No More Learning

Count Frederic Stolberg, a man of great
respectability, both from his character and
his talents, celebrated from his youth as a
poet, as a passionate admirer of antiquity,
and as a translator of Homer, was the first
in Germany to set the example of these new
conversions, and he has had some imitators.
The most illustrious friends of the Count
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? CATHOLICISM.
Stolberg, Klopstock, Voss, and Jacobi, sepa-
rated themselves from him in consequence of
this action, which seemed to disavow the
misfortunes and the struggles which the re-
formed have endured during three centuries;
nevertheless, M. de Stolberg has lately pub-
lished a History of the Religion of Jesus
Christ, which is calculated to merit the ap-
probation of all Christian communities. It is
the first time that we have seen the Catholic
opinions defended in this manner; and if
Count Stolberg had not been educated as a
Protestant, perhaps he would nothavehad that
independence of mind which enables him to
make an impression upon enlightened men.
We find in this book a perfect knowledge of
the Holy Scriptures, and very interesting re-
searches into the different religions of Asia,
which bear relation to Christianity. The
Germans of the North, even when they sub-
mit to the most positive doctrines, know
how to give them the stamp of their philo-
sophy.
Count Stolberg, in his publication, attri. j
buted to the Old Testament a much greater
importance than Protestant writers in general
assign to it. I consider sacrifices as the basis
of all religion; and the death. of Abel as the
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? 308 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
first type of that sacrifice which forms the
groundwork of Christianity. In whatever
way we decide upon this opinion, it affords
much room for thought. The greater part
of ancient religions instituted human sacri-
fices; but in this barbarity there was some-
thing remarkable, namely, the necessity
of a solemn expiation. Nothing, in effect,
can obliterate from the soul the idea, that
there is a mysterious efficacy in the blood of
the innocent, and that heaven and earth are
moved by it. Men have always believed
that the just could obtain, in this life or the
other, the pardon of the guilty. There are
some primitive' ideas in the human species
which re-appear with more or less disfigure-
ment, in all times, and among all nations.
These are the ideas upon which we cannot
grow weary of reflecting; for they assuredly
preserve some traces of the lost dignities of
our nature.
The persuasion, that the prayers and the
self-devotion of the just can save the guilty,
is doubtless derived from the feelings that
we experience in the relations of life; but
nothing obliges us, in respect to religious
belief, to reject these inferences. What do
we know better than our feelings? and why
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? CATHOLICISM. 3Q9
should we pretend that they are inapplicable
to the truths of religion? What can there be
in man but himself, and why, under the
pretext of anthropomorphism, hinder him
from forming an image of the Deity after
his own soul? No other messenger, I think,
can bring him news from heaven.
Count Stolberg endeavours to show, that
the tradition of the fall of man has existed
among all the nations of the earth, and par-
ticularly in the East; and that all men have
in their hearts the remembrance of a happi-
ness of which they have been deprived. In
effect, there are in the human mind two
tendencies as distinct as gravitation and at-
traction in the natural world; these are the
ideas of decay, and of advance to perfection.
One should say, that we feel at once a regret
for the loss of some excellent qualities which
were gratuitously conferred upon us, and a
hope of some advantages which we may
acquire by our own efforts; in such a manner,
that the doctrine of perfectibility, and that of
the golden age, united and confounded, excite
at the same time in man grief for having lost
these blessings, and emulation to recover
them. The sentiment is melancholy, and
the spirit is daring; and from this reverie
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? 310 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
and this energy together, springs the true
superiority of man; that mixture of contem-
plation and of activity, of resignation and of
will, which allows him to connect his worldly
existence with heaven.
Stolberg calls those persons alone Christians
who receive the words of the Holy Scrip-
tures with the simplicity of children; but he
bestows upon the signification of these
words a philosophical spirit which takes
away all their dogmatism and intolerance
from the Catholic opinions. In what then
do they differ, these religious men by whom
Germany is honoured, and why should the
names of Catholic and Protestant divide
them? Why should they be unfaithful to
the tombs of their ancestors, by giving up
these names,or by resuming them? Has not
Klopstock consecrated his whole life to the
purpose of making a fine poem the temple
of the Gospel? Is not Herder, as well as
Stolberg, the adorer of the Bible? Does he
not penetrate into all the beauties of the
primitive language, aud of those senti-
ments of celestial origin which it expresses?
