recognize the author of those admirable verses which we meet with in his Eclogues: "_Ut vidi, ut perii, ut me malus abstulit error_!"--I saw, I perished, yet indulged my pain.--(Dryden.)
Certainly the description of the descent into hell would not be badly matched with these lines from the fourth Eclogue: _Ille Deum vitam accipiet, divisque videbit_ _Permistos heroas, et ipse videbitur illis--_ _Pacatumque reget patriis virtutibus orbem._ The sons shall lead the lives of gods, and be By gods and heroes seen, and gods and heroes see.
The jarring nations he in peace shall bind, And with paternal virtues rule mankind.
--DRYDEN.
I meet with many of these simple, elegant, and affecting passages in the three beautiful books of the "Æneid."
All the fourth book is filled with touching verses, which move those who have any ear or sentiment at all, even to tears, and to point out all the beauties of this book it would be necessary to transcribe the whole of it. And in the sombre picture of hell, how this noble and affecting tenderness breathes through every line.
It is well known how many tears were shed by the emperor Augustus, by Livia, and all the palace, at hearing this half line alone: "_Tu Marcellus eris."_--A new Marcellus will in thee arise.
Homer never produces tears. The true poet, according to my idea, is he who touches the soul and softens it, others are only fine speakers. I am far from proposing this opinion as a rule. "I give my opinion," says Montaigne, "not as being good, but as being my own."
_Of Lucan._ If you look for unity of time and action in Lucan you will lose your labor, but where else will you find it? If you expect to feel any emotion or any interest you will not experience it in the long details of a war, the subject of which is very dry and the expressions bombastic, but if you would have bold ideas, an eloquent expatiation on sublime and philosophical courage, Lucan is the only one among the ancients in whom you will meet with it. There is nothing finer than the speech of Labienus to Cato at the gates of the temple of Jupiter Ammon, if we except the answer of Cato itself: _Hœremus cuncti superis? temploque tacente_ _Nil facimus non sponte Dei_ _...Steriles num legit arenas._ _Ut caneret paucis; mersit ne hoc pulvere verum!_ _Estne Dei sedes nisi terra et pontus et aer,_ _Et cœlum et virtus? Superos quid quærimus ultra?_ _Jupiter est quodcumque vides quocumque moveris._ And though our priests are mutes, and temples still, We act the dictates of his mighty will; Canst thou believe, the vast eternal mind, Was e'er to Syrts and Libyan sands confined?
That he would choose this waste, this barren ground, To teach the thin inhabitants around?
Is there a place that God would choose to love Beyond this earth, the seas, yon heaven above, And virtuous minds, the noblest throne of Jove?
Why seek we farther, then? Behold around; How all thou seest doth with the God abound, Jove is seen everywhere, and always to be found.
--ROWE.
Put together all that the ancients poets have said of the gods and it is childish in comparison with this passage of Lucan, but in a vast picture, in which there are a hundred figures, it is not sufficient that one or two of them are finely designed.
_Of Tasso._ Boileau has exposed the tinsel of Tasso, but if there be a hundred spangles of false gold in a piece of gold cloth, it is pardonable. There are many rough stones in the great marble building raised by Homer.
Boileau knew it, felt it, and said nothing about it. We should be just.
We recall the reader's memory to what has been said of Tasso in the "Essay on Epic Poetry," but we must here observe that his verses are known by heart all over Italy. If at Venice any one in a boat sings a stanza of the "Jerusalem Delivered," he is answered from a neighboring bark with the following one.
If Boileau had listened to these concerts he could have said nothing in reply. As enough is known of Tasso, I will not repeat here either eulogies or criticisms. I will speak more at length of Ariosto.
_Of Ariosto._ Homer's "Odyssey" seems to have been the first model of the "_Morgante_," of the "_Orlando Innamorato,"_ and the "_Orlando Furioso_," and, what very seldom happens, the last of the poems is without dispute the best.
