Theism Doctrinal and Practical, or, Didactic Religious Utterances. By Francis W. Newman |
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Modern Polytheism.
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Modern Polytheism.
Pantheism and Polytheism are twin sisters,
Born from dreamy Poetry and unmoral Philosophy;
And as is their parents', such is their moral temperament,
Ever verging to the immoral, and void of stability.
Even under monotheistic creeds, in minds poetic or mystical,
No sooner does morality become corrupt or confused,
Than Polytheism or Pantheism will presently reappear.
So has the Christian creed, cumbered by saint-worship,
Degenerated for ages into a new Polytheism.
So also again may the germ of the same thing be seen,
When men think to commune with the spirits of the dead;
As the great historical critic, who, in his second wife's travail,
Implored the spirit of his first wife to soften her pains.
Such communing leads everywhere headlong into prayer:
The prayer is idolatrous, and a real polytheism,
That dulls religion's energy and makes its depths shallow,
Harmful therefore to morals and offensive to piety.
Born from dreamy Poetry and unmoral Philosophy;
And as is their parents', such is their moral temperament,
Ever verging to the immoral, and void of stability.
Even under monotheistic creeds, in minds poetic or mystical,
No sooner does morality become corrupt or confused,
Than Polytheism or Pantheism will presently reappear.
So has the Christian creed, cumbered by saint-worship,
Degenerated for ages into a new Polytheism.
So also again may the germ of the same thing be seen,
When men think to commune with the spirits of the dead;
As the great historical critic, who, in his second wife's travail,
Implored the spirit of his first wife to soften her pains.
Such communing leads everywhere headlong into prayer:
The prayer is idolatrous, and a real polytheism,
That dulls religion's energy and makes its depths shallow,
Harmful therefore to morals and offensive to piety.
He who ascribes to the deceased a power so divine,
That they can be present at pleasure, roaming through the universe,
And can hear words addressed to them, by day or by night;
Has so overstept the limits of sober reason,
That he knows not what other high power he may not attribute.
Hence he fancies, “Perhaps they may be able to fulfil my wishes:
If I may make entreaty to my living friend, why not to my deceased?
Be he in the body or out of the body, my request is but request.”—
But requests which are made to a power unknown, unseen,
Secret, everywhere present, whose limits are undefinable,
Are really Prayer raised to an inferior god.
And why should any man pray to such a being,
Rather than to the highest and purest, the one true God?
Why? but because God's sympathy is doubted,
While the sympathy of the human god is regarded sure.—
When once such a belief is established in the heart,
For one prayer raised to God ten rise to the dæmon,
Who must soon carry off superior affection,
Crushing true religion under baneful idolatry.
Just so did Apollo, Diana, Venus or Hercules,
Mercury or Æsculapius, undermine the worship of Jupiter;
And heroes in turn intercept those other gods' honour.
Just so, in the Christian creed, which professed but One God,
Did Polytheism rise,—yea, and a Queen of heaven,
And angels and spirits of the dead were idolized,
And many a saint with fictitious history,
And many a picture, multiplying one Mary into many.
That they can be present at pleasure, roaming through the universe,
And can hear words addressed to them, by day or by night;
Has so overstept the limits of sober reason,
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Hence he fancies, “Perhaps they may be able to fulfil my wishes:
If I may make entreaty to my living friend, why not to my deceased?
Be he in the body or out of the body, my request is but request.”—
But requests which are made to a power unknown, unseen,
Secret, everywhere present, whose limits are undefinable,
Are really Prayer raised to an inferior god.
And why should any man pray to such a being,
Rather than to the highest and purest, the one true God?
Why? but because God's sympathy is doubted,
While the sympathy of the human god is regarded sure.—
When once such a belief is established in the heart,
For one prayer raised to God ten rise to the dæmon,
Who must soon carry off superior affection,
Crushing true religion under baneful idolatry.
Just so did Apollo, Diana, Venus or Hercules,
Mercury or Æsculapius, undermine the worship of Jupiter;
And heroes in turn intercept those other gods' honour.
Just so, in the Christian creed, which professed but One God,
Did Polytheism rise,—yea, and a Queen of heaven,
And angels and spirits of the dead were idolized,
And many a saint with fictitious history,
And many a picture, multiplying one Mary into many.
To God most high, most just, most holy,
No man dares to raise petitions frivolous or wrongful;
But a Greek would beseech Artemis to help his murderous raid,
And a Knight Templar implore the Virgin to prosper his adultery.
Prayer is corrupted, thanksgiving is intercepted,
Adoration of the Holiest vanishes from the heart,
When communion with lower gods drives out Divine Religion:
And into this will all Dæmonism gravitate unfailingly.
No man dares to raise petitions frivolous or wrongful;
But a Greek would beseech Artemis to help his murderous raid,
And a Knight Templar implore the Virgin to prosper his adultery.
Prayer is corrupted, thanksgiving is intercepted,
Adoration of the Holiest vanishes from the heart,
When communion with lower gods drives out Divine Religion:
And into this will all Dæmonism gravitate unfailingly.
Where are the spirits of the departed, we can neither know nor guess.
But, if they exist in blessedness, all analogy strongly urges
That God lays on them duties, (an essential of happiness,)
Whereby their agency is restrained to ends well defined,
With limits of space and of time, as befits finite creatures.
Is it not absurd and childish, to imagine that the finite
Can be at call and listen to our words, as though they were infinite?
Human affection may suggest and defend such fancies;
But thus of old did idolatries arise, and so may they rise again.
But, if they exist in blessedness, all analogy strongly urges
That God lays on them duties, (an essential of happiness,)
Whereby their agency is restrained to ends well defined,
With limits of space and of time, as befits finite creatures.
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Can be at call and listen to our words, as though they were infinite?
Human affection may suggest and defend such fancies;
But thus of old did idolatries arise, and so may they rise again.
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