Jacobi --does he not recogniselhe Divinity in
ah the great thoughts of man? Would any
of these men recommend religion merely a*
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? CATHOLICISM.
311
a restraint upon the people, as an instrument
of public safety, as an additional guarantee
in the contracts of this world? Do they not
all know that every superior mind has more
need of piety than the common herd? For
the labour ordained by the authority of
society may occupy and direct the working
class in all the moments of life, whilst idle
men are incessantly the prey of the passions
and the sophistries that disturb existence,
and put every thing into uncertainty.
It has been pretended that it was a sort of
frivolity in the German writers to represent
as one of the merits of the Christian religion,
the favourable influence that it exercised
over the arts, imagination, and poetry: and
the same reproach, with respect to this
point, has been cast upon that beautiful
work of M. de Chateaubriant, the Genius of
Christianity. The truly frivolous minds are
those which take rapid glances for profound
examinations, and persuade themselves that
we can proceed with nature upon an exclu-
sive principle, and suppress the greater part
of the desires and wants of the soul. One
of the great proofs of the divinity of the
Christian religion is its perfect analogy with
all our moral faculties; at least it does not
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? 312 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
appear to me that we can consider the poetry
of Christianity under the same aspect as the
poetry of Paganism.
As every thing was external in the Pagan
worship, the pomp of images was there
prodigally exhibited; the sanctuary of Chris-
tianity being at the bottom of the heart, the
poetry which it inspires must always flow
from tenderness. It is not the splendour of
the Christian heaven that we can oppose to
Olympus, but grief and innocence, old age
and death, which assume a character of ex-
altation and of repose, under the shelter of
those religious hopes, whose wings are spread
over the miseries of life. It is not then true,
it appears to me, that the Protestant religion
is unprovided with poetry, because the ritual
of its worship has less eclat than that of the
Catholics. Ceremonies, better or worse, per-
formed according to the richness of towns,
and the magnificence of buildings, cannot be
the principal cause of the impression which
divine service produces; its connexion with
our internal feelings is that which touches
us, a connexion which can subsist in sim-
plicity as well as in pomp.
Some time ago I was present at a church
in the country, deprived of all ornament;
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? CATHOLICISM. 313
ho picture adorned its white walls; it was
newly built, and no remembrance of a long
antiquity rendered it venerable: music itself,
which the most austere saints have placed in
heaven as the employment of the happy,
was hardly heard ; and the psalms were sung
by voices without harmony, which the la-
bour of the world, and the weight of years,
rendered hoarse and confused: but in the
midst of this rustic assembly, where all hu-
man splendour was deficient, one saw a
pious man, whose heart was profoundly
moved by the mission which he fulfilled *.
His looks, his physiognomy, might serve for
a model to some of the pictures with which
other temples are adorned ; his accents made
the responses to an angelic concert. There
was before us a mortal creature convinced of
our immortality ; of that of our friends whom
we have lost; of that of our children, who
will survive us by so little in the career of
time! and the convincing persuasion of a
pure heart appeared a new revelation.
He descended from his pulpit to give the
communion to the faithful, who live under
the shelter of his example. His son was
with him, a minister of the church; and,
* Mr. Celerier, preacher of Celigny, near Geneva.
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? 314 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
with more youthful features, his countenance
also, like that of his father, had a pious and
thoughtful expression. Then, according to
custom, the father and the son gave each
other the bread and wine, which, among
Protestants, serve for the commemoration
of the most affecting of mysteries. The son
only saw in his father a pastor more ad-
vanced than himself in the religious state
that he had chosen to adopt; the father re-
spected in his son the holy calling he had
embraced. They mutually addressed each
other, as they took the Sacrament, in those
passages of the Gospel which are calculated
to unite in one bond strangers and friends;
and, both feeling in their hearts the same
inward impulses, they appeared to forget
their personal relations in the presence of the
Divinity, before whom fathers and sons are
alike servants of the tombs, and children of
hope.
What poetical effect, what emotion, the
source of all poetry, could be wanting to the
divine service at such a moment!