The companions of Ulysses changed into swine; the winds shut up in goats' skins; the musicians with fishes' tails, who ate all those who approached them; Ulysses, who followed the chariot of a beautiful princess who went to bathe quite naked; Ulysses, disguised as a beggar, who asked alms, and afterwards killed all the lovers of his aged wife, assisted only by his son and two servants--are imaginations which have given birth to all the poetical romances which have since been written in the same style.
But the romance of Ariosto is so full of variety and so fertile in beauties of all kinds that after having read it once quite through I only wish to begin it again. How great the charm of natural poetry! I never could read a single canto of this poem in a prose translation.
That which above all charms me in this wonderful work is that the author is always above his subject, and treats it playfully. He says the most sublime things without effort and he often finishes them by a turn of pleasantry which is neither misplaced nor far-fetched. It is at once the "Iliad," the "Odyssey," and "Don Quixote," for his principal knight-errant becomes mad like the Spanish hero, and is infinitely more pleasant.
The subject of the poem, which consists of so many things, is precisely that of the romance of "Cassandra," which was formerly so much in fashion with us, and which has entirely lost its celebrity because it had only the length of the "_Orlando Furioso,_" and few of its beauties, and even the few being in French prose, five or six stanzas of Ariosto will eclipse them all. His poem closes with the greater part of the heroes and princesses who have not perished during the war all meeting in Paris, after a thousand adventures, just as the personages in the romance of "Cassandra" all finally meet again in the house of Palemon.
The "_Orlando Furioso_" possesses a merit unknown to the ancients--it is that of its exordiums.
Every canto is like an enchanted palace, the vestibule of which is always in a different taste--sometimes majestic, sometimes simple, and even grotesque. It is moral, lively, or gallant, and always natural and true.
EPIPHANY.
_The Manifestation, the Appearance, the Illustration, the Radiance._ It is not easy to perceive what relation this word can have to the three kings or magi, who came from the east under the guidance of a star. That brilliant star was evidently the cause of bestowing on the day of its appearance the denomination of the Epiphany.
It is asked whence came these three kings? What place had they appointed for their rendezvous? One of them, it is said, came from Africa; he did not, then, come from the East. It is said they were three magi, but the common people have always preferred the interpretation of three kings.
The feast of the kings is everywhere celebrated, but that of the magi nowhere; people eat king's-cake and not magi-cake, and exclaim "the king drinks"--not "the magi drink."
Moreover, as they brought with them much gold, incense, and myrrh, they must necessarily have been persons of great wealth and consequence. The magi of that day were by no means very rich. It was not then as in the times of the false Smerdis.
Tertullian is the first who asserted that these three travellers were kings. St. Ambrose, and St. Cæsar of Arles, suppose them to be kings, and the following passages of Psalm lxxi. are quoted in proof of it: "The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall offer him gifts. The kings of Arabia and of Saba shall bring him presents." Some have called these three kings Magalat, Galgalat, and Saraim, others Athos, Satos, and Paratoras. The Catholics knew them under the names of Gaspard, Melchior, and Balthazar. Bishop Osorio relates that it was a king of Cranganore, in the kingdom of Calicut, who undertook this journey with two magi, and that this king on his return to his own country built a chapel to the Holy Virgin.
It has been inquired how much gold they gave Joseph and Mary. Many commentators declare that they made them the richest presents; they built on the authority of the "Gospel of the Infancy," which states that Joseph and Mary were robbed in Egypt by Titus and Dumachus, "but," say they, "these men would never have robbed them if they had not had a great deal of money." These two robbers were afterwards hanged; one was the good thief and the other the bad one. But the "Gospel of Nicodemus" gives them other names; it calls them Dimas and Gestas.
The same "Gospel of the Infancy" says that they were magi and not kings who came to Bethlehem; that they had in reality been guided by a star, but that the star having ceased to appear while they were in the stable, an angel made its appearance in the form of a star to act in its stead. This gospel asserts that the visit of the three magi had been predicted by Zerdusht, whom we call Zoroaster.
Suarez has investigated what became of the gold which the three kings or magi presented; he maintains that the amount must have been very large, and that three kings could never make a small or moderate present. He says that the whole sum was afterwards given to Judas, who, acting as steward, turned out a rogue and stole the whole amount.
