Church Reform: The Only Means to That End, Stated in a Letter to Sir Robert Peel, Bart., First Lord of the TreasuryCarlile, Richard
Religion
Church Reform: The Only Means to That End, Stated in a Letter to Sir Robert Peel, Bart., First Lord of the Treasury
Carlile, Richard
Bible -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.; Church and state -- Church of England; Rationalism
I can say from observation, comparison and experience, that among the
most moral of the working people in the metropolis, will be found
those who have attended scientific lectures on the Sunday, and who have
thereby been taught, to contemn superstition. You find them not in the
house of intoxication; but passing soberly in the evening from their
homes to the school; and gratifiedly after the lecture from the school
to their homes. The greatest error that toryism and superstition have
fallen into has been to suppose that knowledge will make a people
disorderly. Bacon's aphorism is true, that superstition is the _primum
mobile_ of sedition, the great agitator; and ignorance the great
disorderer of States. Is it not so in Ireland? Is it not your greatest
trouble in this island? The wisest act of the life of the late Lord
Castlereagh was to propose to send _Paine's Age of Reason_ among the
Roman Catholics of Ireland. If it had been so thoroughly done, when he
proposed it, they would have been all quiet enough by this time. Real
knowledge is the water-cup of sobriety for a people: with that they
will seek to rid themselves of nothing but error and evil that cannot be
morally defended.
Make the change that I propose in the business and ceremony of the
Church, and you instantly make a Christian Religion, eminently Catholic,
that will not only annihilate the Dissenters, but convert Jew, Mahometan
and Pagan. It will be irresistible to all mankind. They cannot argue
against science; but each argues against the superstition of the other.
Science is the essence of Judaism, but the men called Jews understand it
not. It is the foundation of their name, the ground on which they have
been considered a chosen people, it is the only sign of God in man, the
only proof of true religion. Science and morals are the whole duty and
all needful to man; beyond which he can gain nothing but superstition,
error and evil. Science and morals, then, are the only proper business
of the Church. Let us have our National Education in the Church. Let
the Church be the fountain of knowledge, and all be there baptized, as a
true sign of mental birth and membership of Christ.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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