Henry Rogers

“ In crossing a field, however, they were met by two soldiers, who inquired their business, &c. The maid answered that they were looking for a cow, when they were permitted to proceed. The soldiers had their arms, and his father had his gun. The maid and himself were left at a farm-house in the neighbourhood, and Mr. Rogers proceeded on his way towards London. Mr. Henry Rogers said that he was born in Crowan, and he apprehended so were most of the children; that his father, although bred a pewterer, had for many years occupied land in that parish. ”

“ But Henry Rogers was of a different calibre. The invention was his child, born by hard labour out of loving thought. The several thousand shareholders believed in him: they were his neighbours. Incompetence and extravagance threatened failure. He took a room in the village near the Essex factories, and gave his personal energy and attention to restoring economical working of every detail. He wore overalls. He put intelligence into hired men and foremen ”

“ Then, as the days passed, practical life again caught Henry Rogers in its wholesome grip. Fairyland did not fade exactly, but it dipped a little below the horizon. Like hell and heaven, it was a state of mind, open potentially to all, but not to be enjoyed merely for the asking. Like other desirable things, it was to be 'attained.' Its remoteness and difficulty of access lent to it a haunting charm; for though its glory dimmed a little, there was a soft afterglow that shed its radiance even down Piccadilly and St. James's Street. He was always conscious of this land beyond the sunset ”

“ There is no depth of dreary superstition into which men may not sink in the one case, and no extravagance of ignorant presumption to which they may not soar in the other. It is only by the mutual and alternate action of these different forces that man can safely navigate his little bark through the narrow straits and by the dangerous rocks which impede his course; and if Faith spread not the sail to the breeze, or if Reason desert the helm, we are in equal peril. ”

“ You see, what people never properly realise is—-'
But Henry Rogers lost the remainder of the sentence even if he heard the beginning, for his world was in a state of indescribable turmoil, one emotion tumbling wildly upon the heels of another. He was elated to intoxication. The room spun round him. The next second his heart sank down into his boots. ”

“ Newman and Mr. Parker reject the Bible, as containing what is unworthy of their conceptions of God, I am compelled to proceed further in the same direction; and repudiate, as unworthy of Him, not merely some of the phenomena of the Book which men profess to be His word, but also some of the phenomena of that universe which men profess to be His work. If I can only judge, as these gentlemen urge, of such a Being by the analogies of my own nature, no "intuition" of theirs can possibly seem stronger than do mine, that beings absolutely innocent ought not to suffer ”

“ The secret harmonies of Nature vibrate on his ear, and her fair proportions reveal themselves to his eye. He has a deep faith in the truth of God.' (P. 146.) 'The inspired man is one whose outward life derives all its radiance from the light within him. He walks through stony places by the light of his own soul, and stumbles not. No human motive is present to such a mind in its highest exultation—no love of praise—no desire of fame—no affection, no passion mingles with the divine afflatus, which passes over without ruffling the soul.' (P. 44.) ”

“ The young people, who lodged with Jackson, were really a very frank, honest, good-looking couple, though not then appearing to advantage—the countenance of Henry Rogers being flushed and inflamed with drink, and that of his wife’s clouded with frowns, at the situation in which she found herself, and the riotous conduct of her husband. ”

“ If he has rejected almost every thing, he has also embraced almost every thing; at each point in his career, his versatile faith has found him some system to replace that he had abandoned; and he is now a dogmatist par excellence, for he has adopted a theory of religion which formally abjures intellect and logic, and is as sincerely abjured by them. If the difficulties he has successively encountered had been seen all at once, I fancy he would have been much where I am. ”

“ For I neither know nor can conceive of any such unreasonable exercise of the emotions or affections. If it be meant, on the other hand, that, though some act of the intellect be indeed uniformly involved, yet that it matters not what it is, and that faith does not take its complexion, as of moral value, from it, then I also think, with Harrington, that it is impossible to deny that such a doctrine will sanctify any sort of worship, and any sort of deity, provided men be sincere; are you prepared to contend for much? ”

“ ROGERS, Sir EDWARD (1498?–1567?) , comptroller of Queen Elizabeth's household, born about 1498, was son of George Rogers of Lopit, Devonshire, by Elizabeth, his wife. The family of Rogers in the west of England was influential, and benefited largely by the dissolution of the monasteries. Edward Rogers was an esquire of the body to Henry VIII, and had a license to import wine in 1534 ”

“ A thirsty man does not stop midway in his draught to ask when his thirst began, its cause, or why the rush of liquid down his throat is satisfying. He knows, and drinks. It seemed to Henry Rogers, ordinary man of business and practical affairs, that some deep river which so long had flowed deep out of sight, hidden below his daily existence, rose now grandly at the flood. He had heard its subterranean murmurs often. Here, in the Den, it had reached his lips at last. ”

“ Enraged at such an unexpected result of his operations, the projector changed his plan, and broke in upon nature with such a startling explosion of single miracles, that there could be no longer any doubt that nature was neither 'variably uniform' nor 'uniformly invariable': the only question was, whether nature was not 'uniformly variable.' He set the sun spinning through the heavens at such a rate, or rather at such a jaunty pace, that no one knew when to expect either light or darkness; men now froze with cold, and now melted with heat ”

“ It will allure you to love Him who has given you so much to love. Yes," said I, gayly, "I shall visit you one day in happier moods; when you will wonder how you could have indulged all your present thoughts of God and the universe. As you gaze into the face of innocent childhood, which shows you what faith in God is by trust in you, you will say, 'Heaven shield the boy from being what his father has been?'—you will feel that such thoughts as yours will not do, as the world says ”

