In this work, the lady asserts her pantheistical doctrine, and openly attacks the received Christian creed.She declares it to be useless now, and unfitted to the exigencies and the degree of culture of the actual world; and, though it would be hardly worth while to combat her opinions in due form, it is, at least, worth while to notice them, not merely from the extraordinary eloquence and genius of the woman herself, but because they express the opinions of a great number of people besides: for she not only produces her own thoughts, but imitates those of others very eagerly; and one finds in her writings so much similarity with others, or, in others, so much resemblance to her, that the book before us may pass for the expression of the sentiments of a certain French party.
"Dieu est mort," says another writer of the same class, and of great genius too.--"Dieu est mort," writes Mr.Henry Heine, speaking of the Christian God; and he adds, in a daring figure of speech;--"N'entendez-vous pas sonner la Clochette?--on porte les sacremens a un Dieu qui se meurt!" Another of the pantheist poetical philosophers, Mr.Edgar Quinet, has a poem, in which Christ and the Virgin Mary are made to die similarly, and the former is classed with Prometheus.This book of "Spiridion" is a continuation of the theme, and perhaps you will listen to some of the author's expositions of it.
It must be confessed that the controversialists of the present day have an eminent advantage over their predecessors in the days of folios; it required some learning then to write a book, and some time, at least--for the very labor of writing out a thousand such vast pages would demand a considerable period.But now, in the age of duodecimos, the system is reformed altogether: a male or female controversialist draws upon his imagination, and not his learning;makes a story instead of an argument, and, in the course of 150pages (where the preacher has it all his own way) will prove or disprove you anything.And, to our shame be it said, we Protestants have set the example of this kind of proselytism--those detestable mixtures of truth, lies, false sentiment, false reasoning, bad grammar, correct and genuine philanthropy and piety--I mean our religious tracts, which any woman or man, be he ever so silly, can take upon himself to write, and sell for a penny, as if religious instruction were the easiest thing in the world.We, Isay, have set the example in this kind of composition, and all the sects of the earth will, doubtless, speedily follow it.I can point you out blasphemies in famous pious tracts that are as dreadful as those above mentioned; but this is no place for such discussions, and we had better return to Madame Sand.As Mrs.
Sherwood expounds, by means of many touching histories and anecdotes of little boys and girls, her notions of church history, church catechi**, church doctrine;--as the author of "Father Clement, a Roman Catholic Story," demolishes the stately structure of eighteen centuries, the mighty and beautiful Roman Catholic faith, in whose bosom repose so many saints and sages,--by the means of a three-and-sixpenny duodecimo volume, which tumbles over the vast fabric, as David's pebble-stone did Goliath;--as, again, the Roman Catholic author of "Geraldine" falls foul of Luther and Calvin, and drowns the awful echoes of their tremendous protest by the sounds of her little half-crown trumpet: in like manner, by means of pretty sentimental tales, and cheap apologues, Mrs.Sand proclaims HER truth--that we need a new Messiah, and that the Christian religion is no more! O awful, awful name of God! Light unbearable! Mystery unfathomable! Vastness immeasurable!--Who are these who come forward to explain the mystery, and gaze unblinking into the depths of the light, and measure the immeasurable vastness to a hair? O name, that God's people of old did fear to utter! Olight, that God's prophet would have perished had he seen! Who are these that are now so familiar with it?--Women, truly; for the most part weak women--weak in intellect, weak mayhap in spelling and grammar, but marvellously strong in faith:--women, who step down to the people with stately step and voice of authority, and deliver their twopenny tablets, as if there were some Divine authority for the wretched nonsense recorded there!
With regard to the spelling and grammar, our Parisian Pythoness stands, in the goodly fellowship, remarkable.Her style is a noble, and, as far as a foreigner can judge, a strange tongue, beautifully rich and pure.She has a very exuberant imagination, and, with it, a very chaste style of expression.She never scarcely indulges in declamation, as other modern prophets do, and yet her sentences are exquisitely melodious and full.She seldom runs a thought to death (after the manner of some prophets, who, when they catch a little one, toy with it until they kill it), but she leaves you at the end of one of her brief, rich, melancholy sentences, with plenty of food for future cogitation.I can't express to you the charm of them; they seem to me like the sound of country bells--provoking I don't know what vein of musing and meditation, and falling sweetly and sadly on the ear.
