Meditations on the Essence of Christianity, and on the Religious Questions of the Day

Meditations on the Essence of Christianity, and on the Religious Questions of the Day. By M. GUIZOT. Translated from the French under the Superintendence of the Author. London : JOHN MURRAY.

WHOEVER is familiar with religious controversies, past and present, has not failed to notice of late an improvement in their tone, for which we cannot be too deeply thankful. This does not arise solely from the neglect which now prevails of the ancient and highly recommended plan of imprisoning, torturing, and roasting such obstinate heretics as are too obtuse or too sharp-sighted to yield to milder methods of treatment. Such incidents in history as the exposure of Christians to hungry beasts in the Colosseum, a Smithfield burnt - offering of persistent saints, or a Spanish auto-da-fe, with attending civic, ecclesiastical, and sometimes even royal functionaries, and wide - encircling half-rejoicing and half-compassionate multitudes, were not without their charms and compensations for victims blessed with a fervid fancy or a deathless purpose. These cruel scenes associated such with the illustrious dead who have held life cheaper than truth, and gave them an opportunity of saying to countless multitudes such as no pulpit-orator could attract and sway,— “ See how Christians die ! ” The liability to such trials turned away the fickle from the assembly of the faithful and attracted the magnanimous. When grim Puritans, in our early history, broke the stubborn necks of peace-preaching Quakers, the latter often thought it a special favor from Providence that they were permitted to bear so striking a testimony against religious fanaticism. They felt, like John Brown in his Virginian prison, that the best service they could render to the cause they had loved so well was to love it even unto death. Indeed, martyrs in mounting the scaffold have ever felt the sentiment,—

Such heroic treatment always relieves any cause from contemptuous neglect, the one thing which is always harder to bear than the fires of martyrdom. Every reader of Bunyan knows that he complains far less of his twelve years’ imprisonment than he exults over the success of his prisonborn, world-ranging Pilgrim. He would doubtless have preferred lying in that “den,” Bedford jail, other twelve years to being unable to say,

The dreariest period in religions discussion commonly occurs when men have just ceased to inflict legal penalties upon the heterodox, but have not yet learned those amenities which lend so sweet and gentle a dignity to debate. In looking over the dusty pamphlets which entomb so many clerical controversies of our Colonial times, it has often seemed as though we had lighted on some bar-room wrangle, translated out of its original billingsgate into scholarly classical quotations and wofully wrested texts of Holy Writ. This illusion seems all the more probable when we remember that the potations which inspired the loose jester and the ministerial pamphleteer of that period but too often flowed from the same generous tap. This phase of theological dispute is best typified in that eminent English divine who wrote,—“ I say, without the least heat whatever, that Mr. Wesley lies.” The manner in which such reverend disputants sought to force their conclusions on the reluctant has not infrequently reminded us of sturdy old Grimshawe, the predecessor of Brontá at Haworth, of whom Mrs. Gaskell reports, that, finding so many of his parishioners inclined to loiter away their Sundays at the ale-house as greatly to thin the attendance upon his ministry, he was wont to rush in upon them armed with a heavy whip, and scourge them with many a painful stroke to church, where, doubtless, he scourged them again with still more painful sermons.

But, bad as were the controversial habits of the clergy, those of their skeptical opponents were still worse. That was surely a strange state of things where such freethinking as the “Age of Reason ” could win a wide circulation and considerable credit. But it was not merely the vulgar among freethinkers who then substituted sophistry and declamation for honesty and sense. The philosophers of the Institute caught the manners of the rabble. What a revolting scene does M. Martin sketch in his “Essay on the Life and Works of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre ” ! “The Institute had proposed this as a prize-question : — 'What institutions are best adapted to establish the morals of a nation ? ’ Bernardin was to offer the report. The competitors had treated the theme in the spirit of their judges. Terrified at the perversity of their opinions, the author of “ Studies of Nature ” wished to oppose to them more wholesome and consoling ideas, and he closed his report with one of those morsels of inspiration into which his soul poured the gentle light of the Gospel. On the appointed day, in the assembled Institute, Bernardin read his report. The analysis of the memoirs was heard at first with calmness; but, at the first words of the exposition of the principles of a theistical philosopher, a furious outcry arose from every part of the hall. Some mocked him, asking where he had seen God, and what form He bore. Others styled him weak, credulous, superstitious ; they threatened to expel him from the assembly of which he had proved himself unworthy ; they even pushed madness so far as to challenge him to single combat, in order to prove, sword in hand, that there is no God. Cabanis, celebrated by Carlyle for his dogma, ‘ Thought is secreted, like bile, somewhere in the region of the small intestines,’ cried out, ‘ I swear that there is no God, and I demand that His name shall never be spoken in this place.' The reporter left the members in grave dispute, not whether there is a God, but whether the mention of His name should be permitted.”

