I.—THE NEW-ENGLANDER.
This pamphlet[[17]] of ninety-five pages gives an account of the last annual meeting in Boston of the “Free-Religious Association, its object being to promote the practical interests of pure religion, to increase fellowship in spirit, and to encourage the scientific study of man’s religious nature and history.” Associations of this kind seem to be necessary as safety-valves to a certain class of men and women, chiefly found in New England, who, especially in matters of religion, are in a state of effervescence, and feel the pressing need at times of publicly delivering themselves of such thoughts as come uppermost in their minds on this and kindred subjects. The phenomenon is a peculiar one, and perhaps in no other country could such a variety of odd spirits as are usually found in these assemblies be convoked. Their proceedings are full of interest to the student of religion and the mental philosopher, no less than to the observer of the phases of religious development of some of the most active thinkers of this section of our country.
The American mind at bottom is serious, clings with deathless tenacity to a religion of some sort; and of none is this more characteristic than of the descendants of the Puritan Fathers. The children of the Puritans may be eccentric, at times fanatical, and inclined to thrust their religious, social, political, and even dietetical notions upon others; but they are men and women who think; they are restless until they have gained a religious belief, and are marked with earnestness of some sort, energy, and practical skill. The Puritan race is a thinking, religious, and an aggressive race of men and women. Whatever he may be, there is always in a genuine Puritan a great deal of positive human nature. Let him be under error, and his teeming brain will breed countless crotchets, any one of which he will maintain with the bitterest fanaticism, and, if placed in power, will impose it upon others with a ruthless intolerance.
Give him truth, and you have an enlightened faith, indomitable zeal, and not a few of the elements which go to make up an apostle. The main qualities which distinguish the typical New-Englander, though not altogether the most attractive, are nevertheless not the meanest in human nature, and we candidly confess, though not a drop of Puritan blood runs in our veins, that we have but few dislikes, while we entertain many feelings of sincere respect, for the New England type of man. It is, therefore, with special interest that we read whatever offers an insight into the workings of the minds of so large, influential, and important a class of the American people.
Copyright: Rev. I. T. Hecker. 1877.
II.—WHAT IS THE FREE-RELIGIONIST MOVEMENT.
The Unitarian Association did not go far enough and fast enough to suit the temper of a class of its more radical and ardent members; hence the existence of the separate organization of “The Free-Religious Association.” The movement of the free-religionists may be said to spring from a laudable desire to get rid in the speediest way possible of the spurious Christianity which was imposed upon them by their forefathers as genuine Christianity and pure religion.
Suppose they have accomplished this laborious task of purification, what then? Have they found wherewith “to yield the religious sentiment reasonable satisfaction,” which Mr. Tyndall says “is the problem of problems at this hour”? By no means; this discovery is quite another affair.
“Hic labor,
Hoc opus est.”