Declaration of the Objects of the Liverpool Society for ORIGINAL LETTERS FROM EMINENT PERSONS. exhibit an abstraction of mind, an alienation from sensual pursuits, and a fortitude in suffering, which, while they move our pity, do not deserve contempt. The Yogee, who, under the superstitions of Brahmû, leaves the world behind, and, sitting on the sacred grass in the exercise of his devotion for the purification of his soul, seeks to be absorbed into the divine essence, and exclaims, "When shall I be delivered from this world, and obtain God?" exhibits a lesson of devotedness which might put to the blush the worldly-mindedness, and total absorption in earthly pursuits, of the professors of a religion, which, while it invites to communion with heaven, restrains of earth nothing but its impurities, and permits us still to enjoy all that yet remains below of Eden. The devotee, who suspends himself with an iron hook through his back under a vertical sun, or throws himself under the car of the idol Juggernaut, displays a firmness of resolve, and a disdain of bodily suffering, which, under other circumstances, would entitle him to be hailed as the patriot, or venerated as the martyr. Superstition appears but as the excess of a principle in our nature, without which, there is nothing great in art, nothing transcendent in genius; without which, reason is torpid, and imagination tame; without which, devotion is languid, and prayer heartless;-Enthusiasm. Superstition is but that mighty principle, whose powerful energy, in this world, subjects all organized matter to its plastic hand, and rules the powers of mind, darting to another, and attempting to level heavenly influences to earthly feelings. Superstition is enthusiasm pushed to excess. It may also be denominated the knight-errantry of religion: it impels to inconceivable exploits and impossible adventures. The superstition which hurled the western world on Palestine during the crusades, exhibited deeds in arms which the bravest knight in chivalry would be proud to own. The excoriated hand of our Richard Cœur de Lion, is an instance of fierce, untameable, heroic warfare, impelled and sustained by superstition, which cannot be surpassed in Grecian or Roman story. It was superstition which nerved the arm of the Christians, and sustained their courage, in the fierce conflict which expelled the infidels from the Holy Land. It was superstition, which, for a moment, subdued their ferocious spirits, and led them to cast away their weapons, and, prostrate on the ground, with tears of penitence, to bedew the soil hallowed as the scene of the Saviour's sufferings: but, it was bigotry which afterwards deluged the Holy City with blood, and gave age and infancy, the unarmed and the helpless, to undistinguishing massacre. When *Howell tells us, that in composing his prayers, some were written in his own blood, and makes it a theme of thanksgiving to Almighty God, that he was able to pray to him every day in the week in several languages, and on Sundays in seven,-we smile at the superstition: but when he says, he could be content to see an Anabaptist go to hell on a Brownist's back, we mark and we detest the bigot. 66 It must, however, be confessed, that superstition has its gloom. In a morbid constitution, or melancholy temperament, it sees 'more devils than vast hell can hold,”-it riots in horrors,-it clouds the face of nature,—it turns the sun into darkness, and the moon into blood. Still, superstition is isolated, it torments but itself; and is frequently united to lofty and generous purpose, and to an amiable benevolence. The gay traveller, whose bosom beats high to see the world, and who views solitude as death, in crossing the Alps laughs at the gloomy ascetics of Mount St. Bernard: but should he, by their benevolent exertions, be dug from under the snow, or rescued from the falling avalanche, he will reverence their establishment, and bless their superstition. Superstition is like the summer rainbow, which, with our runic ancestors, we fancy a bridge to bear us from earth to heaven, but, on our approach, find it to be unsubstantial and evanescent. In relation to society, it may be compared to the electric coruscations of the arctic regions, occasionally exciting surprise and wonder, but transient, erratic, and harmless. Sometimes it is the dull sullen mephitic vapour which creeps along the morass, paralyzing motion and extinguishing life, but cannot harm the man who walks erect with his face towards heaven. Bigotry is an insult to heaven, and treason against human nature. Bigotry has also its knight-errantry: it is the chivalrous attempt to bend mind to matter to bind impalpable essences to grasp what is without limit-to confine what is incompressible. In contemplating mind in its dark and unapproachable recesses, which the scrutiny of man can never enter, it might appear wonderful that attempts should ever have been made to coerce it. Disdaining and repelling foreign intrusion, it cannot be controlled by the individual himself. The will cannot compel