Men, whose affections are disinterested,
and their thoughts religious; men who live
in the sanctuary of their conscience, and
know how to concentrate in it, as in a burn-
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? CATHOLICISM.
315
ing-glass, all the rays of the universe; these
men, I say, are the priests of the religion of
the soul; and nothing ought ever to disunite
them. An abyss separates those who conduct
themselves according to calculation, and
those who are guided by feeling. All other
differences of opinion are nothing; this alone
is radical. It is possible that one day a cry
of union may be raised, and that all Chris-
tians may aspire to profess the same theolo-
gical, political, and moral religion; but be-
fore this miracle is accomplished, all men
who have a heart, and who obey it, ought
mutually to respect each other.
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? 316 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
CHAPTER V.
Of the religious Disposition called Mysticism.
The religious disposition called Mysticism,
is only a more inward manner of feeling and
of conceiving Christianity. As in the word
Mysticism is comprehended that of Mystery,
it has been believed that the Mystics pro-
fessed extraordinary doctrines, and formed a
separate sect. There are no mysteries among
them, but the mysteries of sentiment applied
to religion; and sentiment is at once the
clearest, the most simple, and the most in-
explicable of things: it is necessary, at the
same time, to distinguish the Theosophuts,
that is to say, those who are busied with phi-
losophical theology, such as Jacob Boehmen,
St. Martin, &c. from the simple Mystics;
the former wish to penetrate the secret
of the creation; the second confine them-
selves to their own hearts. Many fathers
of the Church, Thomas-a-Kempis, Fenelon,
St. Francois-de-Sales, &c. ; and among the
Protestants a great number of English and
German writers, have been Mystics; that
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? MYSTICISM.
317
is to say, men who have made religion a sort
of affection, and have infused it into all their
thoughts, as well as all their actions.
The religious feeling, which is the foun-
dation of the whole doctrine of the Mvstics,
consists in an internal peace full of life. The
agitations of the passions leave no calm; the
tranquillity of a dry and moderate under-
standing destroys the animation of the soul;
it is only in religious feeling that we find a
perfect union of repose and motion. This
disposition is not continual, I think, iri any
man, however pious he may be; but the re-
membrance and the hope of these holy emo-
tions decide the conduct of those who have
experienced them. If we consider the pains
and the pleasures of life as the effect of
chance, or of a well-played game, then de-
spair and joy ought to be (if we may use the
expression) convulsive motions. For what a
chance is that which disposes of our existence!
what pride, or what respect, ought we not
to feel, when we have been considering a
mode of action which may influence our
destiny? To what torments of uncertainty
must we not be delivered up, if our reason
alone disposed of our fate in this world? But
if we believe, on the contrary, that there are
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? 318 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
but two things important to happiness,
purity of intention, and resignation to the
event, whatever it may be, when it no longer
depends upon ourselves; doubtless many cir-
cumstances will still make us cruelly suffer,
but none will break our ties to Heaven. To
struggle against the impossible, is that which
begets in us the most bitter feelings; and
the anger of Satan is nothing else than liberty
quarrelling with necessity, and unable either
to subdue or to submit to it.
The ruling opinion among the mystical
Christians is this, that the only homage which
can please God is that of the will, which he
gave to man: what more disinterested of-
fering can we, in effect, offer to the Divinity?
Worship, incense, hymns, have almost always
for their object the attainment of the good
things of this world; and it is on this account
that worldly flattery surrounds monarchs:
but to resign ourselves to the will of God, to
wish nothing but that which he wishes, is
the most pure religious act of which the
soul is capable. Thrice is man summoned
to yield this resignation; in youth, in man-
hood, and in age: happy are they who sub-
mit at first!
It is pride in every thing which puts the
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? MYSTICISM. 319
venom into the wound: the rebellious soul
accuses Heaven; the religious man suffers
grief to act upon him as the intention of Him
who sent it; he makes use of all the means
in his power to avoid or to console it; but
when the event is irrevocable, the sacred
characters of the supreme will are imprinted
there.
What accidental malady can be compared
to age and death?