“ I contend that in the stricter sense, without some external aid,—and the Bible may be at least as effectual,—the religious faculty will not expand at all; and that, even where there are these indispensable external influences, the recognition of the truth is obscure or bright, as those influences vary in their degrees of appropriateness. Where they are rude and imperfect, (as amongst barbarous nations) we have the spectacle of a soul which struggles towards the light, like a plant to which but small portion of the sun's rays is admitted ”

“ I then bantered him a little on the advantages of "absolute scepticism"; told him I wondered that he should throw them away; and reminded him of the success with which the sceptic might train on his adversary into the "bosky depths" of German metaphysics,—the theories of Schelling, Fichte, Hegel. "If truth be in any of those dusky labyrinths," said I, "you are not compelled to find her; the more unintelligible the discussion becomes, the better for the sceptic; you may not only doubt, but doubt whether you even understand your doubts. You may play 'hide and seek' there for ten thousand years." ”

“ Hand in hand the brother and sister, in all mutual love, pursue their way, through a world on which, like ours, day breaks and night falls alternate; by day the eyes of Reason are the guide of Faith, and by night the ear of Faith is the guide of Reason. As is wont with those who labour under these privations respectively Reason is apt to be eager, impetuous, impatient of that instruction which his infirmity will not permit him readily to apprehend; while Faith, gentle and docile, is ever willing to listen to the voice by which alone truth and wisdom can effectually reach her. ”

“ Alas! when will men learn that one of the highest achievements of philosophy is to know when it is vain to philosophise. When the obscure principles of these most uncouth philosophies, expressed, we verily believe, in the darkest language ever used by civilised man, are applied to the solution of the problems of theology and ethics, no wonder that the natural consequence, as well as just retribution, of such temerity is a plunge into tenfold night. Systems of German philosophy may perhaps be advantageously studied by those who are mature enough to study them ”

“ Whether there be, in truth, as so many say there is, a God,—a tremendous personality, to whose infinite faculties the 'great' and the 'little' (as we call them) equally vanish,—whose universal presence fills all space, in any point of which he exists entire in the amplitude of all his infinite attributes,—whose universal government extends even to me, and my fellow-atoms, called men,—within whose sheltering embrace even I am not too mean for protection;—whether, if there be such a being, he is truly infinite ”

“ For what is this plea, but to acknowledge that man is so constituted that the boasted "religious sentiment," the "spiritual faculty,"—if it exist at all, and is any thing more than an ill-defined tendency, —instead of being a glorious light which anticipates all external revelation, and renders it superfluous, is, in fact, about the feeblest in our nature; which everywhere and always is seduced and debauched by the most trumpery pretensions of the "historical" and "traditional"! It is not so with people's eyes; it is not so with people's appetites ”

“ Here Fellowes was called out of the room. Harrington, who had been glancing at the newspaper, exclaimed,—"Talk about the conditions on which man is left to act indeed! Only think of his gross ignorance and folly being left a prey to such quack advertisements as half fill this column. Here empirics every day almost invite men to be immortal for the small charge of half a crown. Here is a panacea for nearly every disease under heaven in the shape of some divine elixir, and, what is more, we know that thousands are gulled by it. ”

“ Newman's doubts of man's immortality be well founded, that better future will be of no more avail to the myriads of our race who have suffered under the long iron regime of necessity, than a reprieve to the wretch who was executed yesterday!
I told Harrington I must have a copy of the paper he had just read.
I should like, with his leave, to publish it.
"O, and welcome," said he. "Only remember that its tendency is to show that there is no tenable resting place between a revealed religion and none at all; between the Bible and scepticism. If you make men sceptics,—mind, it is not my fault." ”

“ If, as you suppose, it cannot be our duty to act in reference to any 'historical religion' because a satisfactory investigation is impossible to the mass of mankind, the argument may be retorted on your own theory. You assert, indeed, that in relation to religion we have an internal 'spiritual faculty' which evades this difficulty; yet men persist in saying, in spite of you, that it is doubtful,—1st, whether they have any such; 2d, whether, if there be one, it be not so debauched and sophisticated by other faculties, that they can no longer trust it implicitly ”

“ Belief without faith in an intelligible sense (if by this last we mean a condition of the emotions or affections) , I can understand; though if the truth believed be of a nature to excite to emotion and to dictate action, and fail to do so, I doubt whether men in general would not call that belief spurious. For example, if a man, on being told that his house was on fire, sat still in his neighbor's chimney-corner, and took no notice of the matter, most persons would say that his assent was no true belief ”

“ All this is necessary to render the felicity and perfection of man stable and permanent; for without such a trial, triumphantly sustained, he would have no security that, in the presence of objects which tend to exert an overpowering influence on his senses or his feelings, he might not at some period of the unknown future be impelled to take a wrong path, and err and be miserable. This ordeal, originally designed for man and not superseded by revelation, must be continued long enough to render the principles on which he ought to act practical habits ”

“ In like manner has every action, every operation, every emotion of the mind been made the subject of endless doubt and disputation. Surely if, as Soame Jenyns imagined, the infirmities of man, and even graver evils, were permitted in order to afford amusement to superior intelligences, and make the angels laugh, few things could afford them better sport than the perplexities of this child of clay engaged in the study of himself. 'Alas,' exclaims at last the baffled spirit of this babe in intellect, as he surveys his shattered toys—his broken theories of metaphysics, 'I know that I am ”

“ I have not your strength of will; and I fear that the rejection in such a case would cost me many qualms and doubts. Such is the infirmity of our nature, and so much may be said on all sides! And I fear that I should be more likely to have these uneasy thoughts, inasmuch as I fancy I see a difficult dilemma (I but now referred to it) , which would be proposed to us by some keen-sighted opponent,—I say not with justice,—who would endeavor to show that we had abandoned our principle in the very attempt to maintain it ”