LAMARTINE ON ATHEISM. 

 ATHEISM AMONG THE PEOPLE

 BY

 ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE. 

 BOSTON: PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY, 110 WASHINGTON STREET. 1850. 

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, BY PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. 

STEREOTYPED BYCHARLES W. COLTON, No. 2 Water Street. 

ADVERTISEMENT. 

Through the past year, M. De Lamartine has published a monthly journal, called The People's Counsellor, "_Le Conseiller du Peuple_. " Eachnumber of this journal contains an Essay, by him, on some specificsubject, of pressing interest to the French people, --generally, somepolitical subject. 

As a companion to one of these numbers, he published the Essay whichwe here translate. We have thought that its interest and merit are byno means local; but, that it will be read with as much interest inAmerica, as in France. 

 EDWARD E. HALE, FRANCIS LE BARON. 

 _Worcester, Mass. March 7, 1850. _

ATHEISM AMONG THE PEOPLE. 

I. 

I have often asked myself, "Why am I a Republican?--Why am I thepartizan of equitable Democracy, organized and established as a goodand strong Government?--Why have I a real love of the People--a lovealways serious, and sometimes even tender?--What has the People donefor me? I was not born in the ranks of the People. I was born betweenthe high Aristocracy and what was then called _the inferior classes_, in the days when there were classes, where are now equal citizens invarious callings. I never starved in the People's famine; I nevergroaned, personally, in the People's miseries; I never sweat with itssweat; I was never benumbed with its cold. Why then, I repeat it, do Ihunger in its hunger, thirst with its thirst, warm under its sun, freeze under its cold, grieve under its sorrows? Why should I not carefor it as little as for that which passes at the antipodes?--turn awaymy eyes, close my ears, think of other things, and wrap myself up inthat soft, thick garment of indifference and egotism, in which I canshelter myself, and indulge my separate personal tastes, withoutasking whether, below me, --in street, garret, or cottage, there is arich People, or a beggar People; a religious People, or an atheisticPeople; a People of idlers, or of workers; a People of Helots, or ofcitizens?"

And whenever I have thus questioned myself, I have thus answeredmyself:--"I love the people because I believe in God. For, if I didnot believe in God, what would the people be to me? I should enjoy atease that lucky throw of the dice, which chance had turned up for me, the day of my birth; and, with a secret, savage joy, I should say, 'So much the worse for the losers!--the world is a lottery. Woe tothe conquered!'" I cannot, indeed, say this without shame andcruelty, --for, I repeat it, _I believe in God_. 

II. 

"And what is there in common, " you will say to me, "between yourbelief in God and your love for the People?" I answer: My belief inGod is not that vague, confused, indefinite, shadowy sentiment whichcompels one to suppose a principle because he sees consequences, --acause where he contemplates effects, a source where he sees the rushof the inexhaustible river of life, of forms, of substances, absorbedfor ever in the ocean, and renewed unceasingly from creation. Thebelief in God, which is thus perceived and conceived, is, so tospeak, only a mechanical sensation of the interior eye, --an instinctof intelligence, in some sort forced and brutal, --an evidence, notreasonable, not religious, not perfect, not meritorious; but like thematerial evidence of light, which enters our eyes when we open themto the day; like the evidence of sound which we hear when we listento any noise; like the evidence of touch when we plunge our limbs inthe waves of the sea, and shiver at the contact. This elementary, gross, instinctive, involuntary belief in God, is not the living, intelligent, active, and legislative faith of humanity. It is almostanimal. I am persuaded that if the brutes even, --if the dog, thehorse, the ox, the elephant, the bird, could speak, they wouldconfess, that, at the bottom of their nature, their instincts, theirsensations, their obtuse intelligence, assisted by organs lessperfect than ours, there is a clouded, secret sentiment of thisexistence of a superior and primordial Being, from whom all emanates, and to whom all returns, --a shadow of the divinity upon their being, a distant approach to the conception of that idea, which fills theworlds, and for which alone the worlds have been made, --the idea ofGod!

 * * * * *

This may be a bold, but it is not an impious supposition. For God, having made all things for himself alone, must have placed, upon allthat he made, an impress of himself; more or less clear, more or lessluminous, more or less profound, a presentiment or a remembrance of aCreator. But this faith, when it stops here, is not worthy of thename. It is a species of _Pantheism_, that is to say, a confused"visibility, " a physical working together into indissoluble union ofsomething impersonal, something blind, something fatal, and somethingdivine, which, in the elements composing the universe, we may callGOD. But this "visibility" can give to man no moral decision, --cangive to God no worship. The Pantheism of which I am accused as aphilosopher and poet, that Pantheism which I have always scorned as acontradiction and as a blasphemy, resembles entirely the reasoning ofthe man who should say, "I see an innumerable multitude of rays, therefore there is no sun. "

III. 

