Nor should you imagine that this saintly
stupidity was in any way unique in the Anglican
establishment. We read in the letters of
Shelley how his father tormented him with Archdeacon
Paley’s “Evidences” as a cure for
atheism. This eminent churchman wrote a
book, which he himself ranked first among his
writings, called “Reasons for Contentment, addressed
to the Labouring Classes of the British Public.”
In this book he not merely proved that religion
“smooths all inequalities, because it unfolds
a prospect which makes all earthly distinctions
nothing”; he went so far as to prove that,
quite apart from religion, the British exploiters were
less fortunate than those to whom they paid a
shilling a day.
Some of the conditions which poverty
(if the condition of the labouring part of mankind
must be so called) imposes, are not hardships,
but pleasures. Frugality itself is a pleasure.
It is an exercise of attention and contrivance, which,
whenever it is successful, produces satisfaction....
This is lost among abundance.
And there was William Wilberforce, as sincere a philanthropist
as Anglicanism ever produced, an ardent supporter
of Bible societies and foreign missions, a champion
of the anti-slavery movement, and also of the ruthless
“Combination Laws,” which denied to British
wage-slaves all chance of bettering their lot.
Wilberforce published a “Practical View of the
System of Christianity”, in which he told unblushingly
what the Anglican establishment is for. In a chapter
which he described as “the basis of all politics,”
he explained that the purpose of religion is to remind
the poor
That their more lowly path has been
allotted to them by the hand of God; that it
is their part faithfully to discharge its duties,
and contentedly to bear its inconveniences; that the
objects about which worldly men conflict so eagerly
are not worth the contest; that the peace of
mind, which Religion offers indiscriminately
to all ranks, affords more true satisfaction
than all the expensive pleasures which are beyond
the poor man’s reach; that in this view the poor
have the advantage; that if their superiors enjoy
more abundant comforts, they are also exposed
to many temptations from which the inferior classes
are happily exempted; that, “having food
and raiment, they should be therewith content,”
since their situation in life, with all its evils,
is better than they have deserved at the hand
of God; and finally, that all human distinctions
will soon be done away, and the true followers
of Christ will all, as children of the same Father,
be alike admitted to the possession of the same heavenly
inheritance. Such are the blessed effects of
Christianity on the temporal well-being of political
communities.
THE COURT CIRCULAR
Copyrights
The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