the judgment. No effort, no sophistry, no hopes of advan* Epistolæ Hoelianæ, 1688. tage, nor dread of suffering, can induce the conviction that a square is a circle, or that black is white; however the man may ally all the passions of his nature, and bendall the powers of his will, to entertain the belief. Happy had it been for mankind, had bigots studied more accurately the nature and structure of mind. Rivers of tears, and oceans of blood, which now stain the map of history, would never have met our view. Under the dread of bodily suffering, the recreant hand may sign the recantation, and the hesitating tongue repeat the confession or the creed; but mind, elastic mind, laughs at the ruffian violence, expatiates with keener delight on the reveries the tongue has been compelled to disavow, and revels in regions into which the eye of the inquisitor cannot penetrate. It may be thought that bigotry is a necessary consequence of superstition, and that they are always conjoined; but if we examine some of the leading religions in the world, we shall find superstition abounding in a very high degree, with little of bigotry; and, a religion with few superstitions, but its leading feature bigotry: again, coming nearer home, we shall find superstition and bigotry very closely allied. The religion of the Hindûs is one continued chain of superstitions. Scarcely a step in life, from the cradle to the grave, but is marked by ritual observances and superstitious rites. Their severe prohibitions respecting food, utensils, and intercourse with strangers; their fearful penances; their impure festivals; the exposure of children, and the immolation of widows-exhibit a people in the lowest state of mental degradation by a debasing superstition; yet it does not appear that they have been zealous to enforce their rites on others, or to march through the world with a banner inscribed, "The religion of Brahmû, or extirpation!" The Mohammedans, on the other hand, with few superstitions, consisting chiefly in ablutions and prostrations, the fast of Ramadan, and the pilgrimage to Mecca, have yet desolated the earth, to extend their religion; and their triumphant march in every quarter of the old world has been marked by expatriation, extermination, or slavery, to all who would not acknowledge the prophet of Mecca to be the apostle of God. In the Catholic religion, the superstitions are many, and too well known to require repetition; and the bigotry of that church stands marked in the page of history, by the scourge and the fetter, the dungeon and the stake. On taking a view of the various sects of the reformed religion, we shall have to lament, that while they cast away every vestige of superstition, yet a spirit of bigotry and intolerance but too frequently obscured the benign and liberal principles of that Gospel which they professed to follow. The Puritans of different denominations, who, in the reign of Charles I. opposing the superstitious ceremonies of the established church, expatriated themselves to the new world for religious freedom and the rights of conscience, no sooner arrived in New England, than they became furious zealots, and persecuted each other to confiscation, imprisonment, and even to death, for the maintenance of doctrinal points, which, the more they receded by their magnitude or subtlety from the grasp of human apprehension, were maintained and asserted with the greater pertinacity. A lamentable instance of the spirit of bigotry, neither originating in, nor supported by, superstition. However superstition may excite our pity, bigotry can never be viewed but with unmitigated horror. If superstition debases the mind, bigotry brutifies it. Superstition is an intense individual feeling, and mostly terminates there: bigotry is also intensity of feeling, but it is not content unless all around attain its height, or sink to its level: like the fabled bed of Procrustes, the high and daring are maimed and mutilated to come within its dimensions, and the weak and timid tortured and stretched to reach its standard. Superstition seeks to mount to heaven by crawling on the earth, or attempts to ascend on waxen pinions: bigotry draws his narrow circle, and bars the magnificence of heaven to all who will not enter it and repeat his incantations. Superstition is busy in chasing the scintillations, when it should kindle the fire: bigotry kindles the fire, but it is to scorch and consume. Superstition is an ignis fatuus which may lead to briars, and brakes, and swamps, but, not pursued, is harmless: bigotry is the Mount Hecla of the polar regions; all around is frigidity, sterility, darkness, and desolation, and within, a consuming fire, L. Declaration of the Objects of the Liverpool Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, 25th March, 1823. Drawn up by WILLIAM ROSCOE, Esq. THE present age is remarkable beyond any that has preceded it, for the rapid and surprising improvement which has taken place in the moral character and disposition of mankind, by which they have been enabled to take new |