All these puerilities can do no harm to the Feast of the Epiphany, which was first instituted by the Greek Church, as the term implies, and was afterwards celebrated by the Latin Church.
EQUALITY.
Nothing can be clearer than that men, enjoying the faculties of their common nature, are in a state of equality; they are equal when they perform their animal functions, and exercise their understandings. The king of China, the great mogul, or the Turkish pasha cannot say to the lowest of his species, "I forbid you to digest your food, to discharge your fæces, or to think." All animals of every species are on an equality with one another, and animals have by nature beyond ourselves the advantages of independence. If a bull, while paying his attentions to a heifer, is driven away by the horns of another bull stronger than himself, he goes to seek a new mistress in another meadow, and lives in freedom. A cock, after being defeated, finds consolation in another hen-roost. It is not so with us. A petty vizier banishes a bostangi to Lemnos; the vizier Azem banishes the petty vizier to Tenedos; the pasha banishes the vizier Azem to Rhodes; the janissaries imprison the pasha and elect another who will banish the worthy Mussulmans just when and where he pleases, while they will feel inexpressibly obliged to him for so gentle a display of his authority.
If the earth were in fact what it might be supposed it should be--if men found upon it everywhere an easy and certain subsistence, and a climate congenial to their nature, it would be evidently impossible for one man to subjugate another. Let the globe be covered with wholesome fruits; let the air on which we depend for life convey to us no diseases and premature death; let man require no other lodging than the deer or roebuck, in that case the Genghis Khans and Tamerlanes will have no other attendants than their own children, who will be very worthy persons, and assist them affectionately in their old age.
In that state of nature enjoyed by all undomesticated quadrupeds, and by birds and reptiles, men would be just as happy as they are. Domination would be a mere chimera--an absurdity which no one would think of, for why should servants be sought for when no service is required?
If it should enter the mind of any individual of a tyrannical disposition and nervous arm to subjugate his less powerful neighbor, his success would be impossible; the oppressed would be on the Danube before the oppressor had completed his preparations on the Volga.
All men, then, would necessarily have been equal had they been without wants; it is the misery attached to our species which places one man in subjection to another; inequality is not the real grievance, but dependence. It is of little consequence for one man to be called his highness and another his holiness, but it is hard for me to be the servant of another.
A numerous family has cultivated a good soil, two small neighboring families live on lands unproductive and barren. It will therefore be necessary for the two poor families to serve the rich one, or to destroy it. This is easily accomplished. One of the two indigent families goes and offers its services to the rich one in exchange for bread, the other makes an attack upon it and is conquered. The serving family is the origin of domestics and laborers, the one conquered is the origin of slaves.
It is impossible in our melancholy world to prevent men living in society from being divided into two classes, one of the rich who command, the other of the poor who obey, and these two are subdivided into various others, which have also their respective shades of difference.
You come and say, after the lots are drawn, I am a man as well as you; I have two hands and two feet; as much pride as yourself, or more; a mind as irregular, inconsequent, and contradictory as your own. I am a citizen of San Marino, or Ragusa, or Vaugirard; give me my portion of land. In our known hemisphere are about fifty thousand millions of acres of cultivable land, good and bad. The number of our two-footed, featherless race within these bounds is a thousand millions; that is just fifty acres for each: do me justice; give me my fifty acres.
The reply is: go and take them among the Kaffirs, the Hottentots, and the Samoyeds; arrange the matter amicably with them; here all the shares are filled up. If you wish to have food, clothing, lodging, and warmth among us, work for us as your father did--serve us or amuse us, and you shall be paid; if not, you will be obliged to turn beggar, which would be highly degrading to your sublime nature, and certainly preclude that actual equality with kings, or even village curates, to which you so nobly pretend.
