Nearly eighty years ago Mr. Sharp wrote, “There can be no reasonable doubt that it is better to believe too much than too little; since, as Boswell observes (most probably in Johnson’s words), ‘A man may breathe in foul air, but he must die in an exhausted receiver.’”
Much of the scepticism that we meet with is necessarily affectation or conceit; for it is as likely that the ignorant, weak, and indolent should become mathematicians as reasoning unbelievers. Patient study and perfect impartiality must precede rational conviction, whether ending in faith or doubt. Need it be asked, how many are capable of such an examination? But whether they come honestly by their opinions or not, it is much more advisable to refute than to burn, or even to scorch them.
It has been shrewdly remarked by a contemporary:
All the voices which have any real influence with an Englishman in easy circumstances combine to stimulate a low form of energy, which stifles every high one. The newspapers extol his wisdom by assuming that the average intelligence which he represents is, under the name of public opinion, the ultimate and irresponsible ruler of the nation. The novels which he and his family devour with insatiable greediness have no tendency to rouse his imagination, to say nothing of his mind. They are pictures of the every-day life to which he has always been accustomed,—sarcastic, sentimental, or ludicrous, as the case may be,—but never rising to any thing which could ever suggest the existence of tragic dignity or ideal beauty. The human mind has made considerable advances in the last three-and-twenty centuries; but the thousands of Greeks who could enjoy not only Euripides, but Homer and Æschylus, were superior, in some important points, to the millions of Englishmen who in their inmost hearts prefer Pickwick to Shakspeare. Even the religion of the present day is made to suit the level of commonplace Englishmen. There was a time when Christianity meant the embodiment of all truth and holiness in the midst of a world lying in wickedness. It afterwards included law, liberty, and knowledge, as opposed to the energetic ignorance of the northern barbarians. It now too often means philanthropic societies—excellent things as far as they go, but rather small. Any doctrine now is given up if it either seems uncomfortable or likely to make a disturbance. It is almost universally assumed that the truth of an opinion is tested by its consistency with cheerful views of life and nature. Unpleasant doctrines are only preached under incredible forms, and thus serve to spice the enjoyments which they would otherwise destroy.[[122]]
[122]. Cornhill Magazine.
WORLDLY MORALITY.
Professor Blackie, in his eloquent Edinburgh Essay, has these stringent remarks upon the lax morality of the day:
There is in the world always a respectable sort of surface morality,—and nowhere more than in this British world at the present hour,—a morality of convenience and utility, which pays respect to the principles of right and wrong when generally formalised, but which recognises them practically only in so far as local customs and decencies, proprieties, etiquettes, and the round of certain “inevitable charities,” are willing to recognise them. This morality many a consumer of beefsteaks and swiller of porter in this lusty and material land accepts, after eighteen hundred years of Gospel preaching, as quite sufficient for all the purposes of a respectable English life. But the perverse maxims and vicious practices with which our British society is rank, make it evident to the most superficial glance how far the current morality of our trades and parties is from seeking to accommodate itself to the principles of extreme moral purity laid down in every page of the New Testament. A sermon may be a very proper thing as Sunday work, and may help to bridge the way to heaven, when a bridge shall be required; but on Monday a man must attend to his business, and act according to the maxims of his trade, of his party, of his corporation, of his vestry. Then the respectable sporting-man will stake his last thousand on the leg of a race-horse, and think it quite like a Christian gentleman to allow his tailor’s bill to be unpaid for another year; then the respectable Highland proprietor will refuse to renew the lease to the industrious poor cotter on his estate, that the people, for whom he cares nothing, may make way for the red-deer, which it is his only passion to stalk; then the respectable brewer, instead of preparing wholesome drink from wholesome grain, will infect his brewst with deleterious drugs in order to excite a factitious thirst in the stomach of his customers, and increase the amount of drinking; then a respectable corporation, to maintain their own “vested rights,” will move heaven and earth to prevent the national parliament from acting on the plainest rules of justice and common sense in a matter seriously affecting the public well-being; and the respectable members of society shall flutter round the gilded wax-lights of aristocracy, and perform worship at Hudson’s statue, and have respect to men with gold rings and goodly apparel, and do every thing that is expressly forbidden in the second chapter of the Epistle of James, which they profess to receive as a divine rule of conduct. These are only one or two of the more glaring points in which our commonly-received maxims and practice of respectable British life run directly in the face of that highest morality, which the most religious and church-going Englishman professes to acknowledge as his rule of conduct.