Faith, or reasonable and effective belief in God, proceeds, undoubtedly, from this first instinct; but in proportion as intelligence developsitself, and human thought expands, it goes from knowledge to knowledge, from conclusion to conclusion, from light to light, from sentiment tosentiment, infinitely farther and higher, in the idea of God. It doesnot see him with the eyes of the body, because the Infinite is notvisible by a narrow window of flesh, pierced in the frontal bone of aninsect called Man; but it sees Him, with a thousand times morecertainty, by the spirit, that immaterial eye of the soul, which nothingblinds; and after having seen him with evidence, it reasons upon theconsequences of his existence, upon the divine aims of His creation, upon the terrestrial as well as eternal destinies of His creatures, uponthe nature of the homage and adoration that God expects, upon his morallaws, upon the public and private duties which he imposes on hiscreatures by their consciences, upon the liberty He leaves them; so thatwith the sufferings of conflict He may give to them the merits and theprize of virtue. Thus in man does the instinct of God become Faith. Thusman can speak the greatest word that has ever been spoken upon the earthor in the stars, the word which fills the worlds by itself alone, theword which commenced with them, and which can only end with them;--

"I believe in God!"

IV. 

It is in this sense, my friends, that I say to you, "I believe inGod. "

But, once having said this word with the universe of beings and ofworlds, and blessed this invisible God for having rendered himselfvisible, sensible, evident, palpable, adorable in the mirror of weakhuman intelligence, made gradually more and more pure, I reason withmyself on the best worship to be rendered Him in thought and action. Let me show how, by this reasoning, I am forcibly drawn to the love ofthe People. 

I say to myself, then, "Who is this God? Is he a vain _notion_, whichhas no effect on the thoughts and acts of man, his creature; whoinspires nothing in him; who gives him no commands; who imposes nothingupon him; who does not reward, and who does not punish?--No! God isnot a mere _notion_, an idea, an evidence;--God is a _law_, --the livinglaw, the supreme law, the universal law, the eternal law. Because Godis a law on high, he is a duty on the earth; and when man says, 'Ibelieve in God, ' he says, at the same time, 'I believe in my dutytowards God, --I believe in my duty towards man. ' God is a government!"

And what are these duties? They are of three sorts:--

_Duty towards God_, --that is to say, the duty of developing, as muchas possible, my intelligence and my reason, to arrive at the purestidea and the highest worship of the Supreme Being, by whom and forwhom all is, all exists:--_Religion_. 

_Private Duties_, --that is to say, the exact and tender discharge ofall sentiments to which form has been given, either in written orunwritten laws, which bind me to those, to whom, in the order ofnature, I hold most closely, --the nearest to myself in the humangroup--father, mother, brothers, sisters, wife, children, friends, neighbors:--_the Family_. 

_Collective Duties_, --that is to say, devotions, even to the sacrificeof myself, even to death, to the progress, the well-being, thepreservation, the amelioration of this great human family, of which myfamily, and my country, are only parts; and of which I myself am onlya miserable and vanishing fraction, a leaf of a summer, whichvegetates and withers on a branch of the immense trunk of the humanrace:--_Society_. 

Let us speak to-day only of these last duties, --because, now we areoccupied with politics alone. 

V. 

God, when one believes in Him as you and I do, imposes then on man aduty towards the society of which he makes a part. You admit it, doyou not?

Then follow, and analyze with me this society. Of whom, and how, is itcomposed?

It is composed, at the same time, of strong and weak, conquerors andconquered, victors and vanquished, oppressors and oppressed, mastersand slaves, nobles and serfs, of citizens and bondmen or subjectsdisinherited and enslaved, considered as living furniture, as toolsand laughing-stocks to their fellow-men, as were the Blacks in ourcolonies before the Republic. 

Thanks to the increase of general reason, to the light of philosophy, to the inspiration of Christianity, to the progress of the idea ofjustice, of charity, and of fraternity, in laws, manners, andreligion, society in America, in Europe, and in France, especiallysince the Revolution, has broken down all these barriers, all thesedenominations of caste, all these injurious distinctions among men. Society is composed only of various conditions, professions, functions, and ways of life, among those who form what we call aNation; of proprietors of the soil, and proprietors of houses; ofinvestments, of handicrafts, of merchants, of manufacturers, offarmers; of day-laborers becoming farmers, manufacturers, merchants, or possessors of houses or capital, in their turn; of the rich, ofthose in easy circumstances, of the poor, of workmen with theirhands, workmen with their minds; of day-laborers, of those in need, ofa small number of men enjoying considerable acquired or inheritedwealth, of others of a smaller fortune painfully increased andimproved, of others with property only sufficient for their needs;there are some, finally, without any personal possession but theirhands, and gleaning for themselves and for their families, in theworkshop, or the field, and at the threshold of the homes of others onthe earth, the asylum, the wages, the bread, the instruction, thetools, the daily pay, all those means of existence which they haveneither inherited, saved, nor acquired. These last are what have beenimproperly called _the People_. This name is extended now; it embracesreally all the People; but still it is used as the name of theindigent and suffering part of the People. 

It is more especially of this class that I intend to speak, in sayingto you, "To love the People, it is necessary to believe in God. "

VI. 

The love of the People, the conscience of the citizen, the sentimentwhich induces the individual to lose himself in the mass, to submithimself to the community, to sacrifice himself to its needs, --hisinterest, his individuality, his egotism, his ambition, his pride, hisfortune, his blood, his life, his reputation even, sometimes, to thesafety of his country, to the happiness of the People, to the good ofhumanity, of which he is a member in the sight of God, --in one word, all these virtues, necessary under every form of government, --usefulunder a monarchy, indispensable under a republic, --never have beenderived, and never can be derived, from any thing but that singlesentence, pronounced with religious faith, at the commencement, in themiddle, at the end of all our patriotic acts:--"I believe in God!"