All the poor are not unhappy. The greater number are born in that state, and constant labor prevents them from too sensibly feeling their situation; but when they do strongly feel it, then follow wars such as those of the popular party against the senate at Rome, and those of the peasantry in Germany, England, and France. All these wars ended sooner or later in the subjection of the people, because the great have money, and money in a state commands everything; I say in a state, for the case is different between nation and nation. That nation which makes the best use of iron will always subjugate another that has more gold but less courage.
Every man is born with an eager inclination for power, wealth, and pleasure, and also with a great taste for indolence. Every man, consequently, would wish to possess the fortunes and the wives or daughters of others, to be their master, to retain them in subjection to his caprices, and to do nothing, or at least nothing but what is perfectly agreeable. You clearly perceive that with such amiable dispositions, it is as impossible for men to be equal as for two preachers or divinity professors not to be jealous of each other.
The human race, constituted as it is, cannot exist unless there be an infinite number of useful individuals possessed of no property at all, for most certainly a man in easy circumstances will not leave his own land to come and cultivate yours; and if you want a pair of shoes you will not get a lawyer to make them for you. Equality, then, is at the same time the most natural and the most chimerical thing possible.
As men carry everything to excess if they have it in their power to do so, this inequality has been pushed too far; it has been maintained in many countries that no citizen has a right to quit that in which he was born. The meaning of such a law must evidently be: "This country is so wretched and ill-governed we prohibit every man from quitting it, under an apprehension that otherwise all would leave it." Do better; excite in all your subjects a desire to stay with you, and in foreigners a desire to come and settle among you.
Every man has a right to entertain a private opinion of his own equality to other men, but it follows not that a cardinal's cook should take it upon him to order his master to prepare his dinner. The cook, however, may say: "I am a man as well as my master; I was born like him in tears, and shall like him die in anguish, attended by the same common ceremonies. We both perform the same animal functions. If the Turks get possession of Rome, and I then become a cardinal and my master a cook, I will take him into my service." This language is perfectly reasonable and just, but, while waiting for the Grand Turk to get possession of Rome, the cook is bound to do his duty, or all human society is subverted.
With respect to a man who is neither a cardinal's cook nor invested with any office whatever in the state--with respect to an individual who has no connections, and is disgusted at being everywhere received with an air of protection or contempt, who sees quite clearly that many men of quality and title have not more knowledge, wit, or virtue than himself, and is wearied by being occasionally in their antechambers--what ought such a man to do? He ought to stay away.
ESSENIANS.
The more superstitious and barbarous any nation is, the more obstinately bent on war, notwithstanding its defeats; the more divided into factions, floating between royal and priestly claims; and the more intoxicated it may be by fanaticism, the more certainly will be found among that nation a number of citizens associated together in order to live in peace.
It happens during a season of pestilence that a small canton forbids all communication with large cities. It preserves itself from the prevailing contagion, but remains a prey to other maladies.
Of this description of persons were the Gymnosophists in India, and certain sects of philosophers among the Greeks. Such also were the Pythagoreans in Italy and Greece, and the Therapeutæ in Egypt. Such at the present day are those primitive people called Quakers and Dunkards, in Pennsylvania, and very nearly such were the first Christians who lived together remote from cities.
Not one of these societies was acquainted with the dreadful custom of binding themselves by oath to the mode of life which they adopted, of involving themselves in perpetual chains, of depriving themselves, on a principle of religion, of the grand right and first principle of human nature, which is liberty; in short, of entering into what we call vows.
St. Basil was the first who conceived the idea of those vows, of this oath of slavery. He introduced a new plague into the world, and converted into a poison that which had been invented as a remedy.
There were in Syria societies precisely similar to those of the Essenians. This we learn from the Jew Philo, in his treatise on the "Freedom of the Good." Syria was always superstitious and factious, and always under the yoke of tyrants. The successors of Alexander made it a theatre of horrors. It is by no means extraordinary that among such numbers of oppressed and persecuted beings, some, more humane and judicious than the rest, should withdraw from all intercourse with great cities, in order to live in common, in honest poverty, far from the blasting eyes of tyranny.