We have fallen upon better days. The high debate which is now engaging the attention of Christendom is conducted, for the most part, on both sides, with distinguished courtesy. Not that the question at issue is, or is felt to be, any less vital than former ones. The aim of modern free-inquiry is to remove religious life from the dogmatic basis, upon which, in Christian lands, it has hitherto stood. Denying the existence, and sometimes the possibility, of a supernatural revelation, now admitting, now doubting, and now rejecting the personal immortality of the soul, our freethinkers profess a high regard for the religious culture of the race. They would found a new scientific faith, and make spiritual life an outgrowth of the soul’s devout sensibilities. The soul is to draw its nutriment from Nature, science, and all inspired books ; so that, if preaching is as fashionable in the new dispensation as under the old, the future saints will be in as bad a plight as, according to eminent theological authority, were those of a late celebrated divine : —

But is such a religion possible ? M. Guizot thinks not, and comes forward in full philosophical dignity to repel recent assaults upon supernatural religion. The chief gravity of these attacks has doubtless consisted in exegctical and historic criticism. M. Guizot deems these matters of minor consequence, and believes that the most important thing is to settle certain fundamental metaphysical questions, and correct prevalent erroneous ideas respecting the purpose of revelation. His book consists of eight Meditations: Upon Natural Problems,— Christian Dogmas,— The Supernatural,— The Limits of Science, — Revelation, — Inspiration of the Scriptures,—God according to the Bible,— Jesus according to the Gospel. These themes are presented so skilfully as to attract the interest of the careless, while challenging the fixed attention of the trained thinker. The reader will find himself lured on, by the freshness of the author’s method of handling, into the very heart of these profound and difficult questions. He will be charmed to find them treated with calm penetration and outspoken frankness. No late writer has displayed a better comprehension of all phases of and parties to the controversy. There is a singular absence of controversial tone, a marvellous lucidity of statement, and a visible honesty of intention, as refreshing as they are rare, — while a spirit of warm and tender devotion steals in through the argumentation, like the odor of unseen flowers through a giant and tangled wood. Yet there is no want of fidelity to personal convictions, no effort by cunning shifts to bring about an apparent reconciliation of opponents which the writer knows will not endure. With a firm hand he touches the errors of contending schools of interpreters, and demands their abandonment, To Rationalist and Hyper-Inspirationist in their strife he says, like another Moses, “ Why smitest thou thy fellow ? ”

Those who have watched carefully the tendencies of these parties for many years must sometimes have grown despondent. The progressive school has claimed with unscientific haste the adoption, as a fundamental principle of Biblical interpretation, of the negation of the supernatural. Their argument is simply, that human experience disproves the supernatural. Man, a recent comer upon the globe, who has never kept a very accurate record of his experience, who comes forth from mystery for a few days of troubled life, and then vanishes in darkness, —he in his short stay upon earth has watched the play of its laws, which were before him and will remain after him, and has learned without any revelation that God never has changed, never will, never can change or suspend them ! Who shall assure us that our experience of these laws does not differ from that of Peter and John, the Apostles ? How much better to say of them with Hume, Whatever the fact, we cannot believe it, or to query with Montaigne, Que sais-je? Far better might we say that human experience can never overthrow faith in the supernatural, for none can ever say what has been the experience of the countless dead over whom oblivion broods. Shall a few savans say, Our experience outweighs the experience of the Hebrews plus one hundred generations of dead Gentiles plus one universal instinct of humanity ? Crcdat M. Littre, non ot πоλλоì, M. Guizot, vel Agassiz. But the

laws of Nature are unchaAll! that is the very point in dispute. Why can they not alter ? Because they are invariTut! Well, then, b-e-c-a-u-s-e-When you find a good argument, put it into that blank. Till then, adieu.

Those who claim a plenary verbal inspiration as essential to a real revelation are, according to M. Guizot, equally remote from a truly scientific spirit. Errors in rhetoric and grammar, passages where the writers speak of astronomical and geological matters in consonance with the prevailing, but, in many cases, mistaken theories of their times, being pointed out in the Bible, these cry out, “ There can he no real errors in an inspired book,” — and we are at once amazed and disgusted to hear men deny the reality of things which they can but perceive, quite as sturdily as the Port-Royalists refused to allow the presence of sundry propositions in their books, which, notwithstanding the Pope’s infallible assertion, they had no recollection of thinking or writing, which they supposed they had always hated and disavowed, and which they could by no ingenuity of search discover. Sir Thomas Browne might enjoy, could he revisit the world, the privilege of seeing many who are reduced to defend their faith with Tertullian’s desperate resolution, — “ It is certain, because it is impossible.” If ever we escape from such ineptitude, it will come about by the diffusion of a more philosophic temper, and the use of a logic that shall refuse to exclude the facts of human nature from fair treatment, that shall embrace and account for all the questions involved, and that shall decline to receive as truth errors of finite science because found in an inspired book. We welcome this volume as an example of the right spirit and tendency in these grave discussions, and shall look eagerly for the promised three succeeding ones.

This translation, though “ executed under the superintendence of the author,” evidently does no justice to the original We have not seen the book in French, but we venture to say that M. Guizot never wrote French which could answer to this version, awkward, careless, and sometimes obscure. A certain picture of dull and ancient aspect, which had long passed for an original from the hand of Leonardo da Vinci, and, despite the raptures of sentimental people who sought to tickle their own vanity by pretending to perceive in it the marks of its high origin, had commonly awakened only a sigh of regret over the transitoriness of pictorial glory, fell at length into the hands of a skilful artist. By careful examination, this worthy person became satisfied that the painting was indeed all that had been claimed, but that its primal splendors had been obscured by the defacing brush of some incompetent restorer. With loving care he removed the dimming colors, and to an admiring world was revealed anew the Christ of the Supper. Will not some American publisher perform a like kindly function for Guizot?