The People who do not believe strongly, efficaciously in this firstprinciple, in this supreme original, in this last end of allexistence, cannot have a faith superior to their individualselfishness. 

The People who cannot have a principle superior to their individualselfishness, in their acts as citizens, cannot have national virtue. 

The People who cannot have national virtue cannot be free; for theycan have neither the courage which enables them to defend their ownliberty, nor the conscience which forces them to respect the libertyof others, and to obey the laws, not as an outward force, but as asecond conscience. 

The People who can neither defend their liberty, nor restrain it, maybe, by turns, slaves or tyrants, but they can never be republicans. 

Therefore, Atheism in the People is the most invincible obstacle tothe establishment and consolidation of that sublime form ofgovernment, the idol of all ages, the tendency of all perfectcivilization, the dream of every sage, the model of all greatsouls, --the government of the entire People by the reason andconscience of each citizen, --otherwise called the REPUBLIC. 

VII. 

Must I demonstrate to you so simple a truth? Can you not comprehend, without explanation of mine, that a nation, where each citizen thinksonly of his own private well-being here below, and sacrificesconstantly the general good to his personal and narrow interest;--wherethe powerful man wishes to preserve all the power for himself alone, without making an equitable and proportional division to theweak;--where the weak wishes to conquer at any price, that he maytyrannize in his turn;--where the rich wishes to acquire andconcentrate the greatest possible amount of wealth, to enjoy it alone, and even without circulating it in work, in wages, in assistance, inbenevolence, in good deeds to his brothers;--where the poor wishes todispossess violently and unjustly those who possess more than himself, instead of recognizing that diversity of chances, of conditions, ofprofessions, of fortunes, of which human life is composed, --instead ofacquiring prosperity for his family, in his turn and degree, by effort, by order, by labor, by economy, by the assistance of borrowed capital, by the law of inheritance, by the free transfer of real estate, by freeentrance into different callings and trades, by free competition in themoney market;--where each class of citizens declares itself an enemy toevery other, and heaps upon each other all manner of evil, instead ofdoing all the good in its power, and uniting in the holy harmony ofsocial unity;--where each individual draws around him, for himselfalone, the common mantle, willing to tear it in pieces for himself, and thus leave the whole world naked, --do you not understand, I say, that such a People, having no God but its selfishness, no judge butinterest, no conscience but cupidity, will fall, in a short time, intocomplete destruction, and, being incapable of a Republican government, because it casts aside the government of God himself, will rushheadlong into the government of the brute: the government of thestrongest, the despotism of the sword, the divinity of thecannon, --that last resort of anarchy, which is at once the remedy andthe death of nations without God!

Now has not this weakening of the sentiment of God in the soul of thePeople been, from year to year, from century to century, indeed, Imight say, the most discouraging and threatening symptom, in the eyesof those who desire the progress of their race, who aspire to themoral perfection of the human spirit, who hope in Republicaninstitutions, who love the People, who wish to cultivate their reason, who desire that the People should understand themselves, respectthemselves, and, finally, by their enlightenment, theirconscientiousness, their moderation and virtue, give the lie to thosewho declare them in a state of perpetual infancy, perpetual madness, or perpetual weakness?

Yes, this is but too true: men have been blotting out God, for acentury past, from the souls of the People, and more especially inlatter years. The masses have been driven to Atheism, they have beendriven on every side and by every hand. 

Sometimes, by blasphemies, such as were never heard upon the earth, until an insult to the Creator became a means of popularity among Hiscreatures; blasphemies which would have darkened the sun andextinguished the stars, if God had not commanded His creation to passunnoticed the revolt of a blind and foolish insect against Infinity, and refused Himself to sink to the foolishness of avenging impiety!Read those lines which I dare not write, those lines where an apostleof Atheism effaces the name of God from the beautiful creation andendeavors to substitute his own! * * *

VIII. 

Sometimes the masses have been driven to Atheism by science. There aresome geometers great in paradox, men who, of all the senses that theCreator has given to his creatures, have cultivated only one, thesense of touch, --leaving out entirely that chief sense, which connectsand confirms all others, --_the sense of the invisible_, the _moralsense_. These _savans_, geometers, physicians, arithmeticians, mathematicians, chemists, astronomers, measurers of distances, calculators of numbers, have early acquired the habit of believingonly in the _tangible_. These are the beings who, so to speak, liveand think in the dark; all, which is not palpable, does not exist forthem. They measure the earth, and say, "We have not met God in anyleague of its surface!" They heat the alembic, and say, "We have notperceived God in the smoke of any of our experiments!" They dissectdead bodies, and say, "We have not found God, or thought, in anybundle of muscles or nerves in our dissection!" They calculate columnsof figures, long as the firmament, and say, "We have not seen God inthe sum of any of our additions!" They pierce, with eye and glass, into the dazzling mysteries of night, to discover, across thousandsand thousands of leagues, the groups and the evolutions of thecelestial worlds, and say, "We have not discovered God at the end ofour telescopes! The existence of God does not concern us; it is noaffair of ours!"--Madmen! They do not suspect that the knowledge andadoration of God are, at bottom, the only business of the creature;and that all these distances, these globes, these numbers, thesemysteries of the living being, this dissected mechanism of the dead, these compositions and decompositions of combined elements, thesehosts of stars, and these eternal evolutions of suns around the divinehand which guides them, have no other reason for existence, formovement, and for duration, than to compel the acknowledgment, fear, admiration, and adoration of God, by that supreme sense, that sensesuperior to all other senses, that sense imponderable and impalpable, invisible yet beholding all things, --that sense which we call_intelligence_!

