Narrative and Miscellaneous PapersDe Quincey, Thomas
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Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers
De Quincey, Thomas
English essays; English fiction
I myself certainly agree with this last class; but upon this arises
a delusion, which I shall have some trouble in making the reader
understand: and of this I am confident-that a majority, perhaps, in
every given amount of readers, will share in the delusion; will part
from me in the persuasion that the error I attempt to expose is no error
at all, but that it is myself who am in the wrong. The delusion which
I challenge as such, respects the very meaning and value of a sacrifice
made to Christianity. What is it? what do we properly mean, by
a concession or a sacrifice made to a spiritual power, such as
Christianity? If a king and his people, impressed by the unchristian
character of war, were to say, in some solemn act--'We, the parties
undersigned, for the reasons stated in the body of this document,
proclaim to all nations, that from and after Midsummer eve of the year
1850, this being the eve of St. John the Baptist, (who was the herald of
Christ,) we will no more prosecute any interest of ours, unless the one
sole interest of national defence, by means of war,--and this sacrifice
we make as a concession and act of homage to Christianity,--would
_that_ vow, I ask, sincerely offered, and steadily observed, really be a
sacrifice made to Christianity? Not at all. A sacrifice, that was truly
such, to a spiritual religion, must be a sacrifice not verbally (though
sincerely) dedicating itself to the religion, but a sacrifice wrought
and accomplished by that religion, through and by its own spirit.
Midsummer eve of 1850 could clearly make no spiritual change in the king
or his people--such they would be on the morning after St. John's day,
as on the morning before it--_i. e._, filled with all elements (though
possibly undeveloped) of strife, feud, pernicious ambition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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