Perhaps more than one archbishop, many bishops, and scores of deans, angelic doctors, and other reverend personages, lie in this now profaned and dishonoured spot! So great an outrage might, one would have supposed, have led them, according to ordinary notions, again to walk the earth, to despoil the garden, and disturb the gardener’s rest! I expressed my fears on this point to the worthy man; but he assured me, these good gentlefolks lie very quiet; and that, if they produced any visible effect, it was as manure, in rendering the part where they lie a little more productive than the other parts. I shuddered at this lesson of humility—Alas! thought I, is it for such ends that we pamper ourselves—that some of us boast of being better than others—that we seek splendid houses and superfine clothing—and render our little lives wretched by hunting after rank, and titles, and riches! After all, we receive a sumptuous funeral, and are affectionately laid in what is called consecrated ground, which some political revolution, or change of religion, converting into a market-garden, our bodies then serve but as substitutes for vulgar manure! If such an end of the illustrious and proud men, whose remains now fertilize this garden, had been contemplated by them, how truly would they have become disciples of the humble Jesus—and how horror-struck would they have been at the fantastic airs which, in their lives, they were giving themselves!—Yet, is there a reader of these pages, the end of whose mortal career may not be similar to theirs?—and ought he not to apply to himself the lesson thus taught by the known fate of the former inhabitants of the archiepiscopal palace of Mortlake?
I shook my head at Penley, and told him, that he was a terrible “leveller,” and that, in making manure of archbishops and bishops, he was one of the most effective moralists I had ever conversed with!
In walking round this garden, every part proved that its soil had been enriched from all the neighbouring lands. Whether, according to Dr. Creighton, there are classes of organic particles adapted to form vegetables and animals over and over again; or whether, according to the modern chemistry, all organized bodies consist of carbonaceous, metallic, and gaseous substances in varied combinations; it is certain, that the well-fed priesthood, who formerly dwelt within these walls, drew together for ages such a supply of the pabulum of vegetation, as will require ages to exhaust. All the trees of this garden are of the most luxuriant size: gooseberries and currants in other gardens grow as shrubs; but here they form trees of four or five feet in height, and a circumference of five or six yards. In short, a luxuriance approaching to rankness, and a soil remarkable for its depth of colour and fatness, characterize every part. The abundant produce, as is usual through all this neighbourhood, is conveyed to Covent-Garden market in the night, and there disposed of by salesmen that attend on behalf of the gardeners.
I took my departure from this inclosure with emotions that can only be felt. I looked again and again across the space which, during successive ages, had given birth to so many feelings, and nurtured so many anxious passions; but which now, for many ages, has, among bustling generations, lost all claim to sympathy or notice; and displays, at this day, nothing but the still mechanism of vegetable life. There might be little in the past to rouse the affections; but, in the difference of manners, there was much to amuse the imagination. It had been the focus, if not of real piety, at least of ostensible religion; and, dead as the spot now appeared, its mouldering walls, some of those gigantic trees, and, above all, the box-tree arbour, had, in remote ages, echoed from hour to hour the melodious chaunts and imposing ceremonials of the Romish Church. Here moral habits sanctified the routine of life, and conferred happiness as a necessary result of restraint and decorum—and here Vice never disgraced Reason by public exhibitions; but, if lurking in any breast, confessed its own deformity by its disguises and its secresy. In surveying such a spot, the hand of Time softens down even the asperities of superstition, and the shade of this gloomy site, contrasted with the bright days of its prosperity, inclined me to forget the intolerant policy which was wont to emanate from its spiritual councils. Under those fruit-trees, I exclaimed, lie all that remains of the follies, hopes, and superstitions of the former occupants; for, of them, I cannot remark as of the torpid remains in Mortlake church-yard, that they live in the present generation.—No! these dupes of clerical fraud devoted themselves to celibacy as a service to the procreative Cause of CAUSES, and became withered limbs of their family trees. We can, however, now look on their remains, and presume to scan their errors:—but let us recollect, that, though we are gazers to-day, we shall be gazed upon to-morrow—and that, though we think ourselves wise, we are, perhaps, fated to be commiserated in our turn by the age which follows. Alas! said I, when will the generation arrive that will not merit as much pity from succeeding generations as those poor monks? Yet how wise, how infallible, and how intolerant, is every sect of religion—every school of philosophy—every party of temporary politicians—and every nation in regard to every other nation! Do not these objects, and all exertions of reasoning, prove, that the climax of human wisdom is HUMILITY?