Alas! it is not that God has denied this sense to these men offigures, of science, and calculation; but they have blindedthemselves, they have cultivated the other senses so much, that theyhave weakened this. They have believed too much in matter, and so theyhave lost the eye of the spirit. These men, we are told, have madegreat progress in experimental science, but they have made good, evil, to the People, by saying to them, "We, who are so high, we cannot seeGod!--blind men! what do you see, then?"

IX. 

Besides these men, there is still another class, --inventors of anotherscience, which they call "_Political Economy_. " This is the class of_Economists_. I do not, indeed, speak of all of them: there are amongthem some who are as spiritual as Fenelon, and these are, perhaps, atthis day, the greater number. I speak only of those who, consideringthis world alone, have been driven, voluntarily or involuntarily, toAtheism in another way. Leaving the eternal and fastidious metaphysicaland religions disputes in which the theologians of past centurieswasted the time, the good sense, and the blood of men, to honor theirpretended God by immolating to Him the enemies of their faith, these_false economists_ have said to governments and people, "Leave allthis; there is only one science which is good for any thing: it is thescience of Wealth. All else is vanity and vexation of spirit. " This isthe famous cry, the cry of a materialistic society:--"_Grow rich!_" Theeconomists of this school, now highly enlightened, legitimate childrenof the materialists of the Eighteenth Century, see in humanity, onlymatter and the things that belong to matter; in men, only consumers andproducers; in the social functions, only labor of the hands:--to labor, to sow, to reap, to hew, to build, to forge, to weave, to barter, toexchange, to sell, to buy, to acquire, to beget, --this is, according tothese disciples of Malthus, the whole of man! These are the Lycurgusesand the Moseses, the legislators of a trading People: the moral, intellectual, spiritual, religious man does not exist for them. Theylove liberty, not because it ennobles human nature; exercises freewill, the most sublime of man's vital functions; cultivates his highestfaculty, --conscience; purifies religion, the fundamental idea ofmankind, from the superstitions that debase and dishonor it; sanctifieshuman society, by leading it to the knowledge and worship of God;--theylove it because it abolishes Custom House duties! All legislation, allcivilization, all religion, is reduced by them to a well-balancedaccount! _To have_ and _to owe_, these are the only two words in theirlanguage! What matter to them the spirit, the soul, virtue, sentiment?--What the moral and consoling beliefs, the divine hopes, thesupernatural certainties, revealed or proved, or the immortal destiny, of man?--What the present intellectual life, and the future immateriallife of these harvests of human generations, which God sows that theymay bear fruit in his name, may adore his grandeur, --which Death cutsdown to bear them, ripe in faith and virtue, up to Heaven? All this canneither be bought nor sold; all this has neither stated price nor netrevenue; all this is not current on the Exchange, --therefore it isnothing!

Thus these men count for nothing the forms of worship and the forms ofgovernment. They are neither followers of Brama, of Confucius, ofMahomet, of Plato, or of Rousseau; neither absolute monarchists, constitutional royalists, nor republicans. They are of the politics, and of the religion, in which they can manufacture most, buy and selleasiest, trade the best, multiply fastest! Their civilization istraffic; their God is the dollar! This sect, useful in administeringintelligently the affairs of commerce, has been a shadow overintellectual civilization; for it has forgotten heavenly things, and, in forgetting them, has contributed to make the People also forgetthem. 

X. 

But that People which forgets God, forgets itself. What right has itto be a People, if it have not its origin and hope in Him? How can themen of any nation expect tyrants to remember and respect its destiny, if they themselves debase this destiny to that of a machine with tenfingers, destined to weave the greatest possible number of yards ofcloth in seventy years, to people as many hundred acres as possiblewith creatures as much to be pitied and as miserable as themselves, and to serve, from generation to generation, as human manure for theland, to fertilize the soil of their birth, their life, and theirgraves? How can the moral spiritualism of a People long resist suchtheories? Where can they find God in this workshop of matter?

XI. 

But even this is nothing. The French Revolution came in 1789. It cameto put an end to a double philosophy, --the spiritual philosophy ofRousseau's school, founded in reason and religion, the materialphilosophy of the school of Helvetius, Diderot, and their disciples, atheistic and cynical. The thought of the first of these philosophieswas religious at bottom. It consisted merely in freeing the luminousidea of God from the shadows by which ignorance, intolerance, theinquisition of temporal dynasties and times of barbarism had falsifiedit, --in freeing this idea, debased as it was, --obscured, and enchainedto thrones, --so as to restore reason to its liberty, to inquiry, tothe free conscience of every worship and of every soul; to revive itin the eyes of the People, by leading them to the broad light of day, the evidence of nature, the dignity and efficacy of free worship. 

