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    gative . The age of loyalty has followed that of chivalry into the great gulf . Whiggism is avowedl y the creature not of principle but of compromise . The Radicals are , most of them , simply strenuous objectors . Dissent is a rope of sand , and the Church only exists in the clergy . When next there shall be a body of men banded together like the Puritans by a vital principle , we may safely predict that some great change in the state of society

    is at hand . Some think they see the embryo of such a body in the Trades' Unions . But the principle is not yet found . There is only a groping desire for the attainment of good , or rather for the removal of intolerable evil . Samson is feeling for the pillars ; but as yet he neither rests nor destroys . In all our

    reforms , changes , aspirations , there is a lack of defined and ultimate purpose . We take down confusedly ; and build , when we build at all , irregularly . The age awaits some master-spirit to guide the work of renovation . The ghost of St . Simon is laid , and the body of Bentham is devoid of animation . On whom will the divine afflatus descend ?

    Not on those who claim to be successors of the Puritans . They are only one amongst the many incongruities of these incongruous times . They inherit the quirks and conundrums of the elder Puritans ; their narrowness , their bigotry , their pugnacity , their asceticism ; but not their singleness and moral power . Theirs is but a bastard Puritanism , and no future Hume will

    ascribe to it the preservation of the liberties of their country . It is a thing of pretension , teasing , and botheration . It cares less about the fall of a nation than the establishment of a mission . It is content that despots should fill dungeons with patriots , so that constables turn the poor out of beer shops . It denounces

    pqnny unions to raise wages , but consecrates penny unions to pay parsons . It will only read a religious newspaper , and thinks even that but ungodly work compared with distributing twaddling tracts . It threatened to oust Joseph Hume from Middlesex , and would have Fowell Buxton made Premier , with Percival for

    Secretary at War , and Jabez Bunting in the home department . It favours * schools for all , * provided they only teach all the catechism ; and above every thing desires to imprison the poor on Sundays within the narrow and unwholesome boundaries by which they are , during all the rest of the week , pent up from every sight and sound of enjoyment . This spirit has infected

    great numbers , both within and without the Established Church ; though it is very far indeed from identifying itself either with episcopacy or with nonconformity ; and requires to be kept in check , or it will check , and that grievously , the course of political and social improvement . The influence of this spirit is very discernible on our politics , our literature , our amusements , and our morals . It is generally anti-popular , for political excitement is scarcely compatible with

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    310 A Fragment on Modern Puritanism .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1834, page 610, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2637/page/6/