University of Virginia Library

LETTER XIII.

Dear Charles,—Theoretically, I have ever believed in a
special providence. The denial of such proceeds from very
dishonorable views of God, and tends to practical atheism.

For years past, however, my belief has been confirmed by
experience and observation.

Special providences are not, however, so plain as to obviate
the necessity of faith, for that would manifestly be injurious,
by begetting self-confidence and presumption; but
to the modest and humble, such providences are plain enough
to preserve in their souls joyous hope and filial trust, and to
inspirit them to watchfulness and prayer. I could, if you
cared to know them, give a few incidents that to myself are
corroborative of this position; but we shall not enter further
into the subject at present.

Charles, you seem curious to know how we contrive to
become intimate with the medical folks; well, I will tell
you. One of our rules, (and we have several,) has ever
been this: “Go every where; see every thing; get acquainted
with all sorts, classes and conditions of men; mingle
freely with your fellows; never let official dignity and that
sort of consequence be a barrier to a rational intercourse
with the world.' Hence, reverend sir, we have contrived—
with some slight damage, perhaps, to the high polish and
solemn grandeur of dignity—we have yet contrived to mingle
pretty freely with black men and with men of black;
with men of law and with lawless men; with the curative
fraternity and with some that do not cure at all; with people
that are professors of all things and with some that profess
nothing: in short, as far as our limits allowed, we are a kind
of cosmopolite, and yet, as we would fain hope, not a worldly
man.

It may be useful to your little people to know, that very
early in life the desire which led to my forming the rule was
awakened by the story of the two schoolboys that spent a
half-holiday in precisely the same circumstances, but with
this difference in themselves: the one kept his eyes shut, the
other open. If, therefore, Mr. C. may, in imitation of the
great Roman orator, speak of his attainments, capabilities,
and the like, as being something worth naming, they are due
in very great measure to that little story; and children's
books do often produce—hem!—great results.

And, if we mistake not, our reverend friend himself must
have certain rules not unlike our own. Did he not once
travel in a stage-coach, and without his clerical regimentals,

and there so warmly and eloquently and successfully advocate
religion and morals as to be mistaken for a pious lawyer?
And did he not occasionally hear and see a thing or
two not usually said and done before the officially religious,
but which, to the surprise and may be edification of fellow-travellers,
were so corrected and rebuked as to make it felt
that truth had been offended and not a parson?

But apropos of doctors—permit me to introduce one, of
whom the Faculty are not ashamed; a man among men,
whom this guarded praise even will make blush: my intimate
friend and bosom companion, Doctor Winterton. To
him, Charles, you owe the incidents in my former letters,
where we talked so irreverently of mesmerism and other
quackeries; and those stories are true, strictly and literally,
except that names and places are made to conceal persons.
Indeed, my friend's store is apparently exhaustless; and could
I tell his histories on paper as he tells them orally, why then I
do believe the world would have another book. Perhaps, if we
send them to you in our letters, you may try a hand at the
art and mystery of enlightening and enlivening the world—
hey? And now, I think, some incidents in the doctor's life
will illustrate our position and opinion about special providence,
and we shall give you one or two hereafter.

Alas! poor Shrub! and yet I am so far provoked as to
say he deserves to be anagrammatized and written—Brush.
If the fine gold there have not become dim, the fragrance, at
least, of his good name is gone, and we have instead, only
the crackling of the dry wood. Charles, I mean not to defend,
in the general, what is called light reading, but had
our dear friend dealt more in that kind of writing and literature,
and less in theological writing, his mind would have
escaped a species of monomania—philosophizing about religion.
Nor could any light reading that he would have
written, have done harm to the extent of his philosophical
writings—nay, Shrub could have written only what was useful.
Few men equal him—none excel him—in delightful
conversation: easy, fluent, spicy, sprightly, playful, serious,
religious, yes, spiritual. And what immense stores of
knowledge! And what style and diction! Why, Charles,
our friend could, like the Scotch reviewer, have written a
whole magazine himself: critiques, heavy articles, light articles,

histories, tales, poetry, prose—all himself. And that
would have made him, what he is not, a man of the world,
and enlarged his organ (he loves phrenologies) of common-sentive-ness,
and destroyed the bigness of his other organ,
gummabilitiveness. He would have stood at the head of the
review and magazine world, instead away down ever so far
in the theological.