During the civil wars of the latter Ptolemies, similar asylums were formed in Egypt, and when that country was subjugated by the Roman arms, the Therapeutæ established themselves in a sequestered spot in the neighborhood of Lake Mœris.
It appears highly probable that there were Greek, Egyptian, and Jewish Therapeutæ. Philo, after eulogizing Anaxagoras, Democritus, and other philosophers, who embraced their way of life, thus expresses himself: "Similar societies are found in many countries; Greece and other regions enjoy institutions of this consoling character. They are common in Egypt in every district, and particularly in that of Alexandria. The most worthy and moral of the population have withdrawn beyond Lake Mœris to a secluded but convenient spot, forming a gentle declivity.
The air is very salubrious, and the villages in the neighborhood sufficiently numerous," etc.
Thus we perceive that there have everywhere existed societies of men who have endeavored to find a refuge from disturbances and factions, from the insolence and rapacity of oppressors. All, without exception, entertained a perfect horror of war, considering it precisely in the same light in which we contemplate highway robbery and murder.
Such, nearly, were the men of letters who united, in France and founded the Academy. They quietly withdrew from the factious and cruel scenes which desolated the country in the reign of Louis XIII. Such also were the men who founded the Royal Society at London, while the barbarous idiots called Puritans and Episcopalians were cutting one another's throats about the interpretation of a few passages from three or four old and unintelligible books.
Some learned men have been of opinion that Jesus Christ, who condescended to make his appearance for some time in the small district of Capernaum, in Nazareth, and some other small towns of Palestine, was one of those Essenians who fled from the tumult of affairs and cultivated virtue in peace. But the name "Essenian," never even once occurs in the four Gospels, in the Apocrypha, or in the Acts, or the Epistles of the apostles.
Although, however, the name is not to be found, a resemblance is in various points observable--confraternity, community of property, strictness of moral conduct, manual labor, detachment from wealth and honors; and, above all, detestation of war. So great is this detestation, that Jesus Christ commands his disciples when struck upon one cheek to offer the other also, and when robbed of a cloak to deliver up the coat likewise. Upon this principle the Christians conducted themselves, during the two first centuries, without altars, temples, or magistracies--all employed in their respective trades or occupations, all leading secluded and quiet lives.
Their early writings attest that they were not permitted to carry arms.
In this they perfectly resembled our Quakers, Anabaptists, and Mennonites of the present day, who take a pride in following the literal meaning of the gospel. For although there are in the gospel many passages which, when incorrectly understood, might breed violence--as the case of the merchants scourged out of the temple avenues, the phrase "compel them to come in," the dangers into which they were thrown who had not converted their master's one talent into five talents, and the treatment of those who came to the wedding without the wedding garment--although, I say, all these may seem contrary to the pacific spirit of the gospel, yet there are so many other passages which enjoin sufferance instead of contest, that it is by no means astonishing that, for a period of two hundred years, Christians held war in absolute execration.
Upon this foundation was the numerous and respectable society of Pennsylvanians established, as were also the minor sects which have imitated them. When I denominate them respectable, it is by no means in consequence of their aversion to the splendor of the Catholic church. I lament, undoubtedly, as I ought to do, their errors. It is their virtue, their modesty, and their spirit of peace, that I respect.
Was not the great philosopher Bayle right, then, when he remarked that a Christian of the earliest times of our religion would be a very bad soldier, or that a soldier would be a very bad Christian?
This dilemma appears to be unanswerable; and in this point, in my opinion, consists the great difference between ancient Christianity and ancient Judaism.
The law of the first Jews expressly says, "As soon as you enter any country with a view to possess it, destroy everything by fire and sword; slay, without mercy, aged men, women, and children at the breast; kill even all the animals; sack everything and burn everything. It is your God who commands you so to do." This injunction is not given in a single instance, but on twenty different occasions, and is always followed.
Mahomet, persecuted by the people of Mecca, defends himself like a brave man. He compels his vanquished persecutors to humble themselves at his feet, and become his disciples. He establishes his religion by proselytism and the sword.