And yet almost all men
resign themselves to age and death, because
they have no defence against them: whence
then does it arise that every one revolts
against particular misfortunes, when all ac-
quiesce in universal evil? It is because we
treat destiny as a government which we allow
to make all the world suffer, provided that
it grants no privileges to any one. The mis-
fortunes that we endure in company with
our fellows are as severe, and cause as much
misery, as our individual sufferings; and yet
they hardly ever excite in us the same re-
bellious feeling. Why do not men teach
themselves that they ought to support that
which concerns them personally, as they
support the condition of humanity in general?
It is because we fancy there is injustice in
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? 320 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
our particular allotment. --Singular pride of
man! to wish to judge the Deity with that
instrument which he has received from him!
What does he know of the feelings of an-
other? What does he know of himself? What
does he know at all, except his internal
feeling? And this feeling, the more inward
it is, the more it contains the secret of our
felicity; for is it not in the bottom of our soul
that we feel happiness or unhappiness? Re-
ligious love, or self-love, alone penetrates to
the source of our most hidden thoughts.
Under the name of religious love are included
all the disinterested affections; and under
that of self-love all egotistical propensities:
in whatever manner fortune may favour or
thwart us, it is always the ascendancy of one
of these affections over the other, upon
which calm enjoyment, or uneasy disquiet,
depends.
It is to be wanting entirely in respect for
Providence, as it appears to me, to suppose
ourselves a prey to those phantoms which
we call events: their reality consists in their
effect upon the soul; and there is a perfect
equality between all situations and all cir-
cumstances, not viewed externally, but
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? MYSTICISM. " 321
judged according to their influence upon re-
ligious improvement. If each of us would
attentively examine the texture of his life,
we should find there two tissues perfectly
distinct: the one which appears entirely sub-
ject to natural causes and effects; the other,
whose mysterious tendency is not intelligible
except by dint of time. It is like a suit of
tapestry hangings, whose figures are worked
in on the wrong side, until, being put in,
a proper position, we can judge of their
effect. We end by perceiving, even in this
life, why we have suffered; why we have
not obtained what we desired. The me-
lioration of our own hearts reveals to us the
benevolent intention which subjected us to
pain; for the prosperities of the earth them-
selves would have something dreadful about
them, if they fell upon us after we had been
guilty of great faults: we should then think
ourselves abandoned by the hand of Him,
who delivered us up to happiness here below,
as to our sole futurity.
Either every thing is chance, or there is
no such thing in the world; and, if there is
not, religious feeling consists in making our-
selves harmonize with the universal order, in
spite of that spirit of rebellion and of usurpa-
vol. Hi. y
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? 322 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
tion with which selfishness inspires each of
us individually. All doctrines, and all modes
of worship, are the different forms which
this religious feeling has assumed according
to times and countries; it may be depraved
by fear, although it is built upon confident
hope; but it always consists in the convic-
tion, that there is nothing accidental in the
events of life, and that our sole manner of
influencing our fate lies in our internal com-
merce with ourselves. Reason is not the less
operative in all that relates to the conduct of
life; but when this housekeeper of existence
has managed matters as well as it can, the
bottom of our heart is after all the seat of
love; and that which is called Mysticism, is
this love in its most perfect purity.
The elevation of the soul towards its
Creator is the supreme act of worship among
the Christian Mystics; but they do not ad-
dress the Deity to pray for this or that
worldly advantage. A French writer, who
has some sublimely bright passages, M. de
Saint-Martin, has said, that prayer was the
breathing of the soul. The Mystics are, for
the most part, convinced, that an answer is
given to this prayer; and that the grand re-
velation of Christianity may be in some de-
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? MYSTICISM.
S2S
gree renewed in the soul, every timethat it
exalts itself with fervour towards Heaven.
When we believe that there no longer exists
any immediate communication between the
Supreme Being and man, prayer is only a
monologue, if we may be allowed the ex-
pression; but it becomes an act much more
beneficial, when we are persuaded that the
Divinity makes himself sensibly felt at the
bottom of our hearts. In fact, it does not
appear to me possible to deny, that there are
emotions within us which do not, in the
least, take their origin from external things,
and which soothe and support us without
the possibility of our attributing them to
the ordinary concatenation of the events of
life.
