Chapter 8

As to religion, there is no hazard in saying, that several millions had little further notion of it than that it was an occasional, or, in the opinion of perhaps one in twenty, a regular appearance at church, hardly taking into the account that they were to be taught anything there. And what _were_ they taught--those of them who gave their attendance and attention? What kind of notions it was that had settled in their minds under such ministration, would be, so to speak, brought out, it would be made apparent what they were or were not taught, when so strong and general a sensation was produced by the irruption among them of the two reformers just named, proclaiming, as they both did, (notwithstanding very considerable differences of secondary order,) the principles which had been authoritatively declared to be of the essence of Christianity, in that model of doctrine which had been appointed to prescribe and conserve the national faith. If such doctrine _had_ been imparted to a portion of the popular mind, even though with somewhat less positive statement, less copiousness of illustration, and less cogency of enforcement than it ought; if it had been but in crude _substance_ fixed in the people's understanding, by the ministry of the many thousand authorized instructors, who were by their institute solemnly enjoined and pledged not to teach a different sort of doctrine, and not to fail of teaching this; if, we repeat, this faith, so conspicuously declared in the articles, liturgy, and homilies, had been in any degree in possession of the people, they would have recognized its main principles, or at least a similarity of principles, in the addresses of these two new preachers. They would have done so, notwithstanding a peculiarity of phraseology which Whitefield and Wesley carried to excess; and notwithstanding certain specialities which the latter did not, even supposing them to be truths, keep duly subordinate in exhibiting the prominent essentials of Christianity. The preaching, therefore, of these men was a test of what the people had been previously taught or allowed to repose in as Christian truth, under the tuition of their great religious guardian, the national church. What it was or was not would be found, in their having a sense of something like what they had been taught before, or something opposite to it, or some thing altogether foreign and unknown, when they were hearing those loud proclaimers of the old doctrines of the Reformation. Now then, as carrying with them this quality of a test, how were those men received in the community? Why, they were generally received, on account of the import of what they said, still more than from their zealous manner of saying it, with as strong an impression of novelty, strangeness, and contrariety to everything hitherto heard of, as any of our voyagers and travellers of discovery have been by the barbarous tribes who had never before seen civilized man, or as the Spaniards on their arrival in Mexico or Peru. They might, as the voyagers have clone, experience every local difference of moral temperament, from that which hailed them with acclamations, to that which often exploded in a volley of mud and stones; but through all these varieties of greetings, there was a strong sense of something then brought before them for the first time. "Thou bringest certain strange things to our ears," was an expression not more unaffectedly uttered by any hearer of an apostle, preaching in a heathen city. And to many of the auditors, it was a matter of nearly as much difficulty as it would to an inquisitive heathen, and required as new a posture of the mind, to attain an understanding of the evangelical doctrines, though they were the very same which had been held forth by the fathers and martyrs of the English Church.

We have alluded to the violence, which sometimes encountered the endeavor to restore these doctrines to the knowledge and faith of the people. And if any one should have thought that, in the descriptions we have been giving, too frequent and willing use has been made of the epithet "barbarous," or similar words, as if we could have a perverse pleasure in degrading our nation, we would request him to select for himself the appropriate terms for characterizing that state of the people, in point of sense and civilization, to say nothing of religion, which could admit such a fact as this to stand in their history--namely, that, in a vast number of instances and places, where some person unexceptionable in character as far as known, and sometimes well known as a worthy man, has attempted to address a number of the inhabitants, under a roof or under the sky, on what it imported them beyond all things in the world to know and consider, a multitude have rushed together, shouting and howling, raving and cursing, and accompanying, in many of the instances, their furious cries and yells with loathsome or dangerous missiles; dragging or driving the preacher from his humble stand, forcing him, and the few that wished to encourage and hear him, to flee for their lives, sometimes not without serious injury before they could escape. And that such a history of the people may show how deservedly their superiors were denominated their "betters," it has to add, that these savage tumults were generally instigated or abetted, sometimes under a little concealment, but often avowedly, by persons of higher condition, and even by those consecrated to the office of religious instruction; and this advantage of their station was lent to defend the perpetrators against shame, or remorse, or just punishment, for the outrage.

