LETTER From his creation a system and a process have been IV. in constant development and operation for his wellbeing, always tending to promote the moral and intellectual formation and advancement of human nature, generally and individually. These Letters will attempt to delineate such outlines of the plan which has been pursued, as my limited ability can discern; but what I shall fail to accomplish, others will more successfully elucidate; for there is no reason to doubt, that the intelligence which is distinguishing our age above any that has preceded, will not let this, the loftiest theme on which it can meditate, remain quite neglected by its inquisitive industry. We have been, perhaps, occupied rather too exclusively in observing and describing the details and minutenesses of material nature. It is right that these should be carefully studied, because we cannot have exact knowlege of things any other way; and they furnish the facts and grounds of the grander speculations. But still with the earthly and the palpable, the heavenly and the intellectual should be associated. For the contemplation of the plans and principles of their magnificent Author, and of the means He has employed, and of the results which they have produced, will always be amongst the sublimest subjects of our thought, and a constant fountain of intellectual enjoyment; and tho we, who can rarely justly estimate the intentions of each other, whom we daily see, must always be very imperfectly qualified to criticise or appreciate the unrevealed purposes of the Almighty, yet we cannot err, if we always believe, that the universal reason why any or every part and substance are what they are, will always be, because He has deliberately chosen, planned and formed them to be so. Let this IV. be the fixed deduction of our reason, and then it will LETTER be gratifying to the intellect to endeavor to comprehend the manner in which He causes what we admire or are studying; and to explore the reasons which appear to have actuated Him in His ways as well as His works. The satisfaction will always increase with the success; but there will be pleasure in the effort even where it is unavailing, because it is one of the laws assigned to our intellectual nature, that the true knowlege of Him shall be attended with sweet and ennobling feelings; and that every endeavor to attain it, reverentially pursued, shall be one of the most agreeable exercises of our thinking faculty."1 21 Napoleon, at least, felt that religion was a pleasurable reality. He said one day to Las Casas, Perhaps I shall again believe implicitly. God grant I may. I shall certainly make no resistance; and I do not ask a greater blessing. It must, in my mind, be a great and real happiness.' Las Casas, v. iii. p. 201. He seems to have retained his belief in the Deity; for he also mentioned, 'I never doubted the existence of God; for if my reason was inadequate to comprehend it, my mind was not less disposed to adopt it. My nerves were in sympathy with the sentiment.' Again, 'We very properly believe in God, because every thing around us proclaims Him, and the most enlightened minds have believed in Him.' Las Casas, ib. We like to know how kings and emperors feel on these great subjects, in which we all have a common interest; but, I own myself to be more gratified with reading the following estimation of religion from a Northamptonshire peasant, born 1793, son of a labourer, like himself, written while he was a young man, working for others at seven shillings a week in winter and nine in summer, at Helpstone, near Stamford,-I mean JOHN CLARE. SONNET TO RELIGION. THOU sacred light, that right from wrong discerns! Thou disregarder of its joys and mirth! Thou only home the houseless wanderers have! Thou prop by which the pilgrim's woes are borne! G 2 Thou LETTER IV. Thou only hope to sorrow's bosom given! Thou peace! Thou rest! Thou comfort! all in all! P. 204. LETTER V. OUR SACRED HISTORY A PART OF THAT OF THE UNIVERSE, MY DEAR SON, THAT the sacred history of our world must be a part of the greater sacred history of the universe, is as obvious as it also must be, that it cannot be supposed to be identical with it; for our earth is visibly not the whole of all things, nor can every other sphere be supposed to be a mere copy, or fac-simile of it. We are only a portion of a multifarious creation, each orb in which has its own peculiar structure, with substances and living forms appropriated to that, and therefore as unlike those of every other, as their several natures and constructions may vary. But still, however numerous the existing orders of being may really be, we are all the subjects of one wondrous Monarchy. We must, indeed, have that distinction from each other, which arises from every one possessing a state and system of things appointed to it, and not assigned to others. Each, therefore, subsists with a particular composition, and with a course of laws and agencies appropriated to it. From this circumstance, each must have a sacred history of its own, adapted to these, and proceeding from them, with which only itself is concerned; yet LETTER V. LETTER in the great principles of the Divine care and govern V. ment, we may assume that there is no difference between any. Diversities will, however, begin, and will prevail in the modifications, rules and nature of the events and operations, by which these general principles will be severally applied. These will correspond in all with the peculiarities, which distinguish them from each other; but as these variations in other orbs are unknown to us, we have no materials on which we can reason about them. They and we as yet have no acquaintance with each other; no mutual intercourse has in any age taken place between us, and therefore we can only perceive, that it is possible that some momentous relations may hereafter occur with them, when death shall remove us from our present home. We cannot prevent the mind from desiring this, nor, as we gaze upon their nightly radiance, from aspiring to it.' There is an attraction in their sparkling lucidity which draws the soul upwards to them, and nothing but the impossibility of our traversing the space 'In his interesting Somnium Scipionis,' Cicero represents the second of the great Scipios beholding in a dream his celebrated grandfather Africanus, appearing to him among the stars, and conversing with him; such a vision excited his wish to join him: O pater sanctissime et optime! Why should I tarry on earth? Why may I not hasten to ascend up to you? It cannot be so,' answered he, until that God, whose temple is whatever you are beholding, shall liberate you from the confinement of your body; there is no avenue to this region open to you. Mankind are born under the law which keeps them in that central globe which is called the earth; but a soul has been given to them: cultivate, then, integrity and piety. That life is the way to heaven (via est in cœlum); and to the society of those who, having so lived in their body, when they become freed from it, will dwell in this place which you are contemplating.' Som. Scip. Cic. Op. v. ii. p. 151. |