Essays, in a series of letters, on the following subjects: I. On a man's writing memoirs of himself. II. On decision of character. III. On the application of the epithet romantic. IV. On some of the causes by which evangelical religion has been rendered less acceptable to persons of cultivated taste

Front matter

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE

SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND

THE GIFT OF lieiirg W, Sage

Letter I

Afiectionate interest with which we revert to our paat life....It deserves a brief record for our own use.... Very few things to be noted of the multitudo that have occurred.... Direction and use of such a review as would be required for writing a Memoir.. ..Importance of our past life considered as the beginning of an endless duration of existence....General deficiency of self-observation....Oblivion of the greatest number of our past feelings.... Occasional glimpses of vivid recollection. ...Associations with things and places. ...The different and unknown associations of different persons with the eame places Page 1

Letter II

All past life an education. ...Discipline and influence from.. .direct instruction ...companionship. ..books.. .scenes of nature. ..and the state of society, p. lU

LETTER IIL Very powerful impressions sometimes from particular facta, tending to form discriminated characters.. ..Yet very few strongly discriminated and individual characters found....Most persons belong to general classes of charac[er....Immen8e number and diversity of impressions, of indefinitely various tendency, which the moral being has undergone in the course of life.... Might be expected that such a confusion of influences would not permit the formation of any settled character.,.. That such a character is, nevertheless, acquired and maintained, is owing to some one leading determination, given by whatever means, to the mind, generally in early life.. ..Common self-deceptive belief that we have maintained moral rectitude, and the exercise of sound reason, under the impressions that havo been formuig our characters p. 13

Letter IV

Most of the influences under which the characters of men are forming un favourable to wisdom, virtue, and happiness.. ..Proof of this if a number of persons, suppose a hundred, were to give a clear account of the circum. seances that have most effected the state of their minds. ...A few examples .„a misanthropist. „a lazy prejudiced thinker...a man fancying himself a genius. ..a projector. ..an antiquary in exces8...a petty tyrant p. 28

Letter V

An Atheist.. ..Slight sketch of the process by which a man in the humbler

order of abilities and attainments may become one p. 34

Letter VI

The influence of Religion counteracted by almost all other influences..^ Pensive reflections on the imperfect manifestation of the Supreme Being... on the inefl&cacy of the belief of such a being...on the strangeness of that inefficacy...and on the debasement and infelicity consequent on it.. ..Happiness of a devout man ., * P- 42

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Letter VII

Eelf-knowledge being supposed the prineipai object in writing the memoir, the train of exterior fortunes and actions will claim but a subordinate notice in it.. ..If it were intended for the amusement of the public, tho writer would do well to fill it rather with incident and action. ...Yet the mere mental history of some men would be interesting to reflecting readers ...of a man, for example, of a speculative disposition, who has passed through many changes of opinion. ...Influences that warp opinion.... Efiects of time and experience on the notions and feelings cherished in early life. ...Feelings of a sensible old man on viewing a picture of his own mind, drawn by himself when he was young. ...Failure of excellent designs; disappointment of sanguine hopes.... Degree of expIicltnesH required in the record. ...Conscience.. ..Impudence and canting false pretences of many writers of " confessions."...Rousseau p. 51

ESSAY II.

ON DECISION OF CHARACTBR.

LETTER J.

Examples of the distress and humiliation incident to an Irresolute mind..^ Such a mind cannot be said to belong to itself.. ..Manner in which a man of decisive spirit deliberates, and passes into action. ...Cssar... .Such a spirit prevents the fretting away, in harassing alternations of will, of the ani mated feelings required for sustaining the vigour of action. ...Averts im pertinent interference..., Acquires, if free from harshness of manner, an undisputed and beneficial ascendency over associates. ...Its last resource inflexible pertinacity. ...Instance in a man on a jury p. 67

LETTER II.

