proud man himself. And surely that must be a sorry guest in your own house, whom you would know to be a thief, wherever else you met him. A quality which you could not wish to be universal, is one that you can have no right to entertain yourself. This consideration stands in sufficient censure of that more innocent form of pride, which appears in the modification of vanity, which, while it does no good would do no harm to any bodybut would rather seek to conciliate by too great a humility and condescension, to "buy golden opinions of all sorts of men," with unworthinesses and littlenesses, which a proper pride would lay its embargo on, ere they appeared. It was therefore said with the strictest correctness of an eminent character, that " he was too proud to be vain." The vain man is a walking compliment to every man he meets; he may make himself ridiculous, but he is not unamiable. It would argue a greater fault to be too severe in censure, than any that our censure can impugn in the merely vain person. But the pride that walks our streets, has nothing of that character of condescension which justly conquers our resentment, and mitigates our censure. It is not amiable, it is not innocent, nor indicates the least wish or willingness that others should be happy; but to all the littleness and puerility of vanity it superadds the frightful features of a ferocious and savage disposition. These are your sulky, sullen, scowling fellows, your would-be masters, that think it dignity to fright the face of civilised life from its propriety, who cannot speak to a servant, in the remembrance of what we all are, no better than our servants, nor tɔ a stranger, but with a manner that indicates, that civility is very unnatural to them. These are your proud men indeed, pittifully, villainously proud. Tyrants abroad, you may be sure, are cowards and slaves at home. The airs that a man gives himself, always bespeak the kind of drilling that he has been used to, as he commands, so has he been commanded. The cur that snarls, where he may snarl, has been previously disciplined to lick the foot that kicks him. This sort of pride it is, (so exactly indicated by the essential humility and humbleness of heart and mind in which it originates,) which we see continually betraying its weak-hearted victims into those inordinate, greedy, and tyrannical graspings at the means of an unmerited ascendancy, and consequent intensity of disappointment in missing what they grasped at, that fills the world with tragedies of crime and horror, of which the fates are innocent. This is the pride, which a philosophical examination will identify as "the parent of each ruthless thought and lamentable deed," which spoils the anatomy of humanity's good nature, writes the ugly furrows of frowning arrogance in the countenance, stiffens the neck, weakens the knee; making the man at once unable to bow, but ready enough to kneel, the charácter so exquisitely satirized in one single line of Homer. Κυνος ομματ' εχων κραδίην δ' ελαφοιο. Ready to threaten, readier still to fear, So invariably will you find the tyrant's countenance allied to the coward's heart. And so, by its ever apparent alliance with the greatest humbleness of mind, with a promptitude to submit, and sneak, and quail, and cringe its turn; will you distinguish the pride which you ought not to have, the pride never enough to be abhorred and despised, in whomsoever found, from the pride which you ought to have; the pride that becomes a man, the pride from the excess of which there is no danger, and in the deficiency of which there is no safety. Tarquin was proud, and made every body about him, miserable. Cicero was proud, and all the world was the better for't. The pride of Tarquin you will perceive, proceeded from the want of a pride like that of Cicero. There is a noble consciousness of real merit, too great to be vain, too generous to be haughty, but that can and will maintain its dignity in all events of fortune, that values life itself, only as it can be held with honor, that fears not poverty, so it comes without dishonor. "One self-approving hour, whole years outweighs And more true joy Marcellus exiled feels, It is the want of this true pride of truly great, and of great minded men, that gives place to the pride of beggars, slaves, and felons in its stead, and makes men so desperately afraid of the mere possibility of being poor, that they forestall worse horrors in their own conceit, than poverty in any shape could bring on them, and make their pigeon-livered manhood, lack mettle to be honest. "Tis this want of the pride, that man's nature should never have been found without, that is the bane and curse of society, that sets-up, and keeps-up the power of old women, idiots, and babies, and forces the full grown manhood of the mind, as it were, to walk abroad in the worn-out frock and pin-a-fore, that were fitted for it in the nursery. Is it fitting? is it honourable? is it, or can it come to good? that men who know better, philosophers, scholars, reasoners, who can think and who might speak; should be for ever asking a baby's leave to go out and in, of the e papas and mammas of society? And that the astronomer and geologist should feel themselves obliged to cut and shape those noble sciences, like the No. 6. Vol. 4 N elephants, rhinoceroses, and mammoths. to the proper size for putting into Noah's ark, and leaving them to grow into the proper size of elephants, rhinoceroses, and mammoths again, after it's done raining? Shame on it. O shame! who is it that deserves to be trampled on but those who lay their necks in the mire? Who are they who are truly contemptible, and must feel themselves to be so, but they who truckle to a lie; who keep it up to impose on others without even the poor apology of being imposed on themselves, and who must say so, must seem so, must connive, and must be silent, that thieves and liars may reign and prosper. Surely sirs, if there be any pride in man worth gratifying, it is the pride that would disdain to truckle or compromise with guile; but would throw back life itself, if the condition of holding it must be, dissimulation. To carry up and down this haughty city a discontented spirit, that like the beaten cur would fain bark out, but dare not; and to hear the cries for Catholic emancipation without the courage to combine and make a generous effort for Protestant emancipation; for the liberty and right, not merely to shift the degrading yoke from one shoulder to the other, but to throw it off our backs and to trample it under our feet! Not to have this right, is to be slaves indeed; and "disguise thyself as thou wilt, still slavery, still thou art a bitter draught!" 