But, for this, it was necessary to dispossess the Middle Ages of theirtemporal power, of their _mort-main_ possessions, of their civiljurisdictions, of their exclusive privileges, of their legalintolerance against all other divine thoughts, and all other individualor national faith, all other forms of adoration and worship than whatwere imposed by the exclusive and established religion. To rally thepeople to this work, a work legitimate in itself, a work which theabuses of a crafty priesthood had made necessary, seven times, andwhose accomplishment they had seven times partially and graduallyundertaken, since the time of Charlemagne, --the philosophers of thesecond school, the irreligious school, the atheistic school, of Diderotand Helvetius, drove the masses from stupidity even to impiety, and thedemagogues of '93 forced them from impiety to Atheism, and from Atheismto blood. Demagogues, those poisoners of liberty, corrupt everyrevolution in which they mingle; they defile every thing that theytouch; they dishonor every truth which they profess, by polluting orperverting it. The age and philosophy, Heaven and earth, desire whatwe too desire, --freedom of conscience, voluntary worship, --liberty ofthe human mind in matters of faith, --the fraternity of altars, invoking, each in its own language, that God whom the whole earth isspelling out, and who reveals, from age to age, still another letter ofHis divine name. 

Instead of this, Atheists and demagogues united to persecute religion, to revenge themselves for the old persecutions of the priesthood. Theyprofaned the temples, violated conscience, blasphemed the God of thefaithful, parodied the ceremonies, cast to the winds the pious symbolsof worship, and persecuted the ministers of religion. 

In the name of the Revolution, and under the menace of terror, theydragged the People to these Saturnalia. They corrupted the eyes, thehands, the minds, the souls of the populace. These violences to thealtar were cast back on the religious idea itself. The People, seeingthe temple fall, believed that Heaven itself crumbled; and that, following the profaned image of a vanishing worship, God himself wouldvanish from the world, with conscience, the supernatural law, theunwritten moral law, the soul and the immortality of the human race!

When the ignorant People no longer saw God between them andannihilation, they plunged into the boundless and bottomless abyss ofAtheism, they lost their divine sense, they became brutal as theanimal, who sees in the earth only a pasture ground, instead of thefootstool of Jehovah. 

But these irreligious abominations, and these Saturnalia of Atheism, however much injury they inflicted on the religious spirit of thePeople, did not effect so much, perhaps, as the reign which followedthis anarchy, the reign of Bonaparte, the so-called restorer ofworship. And how?

XII. 

The Republic had passed its paroxysm of fever, of demagoguicalmadness, of persecution. The Directory had finally concentrated andregulated the republican power. This government was composed of men, naturally moderate and tolerant, or made so by the experience and thelassitude of anarchy; the moderate principles of the Revolution of1789, and of the constituted Assembly, regained their level, thanks toa natural reaction, limited by good sense, as happens after everyrevolution that overshoots its mark. The priests officiated, withoutobstacle, in the temples restored by the municipalities to thefaithful, religion was entirely free, even favored by public respect, and by that care for good morals which all serious governments feel. Faith, taking refuge in men's consciences, was, moreover, more sincereand more active, because it was neither constrained, nor favored, noraltered, nor profaned by the hand of government. 

This was, perhaps, the moment when there was the most religion inFrance, --for this was the moment when, after having had its martyrs, the religious sentiment had a life in itself, and owed nothing to thepartial and interested protection of the powers of the State. For, theless the State imposes upon you a God of its own fashion, or its ownchoice, the more does your conscience rise, and the more does itattach itself to the God of your own reason, or your own faith!

Bonaparte, whose genius was entirely military, but who, in affairs ofmoral, civil, and religious government, made it a matter of policy tocontradict and extinguish all the truths of the Revolution, hastenedto change all this. He wished to parody Charlemagne. 

Charlemagne had been the philosopher and revolutionary organizer ofhis time; Charlemagne had bound together the spiritual and temporal, crowning the Pontiff that he might be crowned by him in turn. Bonaparte desired a State religion, an agreement in which religion andthe empire should mutually engage and mutually check each other; aPope to subdue, to caress, to drive away, to recall, to persecute, byturns; a coronation by the hand of an enslaved Church; then a Churchto chastise, when it did not obey;--in one word, all that shameful andscandalous _simony_ of ancient times, when the temporal power played, in the sight of the nations, with the idea and name of God, in amanner as contemptuous as it was odious. 

The People, who saw clearly through this intrigue of an indifferentsovereign, --an Atheist at Toulon, a crafty politician at Marengo, aMussulman in Egypt, a persecutor at Rome, an oppressor at Savona, aschismatic at Fontainbleau, a saint at Notre Dame de Paris, --protectorof religion and profaner of consciences by turns, --felt their beliefshaken anew. They asked themselves, "What then is God for us, poorsouls, since God is such an instrument of power for great men, andsuch a police machine for governments?" Scorn threw them back intoAtheism. This was natural. 

XIII. 

This system was continued, with more sincerity on the part ofgovernment, under the dynasty of the Restoration. But the interestedfavors of the Court, for the higher clergy of a particular worship, irritated the minds of the populace against the priesthood. 

The more it lavished power and human dignities upon priestlysuperiors, the more the mind of the People turned from the religioussentiment. Each favor of royal authority to the privileged Church castthousands of souls into Atheism. 

