which orthodox Christians are accustomed to employ them. These doubts have been greatly encouraged by that sceptical facetiousness with which they apply the name of the evil spirit to their Fashionable amusements, and make the place of torment a subject of scenic representation. I will not say that these people do not believe what they thus caricature; but I think it must be obvious that they cannot have any very exact notions of their scriptural import, while they continue to employ them as terms of merriment, and sources of diversion. [57]