'Tis the feeling of pride, itself, that I am anxious to awaken in your bosoms, that noble respect for your own individual rights, and that high confidence in your own virtue, which is more than a seven-fold shield against the possibility of committing mean and unworthy actions; the sure, the infallible inspiration of all that is great in purpose, all that is generous in sentiment, and all that is good in action. And to that noble pride in you, the pride of our society's summons, the coming up of your part and and share in the glorious struggle in which we are engaged. You know the rest. DELENDA EST CARTHAGO. EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. MR. EDITOR-It is very desirable that this question should be brought before the public in all possible ways, and repeatedly. Nothing is wanting to set truth on a firm basis, but public attention to public discussion. I wish, therefore, to urge for the consideration of your readers, what I consider the present state of the argument, and the solid, unrefuted objections to Christianity, which strike at its very foundation. I know the gross ignorance of the clergy generally. I know the incompetence of ninetynine out of every hundred of them to such a discussion. But there are some among them who know the common defences; and none among them can be ignorant of the extravagancies, the falsehoods, and the obscenities of the books they pretend to believe as the inspired word of God. If, when they see the objections of Christianity staring them in the face-exposed to the gaze of the public-calling on them to defend the system they preach-if, when they see and know the difficulties attending their doctrine, they pass them by as unworthy of their notice, they are either impudent and unprincipled swindlers, taking money under false pretences, and neglecting their most imperious duty, or they profess themselves unblushingly, the careless, hired, prostituted advocates of an indefensible imposture; and they get their living by the public profession of known falsehood, defended on their part, because it conforms to the prejudices which, from a misconducted education, their hearers have imbibed. It is a base and dishonest vocation thus to obtain ease and luxury; and a great majority of them know it. Is it not high time that the people who pay them, should know it too? This may be harsh language, but I do not acknowledge the claims set up by fraud and falsehood to be treated with respect. I propose in a series of short essays 1. To investigate the obvious, and common-sense rules for judging of human testin.ony; particularly the plain canons of criticism relating to the evidence of history. 2. To investigate the evidence on which Christianity exists, as founded on the passages in Pliny, Tacitus, and Suetonius: the forgeries in Josephus and Longinus have had their day. 3. To investigate whether there be any and what evidence for the authenticity of our present gospels over cotemporary and acknowledged forgeries. 4. To show the general character of the ancient fathers of the Christian church, on whose evidence, the authenticity of the four gospels now adopted, mainly rests. 5. To inquire how far that evidence is binding on the men of the present day. 6. To compare in a general way, the value of religion, with the evils that arise from the abuse of it: and to enquire whether religion be of any use whatever in a social community: and whether prayer, praise, and thanksgiving be not mere folly and absurdity, when addressed to what is called God, or the supreme being. This may take me at least half a dozen papers. I shall not pretend to novelty, for what new can be urged on such a subject at this day? But the clergy bring their cause, and their abuse of Infidelity forward every Sunday, in every place of worship throughout the whole land: it behoves their opponents, therefore, to be equally on the alert, and urgent with facts and arguments which the clergy are bound to reply to; and which they cunningly treat with apparent contempt, not because these facts and arguments are easily answered, but because these hired advocates of imposture know them to be unanswerable. I shall not, however, begin this series of essays in the present communication, because I want to transmit to you some passages that struck me with much force, and which I think I noted down from some one or other of the numbers of the " Republican.” I believe number 26 of vol. 13, page 820. I have been meditating on the general practice professed, adopted, and defended by the most learned among the Christian fathers, the practice known by the name of Economia-the practice of forging and lying for the purpose of promoting the common cause. We can fix this by direct evidence, on Origen, Jerom, Eusebius, Chrysostom: and so far as the citation of books as genuine, now known and acknowledged by all the orthodox to be forgeries, extends, we can fix it on almost every one of the drivellers of the second century-men whom Evanson very appropriately speaks of, as the ancient mothers, the old women of the church. Even Priestley, devoted as he was to his own scheme of Unitarian Christianity, could not help after Mosheim, lamenting this rogish propensity which is so manifest a blemish in the main props and pillars of the Christian edifice. See Disquisitions on Matter and Spirit, vol. 1, page 393, note: Mosheim's Dissertation, p. 247, 248. What credit is that man entitled to, who justifies and practices falsehood and forgery whenever it is likely to serve his purpose? This practice, however, is not without defence from scriptural example; as the following texts will show. To be sure the children of Israel were forbidden to bear false witness against their neighbour, that is against each other; examples of lying, justifying the practice from high authority, abound in the Christian Bible. Thus, 14 Numbers 30, 34. Doubtless ye shall not come into the land concerning which I swore to make you dwell therein, save Caleb, the son of Jephanneh, and Joshua, the son of Nun. ***After the number of the days in which ye searched the Jand, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years; and ye shall know my breach of promise. 1 Kings, ch. 22, v. 23. Now, therefore, behold the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee. 20 Jerem. 7. O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I am greatly deceived. 15 Jerem. 8. Wilt thou be altogether to me as a liar, as waters that fail? |