The Revolution of July suppressed the religion of the State: it was aprogress towards the religion of conscience. But it favored thereligion of the majority; it still leaned towards the supremacy ofnumbers in matters of faith. However, from the moment the Statereligion was suppressed, the religion of conscience gained ground inmen's hearts. From 1830 to this day, every intelligent observer gladlyacknowledges an immense progress in the religious sentiment inFrance. --Why? Because the suppression of the official religion of theState was a progress in the liberty of conscience, and all progress inliberty of conscience is a progress of human thought toward the ideaof God. Go farther still, and complete liberty will destroy Atheism inthe People!

But the evil done was immense. The cynicism of Diderot, materialism, scepticism, revolutionary impiety, the false and hypocritical pietyof the empire, the concordat, the restoration of an imperial religion, and of an official and dynastic God by Napoleon, the tendency of thetwo Bourbon reigns to reconstruct a political church, everlastinglyendowed with a monopoly of goods and of souls, --and, finally, theindustrialism of the reign of Louis Philippe, turning every thought totrade, to manual labor, to worldly wealth, and making gold the trueand only God of the century;--all this has borne its fruits. 

Look at these fruits at the present day, and say, if practical Atheismdoes not devour the souls of this People. But let us proceed. 

XIV. 

For eighteen years, new sects, or, rather, posthumous sects, havedisputed for the soul of the People, under the names of Fourierism, ofPantheism, of Communism, of Industrialism, of Economism, and, finally, of Terrorism. Look at them, listen to them, read them, analyze them, sift them, handle them; and say, if, with the exception of a vaguedeifying of every thing, --that is to say, of nothing, by theFourierites, --there is a single one of these philosophical, social, orpolitical sects, which is not founded on the most evident practicalAtheism; which has not matter for a God; material enjoyments formorality; exclusive satisfaction of the senses for an end; purelysensual gratifications for a paradise; this world for the sole sceneof existence; the body for the only condition of being; theprolonging of life a few more years for its only hope; a sharpening ofthe senses to material appetites for a perspective; death for the endof all things; after death, an assimilation with the dust of the earthfor a future; annihilation for justice, for reward, and forimmortality!

No, there has not been since 1830, there has not been since theRevolution, there is not at this moment, one of these schools ofpretended apostles, prophets of the future, and saviors of thepresent, which is not Materialism in action. It is the deadly seed ofthe century of Helvetius, producing its poisons in the dregs ofanother century. It is man, deprived of his spiritual and immortalsense, reduced to a solid measure of organized matter, and seeking, not virtue, that key to his future destiny, in his soul; but, in hissenses, mere enjoyment, that end of the brute, who only believes inwhat he can eat and drink. 

XV. 

Analyze with me, if you are not overwhelmed with humiliation, the fiveor six Revelations of the latter days; and ask yourselves, as I haveoften asked myself, while listening to them, if these revealers ofpretended human felicity do indeed address themselves to men, or toherds of fatted cattle! And are they astonished that the intellectualworld resists them? Do they complain that the ignorant are their onlydisciples? Are they indignant that the ideas they attempt to spread, creep, like fetid mists, along the abysses of society, and excite, instead of enthusiasm, only the fanaticism of hunger and thirst? Ican well believe it! What People is there who would become fanatics, only for their own destruction; renounce their moral nature, theirdivine souls, their immortal destinies, only for a morsel of moresavory bread upon their table, for a larger portion of earth undertheir feet? No! no! enthusiasm soars aloft, it does not fall to earth. Bear me up to Heaven, if you wish to dazzle my eyes; promise meimmortality, if you would offer to my soul a motive worthy of itsnature, an aim worthy of its efforts, a price worthy of its virtue!But what do your systems of atheistic society show us in perspective?What do they promise us in compensation for our griefs? What do theygive us in exchange for our souls? You know, --we will not speak of it. 

But, indeed, if these sects survive the month which sees and whichproduces them; and, if these questions which they debate, and thesesystems which they bring before the astonished People, are destined toserve as enigmas to posterity; what will the future say of us? It willonly explain the Materialism, Atheism, and brutality of the doctrinesand sects by which we have been disturbed for ten or twelve years, asthe nightmare of a starving People, whose dreams have, for an object, only a frantic satisfaction of the senses. All these philosophies, orall these deliriums, are the deliriums or philosophies of the stomach!"All this epoch, " future historians will say, "the French must havebeen a nation distressed by a terrible famine, to have forgotten, inso total an eclipse of the intellectual nature, the great and immortalideas which have alone inspired even these, the human race, andrendered the revolutions of the People worthy of the regard ofposterity, and of the blood of man. The Eighteenth Century must havebeen a time when avaricious Nature shut up her bosom, and the earthbrought forth neither fruit nor harvests, that this great intellectualPeople, formerly called the French People, should have forgotten theirsouls for a morsel of bread, their immortality for an income, andtheir God for a dollar! Let us turn away our eyes and weep over thatage. "

XVI. 