Commending the bones of the monks to the respect of the gardener, whose feelings, to do him justice, were in unison with my own, I proceeded, by the side of the wall, towards the banks of the Thames.
The relics of exploded priestcraft which I had just contemplated in the adjoining garden, led me into an amusing train of thought on the origin and progress of superstition. I felt that the various mythologies which the world has witnessed, grow out of mistakes in regard to the phenomena of SECONDARY CAUSES; all natural phenomena, accordingly as they were fit or unfit to the welfare or caprices of men, being ascribed, by the barbarous tribes who subsequently became illustrious nations, to the agency of good and evil spirits. However absurd might be the follies of these superstitions, they became ingrafted on Society, and were implanted in the opening minds of every successive generation. Of course, the age never arrived which did not inherit the greater part of the prejudices of the preceding age. Reason and philosophy might in due time illumine a few individuals; yet even these, influenced by early prejudices, and a prudent regard for their fortunes and personal safety, would rather support, or give a beneficial direction to, mythological superstitions, than venture to expose and oppose them. Hence it was that the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, continued polytheists through the most brilliant epochs of their history; and hence their philosophers, as Pythagoras, Plato, and others, gave to the whole the plausibility of system, by affecting to demonstrate that the FIRST CAUSE necessarily and proximately generates immortal gods! Hence too it is that philosophers have, in different past ages, undertaken to demonstrate the verity of all religions, and according to the religion of the government under which they lived, they have either supported Polytheism, Theism, Sabinism, Judaism, Popery, or Mahomedanism. The fate of Socrates has never been forgotten by any philosopher who possessed the chief attribute of wisdom—PRUDENCE; and no benevolent man will ever seek to disturb a public faith which promotes public virtue, because the memorials of history prove that no discords have been so bloody as those which have been generated by attempts to change religious faith. This class of human errors can indeed be corrected only by establishing in civilized countries practical and unequivocal systems of toleration; because, in that case, truth and reason are sure, in due time, to establish themselves, while falsehood and fraud must sink into merited contempt.
The fleeting, wild, and crude notions of savages, constituted therefore the first stage in the progress of mythological superstition. Their invisible agencies would however soon have forms conferred upon them by weak or fertile imaginations, and be personified as men or animals, according to the nature of their deeds. To pray to them for benefits, and to deprecate their wrath, would constitute the second stage. In the mean time, individuals who might, by chance or design, become connected with some of these supernatural agencies, would be led, by vivid or gloomy imaginations, to deceive even themselves by notions of election or inspiration; and, then superadding ceremonials to worship, they would form a select class, living, without manual labour, on the tributes offered by the people to satisfy or appease the unseen agencies. This would constitute a third stage. Each priest would then endeavour to extol the importance of the god, of whom he believed himself to be the minister; and he would give to his deity a visible form, cause a temple to be built for him, deliver from it his oracles or prophecies, and affect to work miracles in his name. This would constitute the fourth stage. The terror of unseen powers would now be found to be a convenient engine of usurped human authority, and hence an association would be formed between the temporal and invisible powers, the latter being exalted by the former in having its temples enlarged and its priests better provided for. This would constitute the fifth stage; or the consummation of the system as it has been witnessed in India, Persia, Egypt, Greece, and Italy.—Hence among the Hindoos, those personified agencies have been systematized under the titles of Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, Crishna, &c. Among the Egyptians, they were worshipped in the forms of living animals, and called Osiris, Ammon, Oris, Typhon, Isis, &c. Among the Chaldeans, and, after them, among the Jews, they were classed in principalities, powers, and dominions of angels and devils, under chiefs, who bore the names of Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, Moloch, Legion, Satan, Beelzebub, &c. Among the Greeks, the accommodating Plato flattered the priests and the vulgar, by pretending to demonstrate that their personifications were necessary emanations from THE ONE; and he, and others, arranged the worship of them under the names of Jupiter, Neptune, Minerva, Venus, Pluto, Mars, &c. Among the NORTHERN NATIONS, they assumed the names of Woden, Sleepner, Hela, Fola, &c. Every town and village had, moreover, its protecting divinity, or guardian saint, under some fantastical name, or the name of some fantastical fanatic; and, even every man, every house, every plant, every brook, every day, and every hour, according to most of those systems, had their accompanying genius! In a word, the remains of these superstitions are still so mixed with our habits and language, that, although we pity the hundreds of wretched victims of legal wisdom, who under Elizabeth and the Stuarts were burnt to death for witchcraft; and abhor the ghosts of Shakespeare, his fairies, and his enchantments; yet we still countenance the system in most of the personifications of language, and practise it when we speak even of the spirit of Philosophy and the genius of Truth.