Brief inquiry into the constituents of thi» commanding quality.. ..Physical constitution.... Possibility, nevertheless, of a firm mind in a feeble body.... Confidence in aman's own judgment. ...This an uncommon distinction.... Picture of a man who wants it.. ..This confidence distinguished from obstinacy.. ..Partly founded on experience.. ..Takes a high tone of independence in devising schemes.. ..Distressing dilemmas p. 77

LETTER III.

Energy of feeling as necessary as confidence of opinion. ...Conduct that results from their combination. ...Effect and value of a ruling passion.... Great decision of character invests even wicked beings with something which we are tempted to admire.... Satan. ...Zanga.... A Spanish assassin.... Remarkable example of this quality in a man who was a prodigal and became poor, but turned miser and became rich.... Howard. ...Whitefield.... Christian missionaries p. 86

LETTER IV.

Courage a chief constituent of the character.. ..Eflect of this in encountering censure and ridicule.... Almagro, Pizarro, and De Luques.... Defiance of danger.. ..Luther.. ..Daniel.... Another indispensable requisite to decision is the full agreement of all the powers of the mind.. ..Lady Macbeth..., Richard II I.... Cromwell. .« A father who had the opportunity of saving one of two sons from deatli...H<».. H...p. 95

CONTENTS. Xlll

LETTER V.

formidable power of mischief which this high quality givea to bad men..M Care required to prevent its rendering good men unconciliating and overbearing. ...Independence and overruling manner ia consultation. ...Lord Chatham. ...Decision of character not incompatible with sensibility and mild manners.... But probably the majority of the most eminent examples of it deficient in the lender affections. ...King of Prussia.... Situations in which it may be an absolute duty to act in opposition to the promptings of those affections p. 104

LETTER VI.

Circumstances tending to consolidate this Character.. ..Opposition....Desertion. ...Marius ...Satan. ...Charles de Moor. ...Success has the same tenrlency.,,, Caesar.. ..Habit of associating with inferiors. ...Voluntary means of forming or coniorming this character.. ..The acquisition of perfect knowledge in the department in which we are to act.. ..The cultivation of a connected and conclusive manner of reasoning. ...The resolute commencement of action, in a manner to commit ourselves irretrievably.. ..Ledyard. ...The choice of a dignified order of concerns.. ..The approbation of conscience.. ..Yet melancholy to consider how many of the most distinguished possessors of the quality have been wicked , p. Ill

ESSAY III.

ON THE APPLICATION OP THE EPITHET ROMANTIC.

LETTER L Great convenience of having a number of words that will answer the purposes of ridicule or reprobation without having any precise meaning.. ..Puritan. ...Methodist.... Jacobin. ...The word Romantic of the greatest service to persons, who, wanting to show their scorn, have not wherewithal in the way of sense or wit. ...Whenever this epithet is applied, 'ot the exact meaning be demanded.. ..Does it attribute, to what it is applied to, the kind of absurdity prevalent in the works called Romances?. ..That absurdity was from the predominance, in various modes, of imagination over judgment.. ..Mental character of the early Romance writers. ...Opposite cha racter of Cervantes. ...Delightful, delusive, and mischievous operation of a predominant imagination. ...Yet desirable, for several reasons, that the imagination should have this ascendency in early life p. 127

LETTER II.

One of the modes of this ascendency justly called Romantic, is, the unfounded persuasion of something peculiar and extraordinary in a person's destiny ...This vain expectation may be relative to great talent and achievement, or to great felicity.. ..Things ardently anticipated which not only cannot be attained, but would be Tinadapted to the nature and condition of man if they could... .A person that hoped to out-do rather than imitate Gregory Lopez, the hermit. ...Absurd expectations of parents.. ..Utopian anticipations of philosophers.. ..Practical absurdity of the age of chivalry.. ..The extravagant and exclusive passion for what is grand p. 140

LETTER in.

