Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems
Candid readers have not lately met with any man who had less
notion to interfere with their Thirty-Nine, or other Church-
Articles; wherewith, very helplessly as is like, they may have
struggled to form for themselves some not inconceivable
hypothesis about this Universe, and their own Existence there.
Superstition, my friend, is far from me; Fanaticism, for any
_Fanum_ likely to arise soon on this Earth, is far. A man's
Church-Articles are surely articles of price to him; and in
these times one has to be tolerant of many strange 'Articles,'
and of many still stranger 'No-articles,' which go about
placarding themselves in a very distracted manner,--the numerous
long placard-poles, and questionable infirm paste-pots,
interfering with one's peaceable thoroughfare sometimes!
Fancy a man, moreover, recommending his fellow men to believe in
God, that so Chartism might abate, and the Manchester Operatives
be got to spin peaceably! The idea is more distracted than any
placard-pole seen hitherto in a public thoroughfare of men! My
friend, if thou ever do come to believe in God, thou wilt find
all Chartism, Manchester riot, Parliamentary incompetence,
Ministries of Windbag, and the wildest Social Dissolutions, and
the burning up of this entire Planet, a most small matter in
comparison. Brother, this Planet, I find, is but an
inconsiderable sandgrain in the continents of Being: this
Planet's poor temporary interests, thy interests and my interests
there, when I look fixedly into that eternal Light-Sea and Flame-
Sea with _its_ eternal interests, dwindle literally into Nothing;
my speech of it is--silence for the while. I will as soon think
of making Galaxies and Star Systems to guide little herring-
vessels by, as of preaching Religion that the Constable may
continue possible. O my Advanced-Liberal friend, this new second
progress, of proceeding 'to invent God,' is a very strange one!
Jacobinism unfolded into Saint-Simonism bodes innumerable blessed
things; but the thing itself might draw tears from a Stoic!--As
for me, some twelve or thirteen New Religions, heavy Packets,
most of them unfranked, having arrived here from various parts of
the world, in a space of six calendar months, I have instructed
my invaluable friend the Stamped Postman to introduce no more of
them, if the charge exceed one penny.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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