Jesus, appearing between the times of Moses and Mahomet, in a corner of Galilee, preaches forgiveness of injuries, patience, mildness, and forbearance, dies himself under the infliction of capital punishment, and is desirous of the same fate for His first disciples.
I ask candidly, whether St. Bartholomew, St. Andrew, St. Matthew, and St. Barnabas, would have been received among the cuirassiers of the emperor, or among the royal guards of Charles XII.?
Would St. Peter himself, though he cut off Malchus' ear, have made a good officer? Perhaps St. Paul, accustomed at first to carnage, and having had the misfortune to be a bloody persecutor, is the only one who could have been made a warrior. The impetuosity of his temperament and the fire of his imagination would have made him a formidable commander.
But, notwithstanding these qualities, he made no effort to revenge himself on Gamaliel by arms. He did not act like the Judases, the Theudases, and the Barchochebases, who levied troops: he followed the precepts of Jesus Christ; he suffered; and, according to an account we have of his death, he was beheaded.
To compose an army of Christians, therefore, in the early period of Christianity, was a contradiction in terms.
It is certain that Christians were not enlisted among the troops of the empire till the spirit by which they were animated was changed. In the first two centuries they entertained a horror for temples, altars, tapers, incense, and lustral water. Porphyry compares them to the foxes who said "the grapes are sour." "If," said he, "you could have had beautiful temples burnished with gold, and large revenues for a clergy, you would then have been passionately fond of temples." They afterwards addicted themselves to all that they had abhorred. Thus, having detested the profession of arms, they at length engaged in war. The Christians in the time of Diocletian were as different from those of the time of the apostles, as we are from the Christians of the third century.
I cannot conceive how a mind so enlightened and bold as Montesquieu's could severely censure another genius much more accurate than his own, and oppose the following just remark made by Bayle: "a society of real Christians might live happily together, but they would make a bad defence on being attacked by an enemy."
"They would," says Montesquieu, "be citizens infinitely enlightened on the subject of their duties, and ardently zealous to discharge them.
They would be fully sensible of the rights of natural defence. The more they thought they owed religion, the more they would think they owed their country. The principles of Christianity deeply engraved on their hearts would be infinitely more powerful than the false honor of monarchies, the human virtues of republics, or the servile fear which operates under despotism."
Surely the author of the "Spirit of Laws" did not reflect upon the words of the gospel, when saying that real Christians would be fully sensible of the rights of natural defence. He did not recollect the command to deliver up the coat after the cloak had been taken; and, after having received a blow upon one cheek, to present the other also. Here the principle of natural defence is most decidedly annihilated. Those whom we call Quakers have always refused to fight; but in the war of 1756, if they had not received assistance from the other English, and suffered that assistance to operate, they would have been completely crushed.
Is it not unquestionable that men who thought and felt as martyrs would fight very ill as grenadiers? Every sentence of that chapter of the "Spirit of Laws" appears to me false. "The principles of Christianity deeply engraved on their hearts, would be infinitely more powerful," etc. Yes, more powerful to prevent their exercise of the sword, to make them tremble at shedding their neighbor's blood, to make them look on life as a burden of which it would be their highest happiness to be relieved.
"If," says Bayle, "they were appointed to drive back veteran corps of infantry, or to charge regiments of cuirassiers, they would be seen like sheep in the midst of wolves."
Bayle was perfectly right. Montesquieu did not perceive that, while attempting to refute him, he contemplated only the mercenary and sanguinary soldiers of the present day, and not the early Christians. It would seem as if he had been desirous of preventing the unjust accusations which he experienced from the fanatics, by sacrificing Bayle to them. But he gained nothing by it. They are two great men, who appear to be of different opinions, but who, if they had been equally free to speak, would have been found to have the same.
"The false honor of monarchies, the human virtues of republics, the servile fear which operates under despotism;" nothing at all of this goes towards the composition of a soldier, as the "Spirit of Laws" pretends. When we levy a regiment, of whom a quarter part will desert in the course of a fortnight, not one of the men enlisted thinks about the honor of the monarchy: they do not even know what it is. The mercenary troops of the republic of Venice know their country; but nothing about republican virtue, which no one ever speaks of in the place of St. Mark.
