Repudiation

“ If, in laying open the real causes of our present misery, I am forced to speak with some freedom, I think it will require no apology. Reputation is the smallest sacrifice those can make us, who have been the instruments of our ruin ”

“ XLIII.
“O Haydn,” begg’d I, “say not this. Here speaks
The same rebellion that was once my own.
We must not judge for self, but reverence
The words of men ordain’d to teach the world;
The words of men so learnèd in the truth;
The words of councils fill’d with just such men.—
No reverence have you for authority?” ”

“ Why should I not make to myself a name, and claim for myself authority, and power, and reverence? Why should I not have private views, and seek private ends? Why should I suffer, and forbear, and seek another’s good, rather than my own? ”

“ I wish to speak here of the so-called rudeness of reform; and to say that I think we should call this roughness rather than rudeness. A true reformer honors human nature by recognizing in it a higher power than is shown in its average action. ”

“ For if they who by their importunity urge our modesty, do it either for their own reputation or their authority, it were absurd and beside the purpose for us to augment the honour, credit and authority of another, and to dishonour, discredit and disgrace ourselves ”

“ But not only in these higher forms of seeking after reputation, but in lower forms, this trembling before, and seeking to conciliate, the tribunal of what we call ‘general opinion,’ which means the voices of the half-dozen people that are beside us and know about us, besets us all, and weakens us all in a thousand ways. ”

“ Give it power to censure folly, to encourage goodness, and to search those hidden motives which elude the eye of man. You will find yourselves both animated to virtue, and deterred from transgression by the thought of meeting, in the silence of your apartment, a condemning, or an applauding judge, an image of that tribunal before which we must all stand at the great day of scrutiny. ”

“ Many circumstances, I will own, may excuse what is called rebellion, but no circumstances can ever make it good for your cause, and however honourable to your feelings, it will reflect no credit on your judgments. It will bind you more closely to the block of the oppressor, and your children’s children, whilst they talk of your exploits, will feel that you have done them injury instead of benefit. ”

“ Again: "What can be more complete than our submission to the orders of our superiors in everything that concerns our state of life, the places we are to dwell in, the employments, the offices we are to be engaged in." [20] And again, this submission to the will and judgment of the superior, or general, is called "renouncing our own judgment," "the annihilation of self," "complete obedience, entire dependence upon the will of others, perfect abandonment of personal reputation." ”

“ If the repugnance felt for duties were a title of exemption, where is the believer who would not be quit of the whole law, and who would not find his justification and his innocency, in proportion as he felt a greater degree of corruption in his heart? Are our fancies our law? Is religion only the support, and not the remedy of nature? ”

“ How long will it take an individual or a nation to conquer prejudices, by continuing to practice and excuse them;—substituting general acknowledgements of their guilt, for immediately and thoroughly repudiating them? ”

“ Why should a stern, condemning voice declare in recesses of my soul, 'You could and should resist'? For years I have been daily yielding to temptation, and conscience as often pronounces sentence against me. ”

“ I say mortally, because I cannot doubt that some of us must fall, in endeavoring the next opportunity, to re-establish our reputation. Dear Reputation, what trouble do you not occasion, what danger do you not expose us to! ”

“ Those, however, who, carrying on the agitations against it, have had their eyes more and more widely opened to the vice, assert or imply in their speeches and petitions that the vice is not only great but growing. ”

“ Let him be able, let him be eloquent, let him be a practised disputant, let him be a devourer of all books, still his thought must dry up and his utterance fail him when he shall have to maintain such impossible positions as these. For we shall dispute, if perchance they will allow us, on God, on Christ, on Man, on Sin, on Justice, on Sacraments, on Morals. ”

“ My happiness turns not upon the reality, but upon the seeming: upon my reputation with others.36 Such reputation then it must be my aim to acquire. I must combine the real profit of injustice with the outside show and reputation of justice. ”

“ Where the mind is absorbed in some one object of reform, this constant devotion to duty is almost, if not quite, impossible. The mind becomes so warped in one direction that it loses the habit, and almost loses the power, of turning in any other. Hence we rarely hear the word duty from the lips of the reformer. ”

“ How easy it is to preach sound doctrine. How hard to make an impression, with it, upon minds and hearts established in their own opinions of right and wrong, and persistent in the determination to follow the wrong! ”

“ Rebuttal.—In rebuttal—which is simply refutation in action—you can readily give to your whole debate, or at least your side of it, a unity which might otherwise be lacking. You relate your work to the work of your comrades and to that of your opponents. You select his strong points; you minimize his weak ones. ”

“ Impartial judges of events, we will describe them, not as unhappy victims of the consequences of this desertion, but as men free from all personal resentment, and who listen only to the voice of truth. ”

“ The besetting sin of reformers is not, so far as I can judge, the love of notoriety, but the fate of power and of flattery within their own small circle,--a temptation quite different from the other, both in its origin and its results. ”

“ Their very Petitions have the force of Invectives; and the Smoother, the Softer, you find the Surface of them, the Falser, and the more Dangerous they are at the Bottom: For betwixt the Persecution that is Insinuated, on the part of the Government, & the Innocence, the Piety, and the Modesty, on that of the Sufferers, Nothing can more Provoke, a Horror, and Indignation for the One, or a Tenderness, & Compassion, for the Other. ”

“ But I call on Englishmen to judge impartially for themselves—nor let the confident assertion or bold recrimination of an accused man pre-occupy their decision on the merits and the sufferings of an unhappy people. ”