Nor have philosophers themselves, either in their independent systems, or in the systems of the schools, steered clear of the vulgar errors of mythologists. They have in every age introduced into nature active causes without contact, continuity, or proximity; and, even in our days, continue to extort worship towards the unseen and occult powers of attraction or sympathy, and of repulsion or antipathy! It is true, they say that such words only express results or phenomena, and others equivocate by saying there is in no case any contact:—but I reply, that to give names to proximate causes does not correspond with my notions of the proper business of philosophy; and that, in thousands of instances, there is sensible contact, and in all nature some contact of intermediate media, in the affections of which, may be traced the laws governing the phenomena of distant bodies. At the hour in which I write, the recognized philosophical divinities are called Space, Matter, Inertia, Caloric, Expansion, Motion, Impulse, Clustering Power, Elasticity, Atomic Forms, Atomic Proportions, Oxygen, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Chlorine, Iodine, Electricity, Light, Excitability, Irritability, &c. All these have their priests, worshippers, propagandists, and votaries, among some of whom may be found as intolerant a spirit of bigotry as ever disgraced any falling church. As governments do not, however, ally themselves to Philosophy, there is happily no danger that an heretical or reforming Philosopher will, as such, ever incur the hazard of martyrdom; and, as reason decides all disputes in the court of Philosophy, there can be no doubt, but, in this court at least, Truth will finally prevail.
Hail, Genius of Philosophy! Hail, thou poetical personification of wisdom! Hail, thou logical abstraction of all experimental knowledge! I hail thee, as thou art represented in the geniuses of Pythagoras, Thales, Aristotle, Archimedes, Ptolemy, Columbus, Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Boyle, Euler, Buffon, Franklin, Beccaria, Priestley, Lavoisier, Cavendish, Condorcet, Laplace, Herschel, Berzelius, Jenner, Dalton, Cuvier, and Davy; and I hail thee, as thou excitest the ambition of the solitary student of an obscure village, to raise himself among those gods of the human race! How many privations must thy votaries suffer in a sordid world; and how many human passions must they subdue, before they can penetrate thy mazy walks, or approach the hidden sanctuaries of thy temple of Truth! Little thinks the babbling politician, the pedantic linguist, or the equivocating metaphysician, of the watchful hours which thy worshippers must pass,—of the never-ending patience which they must exert,—of the concurring circumstances which must favour their enthusiasm! Whether we consider the necessary magnitude of the library, the ascending intricacy of the books, the multitude of the instruments, or the variety of the experimental apparatus in the use of which the searchers into thy mysteries must be familiar; we are compelled to reverence the courage of him who seeks preeminence through thee, and to yield to those mortals who have attained thy favours, our wonder, admiration, and gratitude![8]
Overtaking three or four indigent children, whose darned stockings and carefully-patched clothes bespoke some strong motive for attention in their parents, I was induced to ask them some questions. They said they had been to Mortlake School; and I collected from them, that they were part of two or three hundred who attend one of Dr. Bell’s schools, which had lately been established for the instruction of poor children in this vicinity. I found that, until this establishment had been formed, these children attended no school regularly—and, in reply to a question, one of them said, “Our father could not afford to pay Mr. —— sixpence a week for us, so we could not go at all; but now we go to this school, and it costs father nothing.” This was as it should be; the social state ought to supply a preparatory education of its members—or, how can a government expect to find moral agents in an ignorant population—how can it presume to inflict punishments on those who have not been enabled to read the laws which they are bound to respect—and how can the professors of religion consider themselves as performing their duty, if they have not enabled all children to peruse the volume of Christian Revelation? We are assured by Mr. Lancaster, that George the Third expressed the benevolent wish that every one of his subjects should be enabled to read the Bible; and his successors will, it is to be hoped, not lose sight of so admirable a principle. But a few ages ago, to be able to read conferred the privileges of the clerical character, and exempted men from capital punishments—how improved, therefore, is the present state of society, and how different may it yet become, as prejudices are dispelled, and as liberal feelings acquire their just ascendancy among the rulers of nations! These boys spoke of their school with evident satisfaction; and one of them, who proved to be a monitor, seemed not a little proud of the distinction. Whether the system of Mr. Lancaster or of Dr. Bell enjoy the local ascendancy; or whether these public seminaries be “schools for all,” or schools in which the dogmas of some particular faith are taught, I am indifferent, provided there are some such schools, and that all children are enabled to read the Bible, and “the Catechism of their Social Rights and Duties.”