See where we were when the Republic arose: happy was it that thePeople had at bottom more of the true sentiment of God than thesemasters and heads of sects. For, what would have become of us, if, inthat total eclipse of government, of armed force, and of law, whichfollowed the 24th of February, the People, masters of all, of thefortunes and lives of the citizens, of Heaven and earth, had been aPeople of Materialists, of Terrorists, and of Atheists? The Revolutionwould have been a pillage, the Republic a scaffold, the dynasty of thePeople a deluge of blood. But there was no such thing. God was there. He revealed Himself in the multitude; Materialism disappeared inenthusiasm, which always exhibits the divinity of the human heart. 

We heard but one cry, --"Honor to God! Respect for the altars! Libertyto their ministers! Self-denial, harmony, protection to the weak, inviolability of property, assistance to the miserable!" Yes, --on thefirst day, and during the whole time that the People was alone andburning with excitement, it was religious! It was not until after thecooling of this enthusiasm that the materialistic sects, who waitedtheir opportunity afar off, and who now torment the People, dared tooffer their sensual symbols, and to set up Capital and Interest, theorganization of labor, the increase of wages, and equality ofconditions in this human manger, as the sole Divinities, --dared toinfuse envy against the happy, the breath of hatred as the onlyconsolation to the hearts of the miserable, lightning vengeanceagainst the wrongs of Providence, imprecations against society, blasphemies against the existence of God, the enjoyments andbestialities of the corporeal nature, purchased by completeforgetfulness of the moral nature, and enjoyed in a debauch of ideas, and in a deification of matter. 

This cannot last; the People will not allow themselves to be changedinto hogs by the Circes of Atheism. Their souls will flash indignationagainst their transformers. A day will come when they will see thatthey are impoverished under the pretext of being enriched; that, whenthey are robbed of their souls and of God, both their titles toliberty are stolen from them. Atheism and Republicanism are two wordswhich exclude each other. Absolutism may thrive without a God, for itneeds only slaves. Republicanism cannot exist without a God, for itmust have citizens. And what is it that makes citizens? Twothings, --the sentiment of their rights, and the sentiment of theirduties as a republican People. Where are your rights, if you have nota common Father in Heaven? Where are your duties, if you have not aJudge between your brothers and you? Republicanism draws you in boththese ways to God. 

XVII. 

Thus, look at every free People, from the mountains of Helvetia to theforests of America; see even the free British nation, where theAristocracy is only the head of liberty, where the Aristocracy andDemocracy mutually respect each other, and balance each other by anexchange of kindnesses and services which sanctify society whilefortifying it. Atheism has fled before liberty: in proportion asdespotism has receded, the divine idea has advanced in the souls ofmen. Liberty lives by morality. What is morality without a God? Whatis a law without a lawgiver?

I know well, and I shall give you the reason hereafter; I know well, and I mourn to think of it, that, even up to the present time, theFrench People have been the least religious People in Europe. 

Is this because the intelligence of France has not that force, andthat severity, which are needed to carry long enough and far enoughthe idea of God, --the greatest idea of the human soul;--that idea, asit comes from all the evidences of nature, and all the depths ofreflection, being the most powerful and the most grave of humanintelligence, --and the intelligence of France being the mostsuperficial, the most light, and the least reflecting of the Europeanraces?

Is it because our governments have always been charged with thinking, believing, and praying, for us?

Is it that they have always given us gods of the Court, worshipaccording to Etiquette, and religions of State, instead of letting usform, make, and practise our faith for ourselves, by reason, byfree-will, by voluntary piety, by association, by tradition, by thesympathies of the community, of worship, and of the family?

Is it because we are, and always have been, a military People, anation of soldiers and adventurers, led by kings, heroes, ambitiousmen, from battle-field to battle-field, making conquests and notkeeping them, ravaging, dazzling, charming, and corrupting Europe, andbearing the manners, vices, bravado, lightness, and impiety of thecamp into the homes of the People?

I do not know; but it is certain that the nation has an immenseprogress to make in serious thought, if it wishes to maintain itsliberty. If we look at the comparative character, in matters ofreligious sentiment, of the great nations of Europe, America, and evenAsia, the advantage is not on our side. While the great men of othernations live and die upon the scene of history, looking towardsheaven, our great men seem to live and die in entire forgetfulness ofthe only idea for which life or death is worth any thing; they liveand die looking at the spectators, or, at most, towards posterity. 

Thus, even at the present time, while we have had the greatest men, other nations have had the greatest citizens. It is great citizensthat a Republic needs!

XVIII. 

Open the history of America, the history of England, and the historyof France; read the great lives, the great deaths, the greatsufferings, the sublime words, when the ruling passion of life revealsitself in the last moments of the dying, --and compare them!

Washington and Franklin fought, spoke, suffered; rose and fell, intheir political life, from popularity to ingratitude, from glory tobitter scorn of their citizens, --always in the name of God, for whomthey acted; and the liberator of America died, committing to theDivine protection, first, the liberty of his People, --and, afterwards, his own soul to His indulgent judgment. 

