Note 63 — Chapter IV · CHURCH ROW AND ST. JOHN’S CHURCH.

‘There are periods in which the human mind seems to slumber, but this is not one of them. A keen spirit of research is abroad, and demands reform. Perhaps in none of the nations of Europe will their articles of faith, or their Church establishments, or their models of worship, maintain their ground for many years in exactly the same position in which they stand at present. Religion and manners act upon one another. As religion, well understood, is a most powerful agent in ameliorating and softening our manners; so, on the other hand, manners, as they advance in cultivation, tend to correct and refine our religion. Thus, to a nation in any degree acquainted with the social feelings, human sacrifices and sanguinary rites could never long appear obligatory. The mild spirit of Christianity has, no doubt, had its influence in softening the ferocity of the Gothic times; and the increasing humanity of the present period will, in its turn, produce juster ideas of Christianity, and diffuse through the solemnities of our worship, the celebrations of our Sabbaths, and every observance connected with religion, that air of amenity and sweetness which is the offspring of literature and the peaceful intercourse of society. The age which has demolished dungeons, rejected torture, and given so fair a prospect of abolishing the iniquity of the slave-trade, cannot long retain among its articles of belief the gloomy perplexities of Calvinism, and the heart-withering perspective of cruel and never-ending punishment.’ This is very clever writing for her, but how absurdly wrong she is in the total!