The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 03 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
History
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 03 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
The English people are satisfied, that to the great the consolations of
religion are as necessary as its instructions. They, too, are among the
unhappy. They feel personal pain and domestic sorrow. In these they have
no privilege, but are subject to pay their full contingent to the
contributions levied on mortality. They want this sovereign balm under
their gnawing cares and anxieties, which, being less conversant about
the limited wants of animal life, range without limit, and are
diversified by infinite combinations in the wild and unbounded regions
of imagination. Some charitable dole is wanting to these, our often
very unhappy brethren, to fill the gloomy void that reigns in minds
which have nothing on earth to hope or fear; something to relieve in the
killing languor and over-labored lassitude of those who have nothing to
do; something to excite an appetite to existence in the palled satiety
which attends on all pleasures which may be bought, where Nature is not
left to her own process, where even desire is anticipated, and therefore
fruition defeated by meditated schemes and contrivances of delight, and
no interval, no obstacle, is interposed between the wish and the
accomplishment.
The people of England know how little influence the teachers of religion
are likely to have with the wealthy and powerful of long standing, and
how much less with the newly fortunate, if they appear in a manner no
way assorted to those with whom they must associate, and over whom they
must even exercise, in some cases, something like an authority. What
must they think of that body of teachers, if they see it in no part
above the establishment of their domestic servants? If the poverty were
voluntary, there might be some difference. Strong instances of
self-denial operate powerfully on our minds; and a man who has no wants
has obtained great freedom and firmness, and even dignity. But as the
mass of any description of men are but men, and their poverty cannot be
voluntary, that disrespect which attends upon all lay poverty will not
depart from the ecclesiastical. Our provident Constitution has therefore
taken care that those who are to instruct presumptuous ignorance, those
who are to be censors over insolent vice, should neither incur their
contempt nor live upon their alms; nor will it tempt the rich to a
neglect of the true medicine of their minds. For these reasons, whilst
we provide first for the poor, and with a parental solicitude, we have
not relegated religion (like something we were ashamed to show) to
obscure municipalities or rustic villages. No! we will have her to exalt
her mitred front in courts and parliaments. We will have her mixed
throughout the whole mass of life, and blended with all the classes of
society. The people of England will show to the haughty potentates of
the world, and to their talking sophisters, that a free, a generous, an
informed nation honors the high magistrates of its Church; that it will
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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