Let us subject to philosophical processes all natural
things, and our own minds, as far as they are natural; but
spiritual things, and our own minds, wrought upon by a spiritual
agent, may not, without arrogance and danger, be subjects
of philosophy. Here faith and obedience are reason;
and the main and essential principles require no philosophy
either to discover or elucidate them. It may sometimes be
unavoidable, but even then, it is to me, Charles, an alarming
necessity to speak of the intellect and will of God in a manner
analogous to our own. Not only is there a vain philosophy,
such as the apostle names, but a philosophy, true in some of
its uses, becomes vain and often impious when applied to
heavenly things.

Who by searching can find out the Almighty further than
he is revealed in his word? And why should Christians
know in this age, except by faith, other than Christians in
primitive times? By faith then was it known that the worlds
were made; are we now, in the nineteenth century, to know
that fact in a different way?

Men, indeed, affect to philosophize about the manner
only, and not the facts themselves. But is not the manner a
fact as mysterious and incomprehensible as the other facts?
And how very soon do we come, first to doubt and then to
deny facts, unless such may have happened, or shall happen,
in our manner? If a knowledge of modes were essential to
salvation, philosophy would be duty, and industry here be rewarded
with success; but if facts, and without inquiry, are
to be admitted and believed as the rule of life, then concern
about modes is vain, impious, and pernicious.

To me, Charles, it seems wise as well as reverent, to believe
that God made the worlds. And if he says it was only
so many centuries ago, that I will believe, although geology
might seem to affirm otherwise. If, indeed, the Scriptures
allow a variety in interpreting the five chapters of Genesis,

very well: but if that be inadmissible, geological facts must
be explained on some hypothesis that shall not contradict the
Bible. And so, if it be true that our mortal bodies are to be
raised, a simple belief of that fact is all that is required, and
I may not, and I will not disturb my mind as to the manner;
nor, if the manner revealed shall seem to contradict our philosophy,
will I laboriously bend revealed fact there to what
we call reason. The resurrection is not to be judged by
natural philosophy at all; it is to be subjected to no tests
whatever; it is simply to be believed. If, indeed, we are
asked to admit what is manifestly absurd, and plainly contradictory
to our senses, we may, and must reject such a
matter; but, in regard to the common and popular doctrine
of the origin of the world and the resurrection of the body,
no such absurdity and contradiction exist. The resurrection
of the same identical body after the lapse of many ages,
may contradict all human philosophies, and yet be true; or
rather it is a fact beyond the range of human sciences, and
neither contradicts nor agrees with our known laws and
rules. It is a law and rule, and, if we may so speak, a philosophy
and science by and of itself. At all events, I feel
myself safer with the multitude here, than with the few sagacious
men, who have had visions, and dreams, and imaginary
revelations; and I shall, with God's grace, go down into
the grave believing that I shall rise again, with a new and
spiritual body, and yet so like the present as to be properly
and truly the same.

Charles, I pardon your sneer about my infallibility, especially
as you, a “grave and reverend seigneur,” indulge
in that pretty philippic about Fourierism. It seems that folks
not infallible, may yet on fitting occasions have a very virtuous
indignation towards fools or infidels. But, sir, I have
yet to learn that one may not laugh at what is intrinsically absurd,
and speak indignantly at manifest wickedness, without
being maliciously ranked among the popes. Know, my
friend, that a very wide difference lies between ridiculing
what is true and proper, and setting in its true and proper
light what is intrinsically false and ridiculous. That ridicule
is not always a test of truth, and that it may be improperly
applied, we admit: but it is a legitimate and valuable
weapon with which to attack follies of a certain character.

When we set folly and absurdity in a true light, we do not
ridicule, but we merely place a matter where it ridicules itself.
And he that can fairly set a ridiculous and wicked
thing in such true light and faithful attitude, does virtue and
goodness a valuable service. All argumentation is only to
reduce things to few and obvious principles, and much argumentation
is to reduce things to an absurdity (the reductio ad
absurdum of the logician); but if we set a wicked and silly
thing where it is seen through without argumentation, we
act both logically and religiously; and we also save time.

But look to it, neighbor; the nice ears and delicate taste
of folks now-a-days would be greatly shocked and disgusted
to hear you say “dirt age;” perhaps as much so as others
would be to see the real vileness, and hear the infidel chuckle
of the solemn jackasses who go the whole hog (yes, hog it
is) in the Fourier conspiracy against religion and virtue.

Many folks are too refined to use or hear vulgar words,
that see and do very vulgar things; and these will ever object
to your decrying or opposing vice, unless it be done
tastefully! Of such, sir, beware! for should you read my
letters to your friends, I shall do the ditto in here, and here
we have some very nice people.