There would be no hazard in affirming, that since Wesley and Whitefield began the conflict with the heathenism of the country, there have been in it hundreds of occurrences answering in substance to this description. From any one, therefore, who should be inclined to accuse us of harsh language, we may well repeat the demand in what terms _he_ would think he gave the true character of a mental and moral condition, manifested in such uproars of savage violence as the Christian missionaries among eastern idolaters never had the slightest cause to apprehend. These outrages were so far from uncommon, or confined to any one part of the country, some time before, and for a very long while after, the middle of the last century, that they might be fairly taken as indicating the depth at which the greatest part of the nation lay sunk in ignorance and barbarism. Yet the good and zealous men whose lot it was to be thus set upon by a depraved, infuriate rabble, the foremost of them active in direct assault, and the rest venting their ferocious delight in a hideous blending of ribaldry and execration, of joking and cursing, were taxed with a canting hypocrisy, or a fanatical madness, for speaking of the prevailing ignorance and barbarism in terms equivalent to our sentence from the Prophet, "The people are destroyed for lack of knowledge," and for deploring the hopelessness of any revolution in this empire of darkness by means of the existing institutions, which seemed indeed to have become themselves its strong-holds.

But they whom serious danger could not deter from renewing and indefinitely repeating such attempts at all hazards, were little likely to be appalled by these contumelies of speech. To the persons so abusing them they might coolly reply, "Now really you are inconsiderately wasting your labor. Don't you know, that on the account of this same business we have sustained the battery of stones, brickbats, and the contents of the ditch? And can you believe we can much care for mere _words_ of insult, after that? Albeit the opprobrious phrases _have_ the fetid coarseness befitting the bluster of property without education, or the more highly inspirited tone of railing learnt in a college, they are quite another kind of thing to be the mark for, than such assailments as have come from the brawny arms of some of your peasants, set on probably by broad hints or plain expressions how much you would be pleased with such exploits."--It is gratifying to see thus exemplified, in the endurance of evil for a good cause, that provision in our nature for economizing the expense of feeling, through which the encountering of the greater creates a hardihood which can despise the less.

* * * * *

That our descriptive observations do not exaggerate the popular ignorance, with its natural concomitants, as prevailing at the middle of the last century and far downward, many of the elderly persons among us can readily confirm, from what they remember of the testimony of their immediate ancestors. It will be recollected what pictures they gave of the moral scene spread over the country when they were young. They could convey lively images of the situations in which the vulgar notions and manners had their free display, by representing the assemblages, and the fashion of discourse and manners, at fairs, revels, and other rendezvous of amusement; or in the field of rural employment, or on the village green, or in front of the mechanic's workshop. They could recount various anecdotes characteristic of the times; and repeat short dialogues, or single sayings, which expressed the very essence of what was to the population of the township or province instead of law and prophets, or sages or apostles. They could describe how free from all sense of shame whole families would seem to be, from grand-sires down to the third rude reckless generation, for not being able to read; and how well content, when there was some one individual in the neighborhood who could read an advertisement, or ballad, or last dying speech of a malefactor, for the benefit of the rest. They could describe the desolation of the land, with respect to any enlightening and impressive religious instruction in the places of worship; in the generality of which, indeed, the whole spirit and manner of the service tended to what we just now described as the fact--that religion, in its proper sense, was absolutely _a thing not recognized at all_. To most of the persons there the forms attended to were _representative_ of literally nothing--they were _themselves_ the all. [Footnote: None of the anecdotes, that have come down in traditions now fading away, are more illustrative of those times, than those which show both people and priest satisfied with the observances at church as _constituting_ religion, never thinking of them as but the means to _teach_ and _inspire_ it. Such anecdotes must have been heard by every one who has conversed much with such aged persons as remember the most of former times. Some traditions of this kind may be recalled to mind, through similarity of character, by hearing such an instance as the following. A friend of the writer mentions, that he heard his father, whose veracity was above all question, relate as one of the recollections of the time when he was a young man, that in the parish church where he attended, the service was one Sunday morning performed with a somewhat unusual despatch, and every abbreviation that depended on the discretion of the minister; who at the conclusion explained the circumstance publicly, by saying, that as neighbor such-a-one (mentioning the name) was going to bait his bull in the afternoon, he had been as short as possible that the congregation might have good time for the sport.--It is on the same principle that the Catholics on the continent, having attended mass in the morning, never think of doubting their license for every frivolity the rest of the day.] And as to those who really did in the course of their attendance acquire something assignable as their creed, our supposed reporters could tell what wretched and delusive notions of religion, or rather instead of religion, they were permitted and authorized, by their appointed spiritual guides, to carry with them to their last hour. At which hour, some ceremonial form was to be a passport to heaven: a little bread and wine, converted into a mysterious object of superstition, by receiving an ecclesiastical name of unknown import, accompanied with some sentences regarded much in the nature of an incantation--and all was safe! The sinner expiring believed so, and the sinners surviving were left to go on in their thoughtless way of life, on a calculation of the same final resource.

