On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    the authority it would hold over men ' s minds . It has clogged , without being able to repress , almost every great and generous movement of national feeling . The religious par excellence leaned towards the Reform Bill , because people used to get drunk at elections ; and were fervent against negro slavery , because the

    planters prevented proselytism . It is well that borough-mongering was not carried on with sobriety , and that Mungo was whipped for going to chapel , and not for profaning the sabbath . Had it not been for this class , negro emancipation might have been a much cheaper purchase , and catholic emancipation would have been a much speedier conquest . It has no interest in any

    question of freedom or humanity at home or abroad , that bears not its own fanatical stamp . Poland may be mangled and Belgium badgered , so that Bibles be but distributed over the continent . It submits to the taxes upon knowledge ; they fall lightly on its tracts . It would allow Parliaments to sit for ever , but that scripture says , all things must pass away . When men are indignant at being robbed of their civil rights , it only tells

    them to mind their religious duties . It supported the Pitt crusade , with its deluge of blood , because the French were called infidels and atheists . It has little sympathy with the liberals of Europe , for it suspects their orthodoxy . For its own narrow purposes it would move heaven and earth ; but from all exertion for benefiting mankind by the amelioration of institutions , it turns away cold or frowning , and declares that religion has nothing to do with politics .

    Modern Puritanism keeps down the literary taste of a section of the middle class , considerably below the standard which it might reach under better religious guidance . The intellect of the country is not found in its ranks , and does not write its dialect . Hence sermons c on the danger of reading improper

    books . ' A proper book , except in some rare cases , is characterised by cant and mediocrity . Its dearest poetical favourite is Cowper ; a poet indeed , true , and right worthy ; but alas ! for those to whom he is the pattern of the sublime and beautiful ; and who put Robert Montgomery in the same line with Milton .

    With public amusements it wages a deadly warfare ; and the theatre is especially proscribed as being within the boundaries of the infernal regions . It would have no social excitement but missionary meetings . The forbidden tree is supposed to grow in every tea-garden .

    To develope the species of morality thus fostered , would require a volume . It has little of utility , when most sincere ; and it opens a wide door for insincerity . It dwells in pettinesses and formalities . The negation of external and gross viciousness , and the presence of the externals of religion , will amply suffice for character , though coupled with the most crabbed temper , tho vilest sycophancy or avarice , the most utter uselessnesa and most

    Untitled Article

    A Fragment an Modern Puritanism . 611

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1834, page 611, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2637/page/7/