Men who have introduced self-love into a
doctrine entirely founded on the renunciation
of self-love, have taken advantage of these
unexpected instances of. divine support,. to
deceive themselves with illusions of every de-
scription: they have fancied that they were
elect persons, or prophets; they have be-
lieved in visions; in a word, they have
become superstitious in looking at them-
selves. What must not be the power
of human pride, when it insinuates itself
y2
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? 324 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
into the heart, under the very shape of hu-
mility! But it is not the less true, that
there is nothing more simple and more pure
than the connexions of the soul with the
Deity, such as they are conceived by those
whom it is the custom to call Mystics; that
is to say, the Christians who introduce love
into religion.
In reading the spiritual works of Fenelon,
who is not softened? where can we find so
much knowledge, consolation, indulgence?
There no fanaticism, no austerities but those
of virtue, no intolerance, no exclusion ap-
pear. The differences of Christian commu-
nities cannot be felt at that height which is
above all the accidental forms created and
destroyed by time.
He would be very rash, assuredly, who was
to hazard foreseeing any thing relating to such
important matters: nevertheless, I will ven-
ture to say, that every thing tends to establish
the triumph of religious feeling in the soul.
Calculation has gained such an empire over
the affairs of the world, that those who do
not embrace it are naturally thrown into the
opposite extreme. It is for this reason that
solitary thinkers, from one end of the world
to the other, endeavour to. assemble in one
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? MYSTICISM.
325
focus the scattered rays of literature, philo-
sophy, and religion.
It is generally feared that the doctrine of
religious resignation, called Quietism in the
last ages, will disgust us with the necessary
activity of this life. But nature takes care
to raise individual passions in us sufficiently
to prevent our entertaining much fears of the
sentiment that is to tranquillize them.
We neither dispose of our birth, nor of
our death; and more than three fourths 01
our destiny is decided by these two events.
No one can change the primitive effects of his
nativity, of his country, of his period, &c. No
one can acquire the shape or the genius that
he has not gained from nature; and of how
many more commanding circumstances still
is not life composed? If our fate consists of
a hundred different lots, there are ninety-
nine which do not depend upon ourselves;
and all the fury of our will turns upon the
weak portion which yet seems to be in our
favour. Now the action of the will itself
upon this weak portion is singular! }' incom-
plete. The only act of liberty of the man
who always attains his end, is the fulfilment
of duty: the issue of all other resolutions
depends entirely upon accidents, over whick
Lot
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? 326 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
prudence itself has no command. The
greater part of mankind does not obtain
that which it vehemently wishes; and pro-
sperity itself, when it comes, often comes
from an unexpected quarter.
The doctrine of Mysticism passes for a se-
vere doctrine, because it enjoins us to dis-
card selfishness, and this with reason appears
very difficult to be done. But, in fact,
Mysticism is the gentlest of all doctrines; it
consists in this proverb, make a virtue of ne-
cessity. Making a virtue of necessity, in the
religious sense, is to attribute to Providence
the government of the world, and to find
an inward consolation in this thought. The
Mystic writers exact nothing beyond the line
of duty, such as honest men have marked
it out; they do not enjoin us to create
troubles for ourselves; they think that man
ought neither to invite affliction, nor be im-
patient under it when it arrives. What evil
then can result from this belief, which unites
the calm of stoicism with the sensibility of
Christians ? " It prevents us from loving/'
some one may say. Ah! it is not religious
exaltation which chills the soul: a single in-
terest of vanity has done more to annihilate
the affections than any kind of austere opi-
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? MYSTICISM. 327
nion: even the deserts of the Thebaic! do
not weaken the power of sentiment; and
nothing prevents us from loving but the mi-
sery of the heart.
A very weighty inconvenience is falsely
attributed to Mysticism. It has been said
that it renders us too indulgent in relation to
actions, by referring religion to the internal
impressions of the soul; and that it induces
men to resign themselves to their defects as
to inevitable events. Nothing, assuredly,
would be more contrary to the Gospel than
this manner of interpreting submission to
the will of God. If we admitted that re-
ligious feeling, in any respect, dispensed with
action, there would not only result from this
a crowd of hypocrites, who pretended that
we must not judge them by the vulgar proofs
of religion, which are called works, and
that their secret communications with the
Deity are of an order greatly superior to the
fulfilment of duties; but there would be also
hypocrites with themselves, and we should
destroy in this mariner the power of remorse.
