God, whom we Christians worship in our churches, and turned over to the miserable blindness of Heathen destiny: not to mention the insult and profanation with which Heathen idols are brought into a Christian temple. In the same church, the baptistery or font is removed almost out of sight; and when found, has a very mean and unworthy appearance, as if it were intended for some other use: so natural is it for those improvements which exalt Heathenism to debase Christianity. How conspicuous are all the temples of the Heathen idols in the famous gardens of Stowe in Buckinghamshire; while the parish church, which happens to stand within the precincts, is industriously shrouded behind ever-greens and other trees, as an object impertinent, or at least of no importance to a spectator of modern taste. (In our rural ornaments we have temples to all the Pagan divinities; and in the city a Pantheon, wherein there is a general assembly of the sons and daughters of pleasure, under the auspices of Heathen dæ mons'. a The author of these Reflexions hath lived to see it destroyed by fire. This taste is not only profane and corrupting whenever it takes place, but the productions. of it are sometimes monstrously absurd and incongruous: it begets a certain inattention to propriety, which admits of false and shocking associations, consistent neither with goodness of taste, nor correctness of judgment. When I see the figure of a cock upon the top of a steeple, I am reminded of that sacred bird who was a monitor to St. Peter, and through his example is now giving a daily lesson to all believers. When I see the globe and cross on the top of St. Paul's, I rejoice in the exaltation of him who was humbled for our sakes, but is now the head of all principality and power to the church and to the world; and I feel a secret satisfaction in reflecting, that a cross so exalted has no reproach in it, as if the offence of it were ceased. But when I see the dragon upon Bow-steeple, I can only wonder how an em blem so expressive of the devil, and frequently introduced as such into the temples of idolaters, found its way to the summit of a Christian edifice. I am so jealons in these matters, that I must confess myself to have been much hurt by a like impropriety in a well well-known music-room, where there is an organ consecrated by a superscription to Apollo, although the praises of Jehovah are generally celebrated by it once every month in the choral performances: and it seems rather hard that Jehovah should condescend to be a borrower, while Apollo is the proprietor. In all the sciences the tokens of this Pagan infection are very observable. observable. In politics we hear of nothing but Brutus, and are stunned with the heroism of rebels, and the virtue of regicides. In morality, how venerable are the characters of Socrates, and Cato the suicide while the Spartan virtue is become the grand object of patriotic emulation; though I am sure it would make a shocking figure if the moral character of that commonwealth were impartially represented on the authority of Plutarch. Botany, which in ancient times was full of the blessed Virgin Mary, and had many religious memorials affixed to it, is now as full of the Heathen Venus, the Mary of our modern virtuosi. Amongst the ancient names of plants, we find the Calceolus Mariæ, Carduus Mariæ, Carduus benedictus, our Lady's Slipper, our Lady's Thistle, our Lady's Mantle, the Alchymilla, &c. but modern improvements VOL. III. FF provements have introduced the Speculum Veneris, Labrum Veneris, Venus's Lookingglass, Venus's Basin (the Dipsacus), Venus's Navel-wort, Venus's Fly-trap, and such-like: and whereas the ancient botanists took a pleasure in honouring the memory of the Christian saints with their St. John's wort, St. Peter's wort, herb Gerard, herb Christopher, and many others; the modern ones, more affected to their own honour, have dedicated several newly-discovered genera of plants to one another; of which the Hottonia, the Sibthorpia, are instances, with others so numerous and familiar to men of science, that they need not be specified. But in poetry, the servility of Christians is most notorious of all. Here they follow as implicitly as if the Heathen Muses had deprived them of their wits. If any machinery is to be introduced, it must all be according to the Heathen model, by a law as invariable as that of the Medes and Persians. But it should be considered, that when an Heathen poet made use of his divine machinery, he only spoke as he believed, introducing such powers into his verse as he professed to worship in prose. After he had been offering sacrifices in the temple of Minerva, it was natural natural for him to bring her in to the assistance of his hero: but when a Christian moralist does the same, proposing a pattern of virtue on the Heathen plan for the purposes of education, he goes out of his way, to adopt what he knows to be as absurd in itself as it is contrary to his profession. If there is a natural opposition between truth and falsehood, we are now as irrational in betraying a partiality to the profane objects of Heathenism, as the Heathens themselves would have been, had they shewn the like regard to the sacred objects of the Bible; only with this difference, that they would have taken up what was better than their own, whereas we incline to that which is worse: their choice would have brought them nearer to God; ours brings us nearer to the. Devil. How strange would it have been, if while their temples were dedicated to Venus, Mars, and Bacchus, their gardens had been adorned with statues of Moses and Aaron, the walls of their houses painted with the destruction of Sodom, the overthrow of Pharaoh, the delivery of the two tables on Mount Sinai, and such like subjects of sacred history! Who would not have inferred in such a case, that their temples were frequented out of form, while their inclinations FF 2 |