The epithet applicable to hopes and projects inconsistent with the known relations between ends and means. ...Reckoning on happy casualties.... Musing on instances of good luck.. ..Novels go more than half the length of the older Romance in promoting this pernicious tendency of the mind. ...Specimen of what they do in this way. ...Fancy magnifies the smaHoEt

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means into an apparent competence to the greatest ends.. ..This deliwivo calculation apt to be admitted in schemes of benevolence,. ..Projects for civilrzing savage nations.... Extravagant expectations of the efficacy of direct instruction, in the lessons of education, and in preaching.. ..Reformers apt to overrate the power of means. ...The fancy abou* tne omnipotence of truth. ...Our expectations ought to be limited by what we actually see and know of human nature.... Estimate of that nature. ...Prevalence of passion and appetite against conviction p. ISO

LETTER IV.

Christianity the grand appointed mean of reforming the world.. ..But though the religion itself be a communication from heaven, the administration of it by human agents is to be considered as a merely human mean, excepting 80 far as a special divine energy is made to accompany it.. ..Its comparatively small success proves in what an extremely limited measure that energy, as yet, accompanies It.... Impotence of man to do what it leaves undone.... Irrational to expect from its progressive administration a measure of success indefinitely surpassing the present state of its operations, till we see some signs of a great change in the Divine Government of the world. ...Folly of projects to reform mankind which disclaim Religion. ...Nothing in human nature to meet and give effect to the schemes and expedients of the moral revolutionist.. ..Wretched state of that nature. ...Sample of the absurd estimates of its condition by the irr&iigious menders of society p. 166

LETTER V.

Melancholy reflections.... No consolation amidst the mysterious economy but in an assurance that an infinitely good Being presides, and will at length open out a new moral world.. ..Yet many moral projectors are solicitous to keep their schemes for the amendment of the world clear of any reference to the Almighty. ...Even good men are guilty of placing too much dependence on subordinate powers and agents.. ..The representations in this Essay not intended to depreciate to nothing the worth and use of the whole stock of means, but to reduce them, and the effects to be expected from them, to a sober estimate.. ..A humble thing to be a man. ...Inculcation of devout submission, and diligence, and prayer.. ..Sublime quality and indefinite efficacy of this last, as a mean. ...Conclusion; briefly marking out a few general characters of sentiment and action to which, though very uncommon, the epithet Romantic is unjustly applied p. 175

ESSAY IV.

ON SOME OP TFFE CAUSES RV WHICH EVANGELICAL RELIGION HAS BEKN RENDERED UNACCEPTABLE TO PERSONS OF CULTIVATED TA6TE.

Letter I

Nature of the displacency vnch which some of the most peculiar features of Christianity apo regarded by naiy cultivated men, who do not deny or aoubt the divine authority -.1 the religion. ...Brief notice ..r the terra Evangelical „p. 188

LETTER ir.

One of the causes of the displacency is, that Christianity, being the religion of a great number of persons of weak and uncultivated minds, presents its doctrines to the view of men of taste associated with the characteristics of those minds ; and though some parts of the religion instantaneously redeem themselves from that association by their philosophic dignity, other farts may require a considerable elTort to detarh them from it.,.. This easilj

CONTENTS, XV

done if the men of taate were powerfully pre-occupied and affected by the religion.. ..Reflections of one of them in this case.... But the men of taste DOW in question are not in this case.... Several specific causes of injurious impression, from this association of evangelical doctrines and sentiments with the intellectual littleness of the persons entertaining them....TheiT deficiency and dislike of all strictly intellectual exercise on religion.... Their reducing the whole of religion to one or two favourite notions, and continually dwelling on them,. ..The perfect indifference of some of them to general knowledge, even when not destitute of means of acquiring it ; and the consequent voluntary and contented poverty of their religious ideas and language. ...Their admiration of things in a literary sense utterly bad..,. Their complacency in their deficiencies... .Their injudicious habits and ceremonies.... Their unfortunate metaphors and 8imiie3....^uggetttion to religious teachers, that they should not run to its last pos^alble extent tl><3 parallel between the pleasures of piety, and those of eating and drinking. ...Mischief of such practices. ...Effect of the ungracious collision between uncultivated seniors and a young person of literary and philosophic taste. ...Expostulation with this intellectual young person, on the folly and guilt of suffering his mind to take the impression of evangelical religion from any thing which he knows to be inferior to that religion itself, as exhibited by the New Testament, and by the most elevated of its disciples p. 199

