The Sin of Scoffing at Religion 2

Next Part The Sin of Scoffing at Religion 3

How often the social circle is the scene of this unhallowed sport, and the entertainment of the mirthful party is heightened by profane ridicule. Religion, like her divine Author, when he was led into Pilate's hall to be a laughing stock to the Roman soldiers, is introduced only to furnish merriment for the company. One calls her an impostor, practicing her arts on the credulity of mankind; another holds up the vices of her 'false disciples' as chargeable upon her; a third tells a ludicrous anecdote of one of her sincere and honorable votaries—thus derided by all, with no one to speak on her behalf, she stands, like the Man of Sorrows, the silent object of derision, the swearer's jest, the drunkard's song, yet still majestic and dignified amidst surrounding scorn. How much of tavern and alehouse mirth is derived from this impious source. What a supply of merriment would be cut off from the sons of Belial if religion and all the subjects connected with it were suddenly, by some mysterious power operating upon their minds, either forgotten or dreaded by them.

Infatuated and miserable men! Can you find nothing less sacred than this to give a relish to your wine? Will nothing less poisonous serve for infusion into your cups? Has the social circle no charms or power to please unless the scoffer be there? Has wit no pungency, genius no brilliancy, satire no sting, irony no point, humor no pleasantry, jesting no spirit—except scoffing at religion be practiced? Must the voice of the scorner rouse the slumbering genius of mirth, and is all flat and insipid until his perverted fancy yield the salt? Is it not enough that you can be drunkards and swearers—but you must be calumniators also? and will nothing less serve as the objects of your scandal than piety and the pious?

This is, indeed, being in haste to be wicked. You are the very men of whom the prophet speaks, "Woe unto those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope! Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil—that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink. Therefore as fire devours the stubble, and the flame consumes the chaff, so their root shall be rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as the dust; because they have cast away the law of the Lord Almighty, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel."

How saturated with the sin of scoffing at religion are many of the publications, and much of the periodical literature of the present day. How frequently is every moral and spiritual sensibility of the religious mind offended in the course of its reading by some irreverent allusion, profane remark, contemptuous taunt, or unholy witticism connected with religion. Authors and editors, who should know how to cater to the public, pay to the taste of their readers the wretched compliment of supposing that the readiest way to work themselves into favor, is to furnish entertainment founded on distorted views of religion. Popular novelists have attempted to give a charm to their tales by exhibiting piety in union with the extravagances and uncouth phraseology of religionists of the seventeenth century—and metrical writers, taking up the buffoonery of Butler, have endeavored by exaggerating the excesses of injudicious zeal, to perpetuate prejudice against the sincere, though indiscreet piety with which they were associated.

To use the words of an eloquent writer, in reference to the present times, "The dragon has cast forth from his mouth such a flood of heresy and mischief, that Egypt, in the worst of her plagues, was not covered with more loathsome abominations. Creatures which we did not suspect to have existed, have come forth from their retreats, some soaring into the regions of impiety on vigorous pinions, others crawling on the earth, with a slow and sluggish motion, only to be tracked through the filthy slime of their impurities. We have seen writers of every order, from the mighty Polyphemuses of the north, to the contemptible dwarfs, men of every party, infidels, churchmen, and dissenters, a motley crew, who have no one thing in common, except their antipathy to religion, join hands and hearts on the occasion—a deadly taint of impiety has blended them into one common mass, as things the most discordant while they are living substances, do very well to putrefy together. We are not at all alarmed at this extensive combination; it will no doubt do much present and partial mischief—but it will be ultimately productive of much general and permanent good.

Mankind will not be long at a loss to determine where the truth lies, when they see on one hand a visible fear of God, a constant appeal to his oracles, a solicitude to promote the salvation of mankind; and on the other, an indecent levity, an unbridled insolence, an unblushing falsehood, a hard, unfeeling pride, together with a manifest aim to render the Scriptures of no authority, and religion of no effect." (Strictures on "Zeal without Innovation," by Mr. Hall.)

Oh, who can reflect without unutterable anguish upon the dreadful prostitution of those stupendous talents, which have lately been withdrawn forever from the world. Alas! that an individual who for his genius was worthy to be associated with Spenser and Milton, should for his infidelity be classed with Voltaire, and Hume, and Paine. That man cannot have one spark of mind who is not willing to confess the transcendent powers of Byron, nor can he have one spark of piety who does not deplore the mischief which those powers have effected in the world of morals.

If to pay homage to talents be one of the proofs and noblest exercises of an intellectual nature, it is no less incumbent on a moral agent to worship at the shrine of virtue. While therefore we admire the intellectual beauties of this unequaled author, let us not forget that they were associated with moral deformities no less disgusting and appalling. If splendid talents alone are to be the objects of unmingled admiration, not only when they are destitute of piety and morality—but even when employed against them, who shall measure or limit the raptures with which we should applaud the genius of Satan.

"I regard talents with too sincere an admiration, I love poetry with a devotion too enthusiastic, wantonly to impeach the one or the other—but there are things of higher moment than talents, of dearer concern than poetry. The authority of revelation, the sanctity of religion, the interests of morality, the purity of love, the chastity of woman, the sacredness of honor, and the glow of patriotism, are all of paramount consideration. Society may flourish and be refined without poetic genius—but it cannot exist without virtue, nor be happy without religion; and when poetic genius arms itself against the body politic, and wages war with the human family, I am determined for one, to make common cause with my country, with my species." (See an admirable Sermon just published by Dr. Styles, on the character of Lord Byron's Works, which I most cordially recommend to the perusal of all the admirers of this great but most dangerous poet.)

Byron was the inveterate enemy of Christianity—sometimes opposing it by the most blasphemous metaphysical speculations, which like dark thunder clouds, darted their flashes against its deathless interests; while at others, he exposed it to the ridicule of witlings and the mirth of fools, in all the malignity of scorn and derision.

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