Thus the past age has left an image of its character in the minds of the generation now themselves grown old, received by immediate tradition from persons who lived in it. Here and there, indeed, there still lingers, so long after the departure of the great company to which he belonged, an ancient who retains a trace of this image immediately from the reality, as having become of an age to look at the world, and take a share in its activities, about the middle of the last century. [Footnote: They are here supposed to be looking back from about the year 1820.] And it might be an employment of considerable though rather melancholy interest, for a person visiting many parts of the land, to put in requisition, in each place, for a day or two, the most faithful of the memories of the most narrative of the oldest people, for materials toward forming an estimate of the mental and moral state of the main body of the inhabitants, of town or country, in the period of which they themselves saw the latter part, and remember it in combination with what their progenitors related of the former. After these few retainers of the original picture from the life shall have left the world, it will be comparatively a faint conception that can be formed of that age from written memorials, which exist but in a very imperfect and scattered state.

But supposing the scene could be brought back to the mental eye, in full verity and distinctness, as in a vision supernaturally imparted, are we sure we should not have the mortification of perceiving that the change, from the condition of the people then to their condition now, has been in but poor proportion to the amount of the advantages, which we are apt to be elated in recounting as the boast and happiness of later times? To assume that we should _not_, is to impute to that former age still more ignorance and debasement than appear in the above description. For what could, what must that condition have been, if it was worse than the present by anything near the difference made by what would be a tolerably fair improvement of the additional means latterly afforded? An estimate being made of the measure of intelligence and worth found among the descendants, let so much be taken out as we would wish to attribute to the effect of the additional means, and what will that remainder be which is to represent the state of the ancestors, formed under a system of means wanting all those which we are allowing ourselves to think important enough to warrant the frequent expression, "This new era?"

The means wanting to the former generation, and that have sprung into existence for the latter, may be briefly noted; and those of a religious nature may be named first. It is the most obvious of public expedients, that good men who wish to make others _so should preach_ to them. And there has been a wonderful extension of this practice since the zealous exertions of Whitefield, Wesley, and their co-operators awakened other good men to a sense of their capacity and duty. The spirit actuating the associated followers of the latter of those two great agitators, has impelled forth their whole disposable force (to use a military phrase) to this service; and they have sent preachers into many parts of the land where preaching itself, in any fair sense of the term, was wholly a novelty; and where there was roused as earnest a zeal to crush this alarming innovation, as the people of Iceland are described to feel on the occasion of the approach of a white bear to invade their folds or poorly stocked pastures. [Footnote: The writer had just been reading that description.] To a confederacy of Christians so well aware of their own strength and progress, it may seem a superfluous testimony that they are doing incalculable good among our population, more good probably than any other religious sect. This tribute is paid not the less freely for a material difference in theological opinion; nor for a wish, a quite friendly one, that they may admit some little modification of a spirit perhaps rather too sectarian in religion, and rather less than independent in politics.

An immense augmentation has been brought to the sum of public instruction, by the continually enlarging numbers of dissenters of other denominations. Whatever may be thought of some of the consequences of the great extension of dissent, it will hardly be considered as a circumstance tending to prolong the reign of _ignorance_ that thus, within the last fifty years, there have been put in activity to impart religious ideas to the people not fewer (exclusively of the Wesleyans) than several thousand minds that would, under a continuance of the former state of the nation, have been doing no such service; that is to say, the service would not have been done at all. Let it be considered, too, that the doctrines inculcated as of the first importance, in the preaching of far the greatest number of them, were exactly those which the Established Church avowed in its formularies and disowned in its ministry,--one of the circumstances which contributed the most to _make_ dissenters of the more seriously disposed among the people.--It is to be added, that so much public activity in religious instruction could not be unaccompanied by an increase of exertion in the more private methods of imparting it.