Letter III

Another cause, the Peculiarity of Language adopted in religioua discourse and writing.. ..Classical standard of language... .The theological deviation from it barbarous. ...Surprise and perplexity of a sensible heathen foreigner who, having learnt our language according to its best standard alone, should be introduced to hear a public evangelical discourse.. ..Distinctive characters of this Theological Dialect. ..Reasons against employing it.. ..Competence of our language to express all religious ideas without the aid of this uncouth neculiarity.... Advantages that would attend the use of the language of mere general intelligence, with the addition of an extremely small number of words that may be considered as necessary technical terms in theology p. 218

LETTER ir.

Answer to,the plea, in behalf of the dialect in question, that it is formed from the language of the Bible.. ..Description of the manner in which it is so formed.... This way of employing biblical language very different from simple quotation. ...Grace and utility with which brief forms of words, whether sentences or single phrases, may be introduced ^om the Bible, if they are brought in as pure pieces and particles of the sacred composition, get in our own composition as something distinct from it and foreign to it. ...But the biblical phraseology in the Theological Dialect, instead of thus appearing in distinct bright points and gems, is modified and mixed up throughout the whole consistence of the diction, so as at once to lose its own venerable character, and to give a pervading uncouthness, without dignity, to the whole composition.. ..Let the scripture language be quoted often, but not degraded into a barbarous compound phraseology.... Even if it were advisable to construct the language of theological instruction in some kind of resemblance to that of the Bible, it would not follow that it should be constructed in imitation of the phraseology of an antique version.. ..License to very old theologians to retain In a great degree this paculiar dialect.... Young ones recommended to learn to employ in religion the language in which cultivated men talk and write on general subjects. ...The vast mass of writing in a comprehensive literary sense bad, on the subjects of evangelical theology, one grpat cause of the distaste felt by men of intellectual refinement.... Several kinds of this bad writing specified p. 239

Letter V

A grand cause of displacenry encountered by evangelical religion among men

of taste is, that the great school in which that taste is formed, that of

jjolite literature, taken in the widest sense of the phrase, is hostile to that

Ain CONTENTS.

rell^on.... Modern literature intended principa"y to be ani mad verted on..M Brief notice of the ancient. ...Heathen theology, metaphysics, and morality. ...Harmleasness of the two former; deceptiveness of the last.. ..But the chief influence is from so much of the history as may be called Biography, and from the Poetry. ...Homer.. ..Manner in which the interest he excites is hostile to the spirit of the Christian religion. ...Virgil p. 254

Letter VI

lucan.... Influence of the moral sublimity of his heroes. ...Plutarch. ...The Historians. ...Antichristian effect of admiring the moral greatness of the eminent heathens. ...Points of essential diflference between excellence according to Christian principles, and the most elevated excellence of the Heathens. ...An unqualified complacency in the latter produces an alienation of affection and admiration from the former „ p. 269

Letter VII

When a communication, declaring the true theory of both religion and morals, was admitted as coming from heaven, it was reasonable to expect that, from the time of this revelation to the end of the world, all by whom it was so admitted would be religiously careful to maintain, in whatever they taught on subjects within its cognizance, a systematic and punctilious conformity to its principles.... Absurdity, impiety, and pernicious effect, of disregarding this sovereign claim to conformity.. ..The greatest number of our tine writers have incurred this guilt, and done this mischief.. ..They are antichristian, in the first place, by omission ; they exclude from their moral sentiments the modifying interference of the Christian principles.... Extended illustration of the fact, and of its cooaequences p. 281