In one word, I do not believe that there is a single man on the face of the earth who has enlisted in his regiment from a principle of virtue.
Neither, again, is it out of a servile fear that Turks and Russians fight with the fierceness and rage of lions and tigers. Fear does not inspire courage. Nor is it by devotion that the Russians have defeated the armies of Mustapha. It would, in my opinion, have been highly desirable that so ingenious a man should have sought for truth rather than display. When we wish to instruct mankind, we ought to forget ourselves, and have nothing in view but truth.
ETERNITY.
In my youth I admired all the reasonings of Samuel Clarke. I loved his person, although he was a determined Arian as well as Newton, and I still revere his memory, because he was a good man; but the impression which his ideas had stamped on my yet tender brain was effaced when that brain became more firm. I found, for example, that he had contested the eternity of the world with as little ability as he had proved the reality of infinite space.
I have so much respect for the Book of Genesis, and for the church which adopts it, that I regard it as the only proof of the creation of the world five thousand seven hundred and eighteen years ago, according to the computation of the Latins, and seven thousand and seventy-eight years, according to the Greeks. All antiquity believed matter, at least, to be eternal; and the greatest philosophers attributed eternity also to the arrangement of the universe.
They are all mistaken, as we well know; but we may believe, without blasphemy, that the eternal Former of all things made other worlds besides ours.
EUCHARIST.
On this delicate subject, we shall not speak as theologians. Submitting in heart and mind to the religion in which we are born, and the laws under which we live, we shall have nothing to do with controversy; it is too hostile to all religions which it boasts of supporting--to all laws which it makes pretensions to explain, and especially to that harmony which in every period it has banished from the world.
One-half of Europe anathematizes the other on the subject of the Eucharist; and blood has flowed in torrents from the Baltic Sea to the foot of the Pyrenees, for nearly two centuries, on account of a single word, which signifies gentle charity.
Various nations in this part of the world view with horror the system of transubstantiation. They exclaim against this dogma as the last effort of human folly. They quote the celebrated passage of Cicero, who says that men, having exhausted all the mad extravagancies they are capable of, have yet never entertained the idea of eating the God whom they adore. They say that as almost all popular opinions are built upon ambiguities and abuse of words, so the system of the Roman Catholics concerning the Eucharist and transubstantiation is founded solely on an ambiguity; that they have interpreted literally what could only have been meant figuratively; and that for the sake of mere verbal contests, for absolute misconceptions, the world has for six hundred years been drenched in blood.
Their preachers in the pulpits, their learned in their publications, and the people in their conversational discussions, incessantly repeat that Jesus Christ did not take His body in His two hands to give His disciples to eat; that a body cannot be in a hundred thousand places at one time, in bread and in wine; that the God who formed the universe cannot consist of bread which is converted into fæces, and of wine which flows off in urine; and that the doctrine may naturally expose Christianity to the derision of the least intelligent, and to the contempt and execration of the rest of mankind.
In this opinion the Tillotsons, the Smallridges, the Claudes, the Daillés, the Amyrauts, the Mestrezats, the Dumoulins, the Blondels, and the numberless multitude of the reformers of the sixteenth century, are all agreed; while the peaceable Mahometan, master of Africa, and of the finest part of Asia, smiles with disdain upon our disputes, and the rest of the world are totally ignorant of them.
Once again I repeat that I have nothing to do with controversy. I believe with a lively faith all that the Catholic apostolic religion teaches on the subject of the Eucharist, without comprehending a single word of it.
The question is, how to put the greatest restraint upon crimes. The Stoics said that they carried God in their hearts. Such is the expression of Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, the most virtuous of mankind, and who might almost be called gods upon earth. They understood by the words "I carry God within me," that part of the divine universal soul which animates every intelligent being.
The Catholic religion goes further. It says, "You shall have within you physically what the Stoics had metaphysically. Do not set yourselves about inquiring what it is that I give you to eat and drink, or merely