In fact, who has not some moments of re-
ligious tenderness, however limited his ima-
gination may be? Who has not sometimes
prayed with fervour? And if this was suf-
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? 328 RELIGFON AND ENTHUSIASM.
ficient for us to be released from the strict
observance of duty, the greater part of poets
might fancy themselves more religious than
St. Vincent de Paul.
But the Mystics have been wrongfully
accused of this manner of thinking. Their
writings and their lives attest, that they are
as regular in their moral conduct as those
who are subjected to the practices of the
most severe mode of worship: that which is
called indulgence in them, is the penetration
which makes us analyse the nature of man,
instead of confining ourselves to the injunc-
tion of obedience. The Mystics, always
considering the bottom of the heart, have
the air of pardoning its mistakes, because
they study the causes of them.
The Mystics, and almost all Christians,
have been frequently accused of a tendency
towards passive obedience to authority, what-
ever It may be; and it has been pretended,
that submission to the will of God, ill under-
stood, leads a little too often to submission
to the will of man. Nothing, however, is
less like condescension to power than reli-
gious resignation. Without doubt it may
console us in slavery, but it is because it then
gives to the soul all the virtues of indepen-
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? MYSTICISM. 329
dence. To be indifferent by religion to the
liberty or the oppression of mankind, would
be to mistake weakness of character for
Christian humility, and no two things are
more different. Christian humility bends
before the poor and the unhappy; and weak-
ness of character always keeps well with
guilt, because it is powerful in the world.
In the times of chivalry, when Christianity
had more ascendancy, it never demanded the
sacrifice of honour; but, for citizens, justice
and liberty are also honour. God confounds
human pride, but not the dignity of the
human race; for thi3 pride consists in the
opinion we have of ourselves; and this dig-
nity in our respect for the rights of others.
Religious men have an inclination not to
meddle with the affairs of this world, without
being compelled to do so by some manifest
duty; and it must be confessed, that so many
passions are excited by political interests,
that it is rare to mix in politics without
having to reproach ourselves with any wrong
action: but when the courage of conscience
is called forth, there is nothing which can
contend with it.
Of all nations, that which has the greatest
inclination to Mysticism is the German. Be-
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? 330 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
fore Luther, many authors, among whom we
must cite Tauler, had written upon religion
in this sense. Since Luther, the Moravians
have shown this disposition more than any
other sect. Towards the end of the eigh-
teenth century, Lavater combated with great
strength the system of rational Christianity,
which the theologians of Berlin had sup-
ported; and his manner of feeling religion
is, in many respects, completely like that of
Fenelon. Several lyric poets, from Klop-
stock down to our days, have a taint of
Mysticism in their compositions. The Pro-
testant religion, which reigns in the North,
does not satisfy the imagination of the Ger-
mans; and Catholicism being opposed by its
nature to philosophical researches, the reli-
gious and thinking among the Germans were
necessarily obliged to have recourse to a
method of feeling religion, which might be
applied to every form of worship. Besides,
idealism in philosophy has much analogy
with Mysticism in religion; the one places
all the reality of things in this world in
thought, and the other all the reality of
things in heaven in feeling.
The Mystics penetrate, with an incon-
ceivable sagacity, into every thing which
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? MYSTICISM.
gives birth in the human mind to fear or
hope, to suffering or to happiness; and no
sect ascends as they do to the origin of emo-
tions in the soul. There is so much interest
in this sort of inquiry, that even those who
are otherwise of moderate understanding
enough, when they have the least mystical
inclination in their hearts, attract and cap-
tivate by their conversation, as if they were
endowed with transcendent genius. That
which makes society so subject to ennui, is,
that the greater portion of those with whom
we live, talk only of external objects; and
upon this class of things the Want of the
spirit of conversation is very perceptible.
But religious Mysticism includes so extensive
a knowledge, that it gives a decided moral
superiority to those who have not received
it from nature: they apply themselves to the
study of the human heart, which is the first
of sciences, and give themselves as much
trouble to understand the passions, that they
may lull them to rest, as the men of the
world do to turn them to advantage.
Without doubt, great faults may still ap-
pear in the character of those whose doc-
trine is the most pure: but is it to their
doctrine that we should refer them? W<<
?