It is another important accession to the enlarged system of operations against religious ignorance, that a proportion of the Established Church itself has been recovered to the spirit of its venerable founders, by the progressive formation in it of a zealous evangelical ministry; dissenters within their own community, if we may believe the constant loud declarations of the bulk of that community, and especially of the most dignified, learned, and powerful classes in it. But in spite of whatever discredit they may suffer from being thus disowned, these worthy and useful men have still, in their character of clergymen, a material advantage above other faithful teachers, for influence on many of the people, by being invested with the credentials of the ancient institution, from which the popular mind has been slow and reluctant in withdrawing its veneration; and for which that sentiment, when not quite extinct, is ready to revive at any manifestation in it of the quickening spirit of the Gospel. We say, if the sentiment be not quite extinct; for we are aware what a very large proportion of the people are gone beyond the possibility of feeling it any more. But still the number is great of those who experience, at this new appearance, a reanimation of their affection for the Church; and so fondly identify the partial change with the whole institution, that they feel as if a parent, who had for a long while neglected or deserted them, but for whom they could never cease to cherish a filial regard, were beginning to be restored to them, with a renewal of the benignant qualities and cares of the parental character.

* * * * *

Thus far the account of the means which England was not to furnish for its people till the latter part of the eighteenth century, relates to their better instruction in religion. This will not be thought beside the purpose of an enumeration of expedients for lessening their _ignorance_, by any one who can allow that religion, regarded as a subject of the understanding, is the most important part of knowledge, and who has observed the fact that religion, when it begins to _interest_ uncultivated minds, works surprisingly in favor of the intellectual faculties; an effect exactly the reverse of that of superstition, and produced by the contrary operation; for while superstition represses, and even curses any free action of the intellect, genuine religion both requires and excites it. Though it is too true that the great Christian principles, when embraced with conviction and seriousness by a very uneducated man, must greatly partake, by contractedness of apprehension, the ill fortune which has confined his mental growth, yet they will often do more than any other thing within the same space of time to avenge him of it.

In addition to the great extension of instruction in a form specifically religious, there have been various causes and means contributing to the increase of knowledge among the people. After it had been seen for centuries in what manner the children of the poor were suffered to spend the Sunday, it struck one observer at last, that they might on that day be taught to read!--a possibility which had never been suspected; a disclosure as of some hitherto hidden power of nature. And then the schools which taught the children to read made some of the parents so much better pleased with their children for their first steps in so new an attainment, that they could not be indifferent to the opening of other schools of a humble order to continue that instruction through the week. It was within the same period that there was a large circulation of tracts, by some of which many who might be little desirous of instruction, were beguiled into it by the amusing vehicle ingeniously contrived to convey it; and the most popular of which will remain a monument of the talent, knowledge, and benevolence, of that distinguished benefactor of her country and age, Mrs. H. More, perhaps even pre-eminent above her many excellent works in a higher strain. Later and continual issues of this class of papers, of every diversity of composition, and diffused by the activity of numberless hands, have solicited perhaps a fourth part of the thoughtless beings in the nation to make at least one short effort to think.

The enormous flight of periodical miscellanies, and of newspapers, must be taken as both the indication and the cause that hundreds of thousands of persons were giving some attention to the matters of general information, where their grandfathers had been, during the intervals of time allowed by their employments, prating, brawling, sleeping, or drinking their hours away. [Footnote: Since this was written there has been a prodigious augmentation of all such means of general excitement; and happily a diversified multiplication of a class of them calculated to benefit the inferior people, at once by giving them a new and enlarged range of ideas, and by bringing them on some tracts of common ground with the liberally educated; thus abating the former almost total incapacity, on the part of those inferiors, for intelligent intercommunication.]

It is perhaps an item of some small value in the account, that a new class of ideas was furnished by the many wonderful effects of science, in the application of the elements and mechanical powers. The people saw human intelligence so effectually inspiriting inanimate matter, as to create a new and mighty order of agency, appearing in a certain degree independent of man himself, and in its power immensely surpassing any simple immediate exertion of _his_ power. They saw wood and iron, fire, water, and air, actuated to the production of effects which might vie with what their rude ancestors had been accustomed to believe, (those of them who had heard of such beings,) of giants, magicians, alchymists, and monsters; effects, the dream of which, if any one could so have dreamed, would have been scoffed at by even the more intelligent of the former race.