“ That the reproach urged with so much petulance, the reproach of labouring for what cannot be enjoyed, is founded on an opinion which may with great probability be doubted; for since we suppose the powers of the soul to be enlarged by its separation, why should we conclude that its knowledge of sublunary transactions is contracted or extinguished? ”

“ If we inquire into the different degrees of reputation, which the several assemblies of commons have obtained, and consider why some are remembered with reverence and gratitude, and others never mentioned but with detestation and contempt, we shall always find that their conduct, with regard to this single point, has produced their renown or their infamy. ”

“ Exercise, then, with all impartiality, within thyself, the several functions of culprit, accuser, and judge; and when thou hast found thyself guilty, do not spare, but reprove thyself very severely, and grieve from the bottom of thy heart, that thou hast offended and despised me thy God, thy Creator, and thy Saviour, who should have been the supreme object of thy love, because I am supremely good. ”

“ These people may not, indeed, be guilty of this particular thing of which they accuse us; and that is the very reason why they choose this subject for accusation—why they walk so proudly erect—ring all [Pg 245] the changes and make the most of it. It is to triumph over us, and build up themselves on our ruins. ”

“ No doubt it is reasonable, and even honest, to act according to our present feelings and conviction: but if these feelings and their causes do vary by the very nature of things, how dare we impose upon ourselves or others an invariable conviction? ”

“ And you may see those very persons, whose opinions I am combating, frequently urging on the young by praises, and frequently checking them by rebukes, though pleasure follows the one, pain the other. For rebukes and censure produce repentance and shame, the one bringing grief, the other fear, and these they mostly make use of for purposes of correction. ”

“ But where reverence is, there is fear; for he who has a feeling of reverence and shame about the commission of any action, fears and is afraid of an ill reputation. ”

“ When we see an eager assailant of one of these wrongs, a special reformer, we feel like asking him, What right have you, sir, to your one virtue? ”

“ If we would speak the truth, our reputation depends wholly upon that of the men ; so that if we expose them, what else do we do but disgrace ourselves 1 ? And although, indeed, we have a great many just com- plaints against them, yet all things being duly considered, our condition is much preferable to theirs. ”

“ Difference of manner may go for a great deal, but beyond and below the resentment caused by a prompt, decisive, and perhaps imperious tone, lies a deeply-rooted sense of wrong—logically or illogically arrived at. ”

“ The truth is, that these men and their assistants and encouragers see their certain doom in the enlightening of the people. They see clearly enough, that conviction must follow facts and arguments like mine rendered familiar. ”

“ Usually what we call our convictions are propositions which we have not thoroughly examined in quietude, but notions which have just come into our heads and are irreversible to us solely because we are committed to them. Much may be urged against the Ethic and on behalf of hatred, contempt, and sorrow. ”

“ Anybody, who has experienced, written, read, heard, or seen, even a little of this ever-recurrent hanging controversy, loathes its very atmosphere, and gladly retreats from it, seldom without a sense of protest, and a chafing at injustice. ”

“ Here are the considered judgments of a man who, by political experience, by literary power, and the study of conduct, has made himself an unquestioned judge in the affairs of State, in letters, and in morality. ”

“ The rest of the evening's conversation below stairs tending little to edification, we shall, with the reader's leave, step up to the parlour.
CHAPTER XII. —Reputation?—that's man's idol set up against God, the Maker of all laws, Who hath commanded us we should not kill, And yet we say we must, for Reputation! What honest man can either fear his own, Or else will hurt another's reputation? Fear to do base unworthy things is valour ”

“ For want of timely repentance of our sins, Thou givest us cause to Repent of those Remedies we too late apply.
Yet I doe not repent of my calling the last Parliament, because O Lord, I did it with an upright intention to thy glory, and My Peoples good.
The miseries which have ensued upon me and my Kingdoms, are the just effects of thy displeasure upon us; and may be yet, through thy mercy, preparatives of us to future blessings and better hearts to enjoy them. ”

“ Others repeat them with such facility of assent or dissent, taking their tone from the previous question, that one is equally assured of the same conclusion, or, what is as bad, that they never reflect at all. ”

“ The disposition of the thinker, as incompatible with 232a "fixed reputation," is regarded as dishonourable, while the petrifaction of opinions has all the honour to itself:—we have at present still to live under the interdict of such rules! ”

“ And I protest for myself, the alms which the narrowness of my fortune will permit me to bestow, is distributed, much more in favour of those of a disgusting and a forbidding aspect, than in favour of those who have a persuasive manner, and a winning outward appearance. ”

“ In countless forms that strange, drawing power lays hold of you, and you must follow or reject. It may be a call to you to yield your reverence, your support, your participation to some benevolent or religious movement. ”

“ To all those who may exclaim against my errors, I can only say, in the language of the greatest Reformer that ever came upon the earth, "_let him or her that is without sin cast the first stone." How many profligate and abandoned scoundrels will read this, and casting their hypocritical eyes up, "like a duck in thunder," will exclaim and rave against my failings! ”

“ On every occasion his judgments are corrected by experience; want and pain are the necessary [Pg xvii] consequences arising from false judgment; gratification and pleasure are produced by judging aright. Under such masters, we cannot fail to become well informed; and we soon learn to reason justly, when want and pain are the necessary consequences of a contrary conduct. ”

“ But you are not bidden to argue, prove, demonstrate anything; only you are to confess, to protest against evil, and loyally side with the truth. And if you are not to do that except when you know you will be applauded and triumphant, what of your Master's conduct? ”