Strafford, dying for the constitution of his country, wrote to CharlesI. , to entreat his consent to his punishment, that he might sparetrouble to the State: "Put not your trust, " wrote he, after thisconsent was obtained, "put not your trust in princes, or in the sonof man, because salvation is not in them, but from on high. " Whilewalking to the scaffold, he stopped under the windows of his friend, the Bishop of London; he raised his head towards him, and asked, in aloud voice, the assistance of his prayers in the terrible moment towhich he had come. The primate, bowed with age, and bathed in tears, gave, in a stifled voice, his tender benedictions to his unhappyfriend, and fell, without consciousness, into the arms of hisattendants. Strafford continued his way, sustained by the Divineforce, descending from this invocation upon him: he spoke withresignation to the People assembled to see him die. "I fear only onething, " said he, "and that is, that this effusion of innocent blood isa bad presage for the liberty of my country!" (Alas! why did not theConvention recall these words among us, in '93?) Staffordcontinued:--"Now, " said he, "I draw near my end. One blow will make mywife a widow, my children orphans, deprive my poor servants of anaffectionate master, and separate me from my dear brother, and myfriends. May God be all of these!" He disrobed himself, and placed hishead on the block. "I give thanks, " said he, "to my heavenly Masterfor helping me to await this blow without fear; for not permitting meto be cast down for a single instant by terror. I repose my head aswillingly on this block as I ever laid it down to sleep. " This isfaith in Patriotism! See Charles I. , in his turn, --that model of akingly death. At the moment that he was to receive the blow of theaxe, the edge of which he had coolly examined and touched, he raisedhis head, and addressed the clergyman who was present:--"Remember!"said he; as if he had said, "Remember to advise my sons never torevenge their father!"

Sidney, the young martyr of a patriotism, guilty, because too hasty, died to expiate the dream of the freedom of his country. He said tothe jailer, "May my blood purify my soul! I rejoice that I dieinnocent toward the king, but a victim resigned to the King of Heaven, to whom we owe all life. "

The republicans of Cromwell sought only the way of God, even in theblood of battles. Their politics is nothing but faith; theirgovernment, a prayer; their death, a holy hymn;--they sang, like theTemplars, on their funeral-pile. We see, we feel, we hear God, aboveall, in these revolutions, in these great popular movements, and inthe souls of the great citizens of these nations. 

But recross the Atlantic, traverse the Channel, approach our owntime, open our annals; and listen to the great political actors in thedrama of our liberty. It would seem as if God was hidden from thesouls of men; as if his name had never been written in the language. History will have the air of being atheistic, while recounting toposterity these _annihilations_, rather than _deaths_, of thecelebrated men of the greatest years of France. The victims alone havea God; the tribunes and lictors have none. 

See Mirabeau on his death-bed. "Crown me with flowers, " said he, "intoxicate me with perfumes, let me die with the sound of deliciousmusic. " Not one word of God, or of his soul! A sensual philosopher, heasks of death only a supreme sensualism; he desires to give a lastpleasure even to agony. 

Look at Madam Roland, that strong woman of the Revolution, --upon thecar that carries her to death. She looks with scorn upon the stupidPeople, who kill their prophets and their sibyls. Not one glance toHeaven; only an exclamation for the earth she leaves:--"O, Liberty!"

Approach the prison door of the Girondines: their last night is abanquet, and their last hymn is the _Marseillaise_!

Follow Camille Desmoulins to punishment:--a cold and indecentpleasantry at the tribunal; one long imprecation on the road to theguillotine;--those are the last thoughts of this dying man, about toappear on high!

Listen to Danton, upon the platform of the scaffold, one step from Godand immortality:--"I have enjoyed much; let me go to sleep, " hesays;--then, to the executioner, "You will show my head to thePeople; it is worth while!" Annihilation for a confession of faith;vanity for his last sigh: such is the Frenchman of these latter days!

What do you think of the religious sentiment of a free People, whosegreat characters seem to walk thus in procession to annihilation; anddie, without even death, that terrible minister, recalling to theirminds the fear or the promises of God?

Thus the Republic, --which had no future, --reared by these men, andmere parties, was quickly overthrown in blood. Liberty, achieved by somuch heroism and genius, did not find in France a conscience toshelter it, a God to avenge it, a People to defend it, against thatother Atheism called Glory! All was finished by a soldier, and by theapostacy of republicans travestied into courtiers! And what could youexpect? Republican Atheism has no reason to be heroic. If it isterrified, it yields. Would one buy it, it sells itself; it would bemost foolish to sacrifice itself. Who would mourn for it?--the Peopleare ungrateful, and God does not exist. 

Thus end atheistic revolutions!

XIX. 

If you wish that this revolution should not have the same end, bewareof abject Materialism, degrading Sensualism, gross Socialism, ofbesotted Communism; of all these doctrines of flesh and blood, of meatand drink, of hunger and thirst, of wages and traffic, which thesecorruptors of the soul of the People preach to you, exclusively, asthe sole thought, the sole hope, as the only duty, and only end ofman! They will soon make you slaves of ease, serfs of your desires. 

Are you willing to have inscribed on the tomb of our French race, ason that of the _Sybarites_, this epitaph: "This People ate and drankwell, while they browsed upon the earth?" No! You desire that Historyshould write thus: "This People worshipped well, served God andhumanity well, --in thought, in philosophy, in religion, in literature, in arts, in arms, in labor, in liberty, in their Aristocracies, intheir Democracies, in their Monarchies, and their Republics! Thisnation was the spiritual laborer, the conqueror of truth; the discipleof the highest God, in all the ways of civilization, --and, to approachnearer to him, it invented the Republic, that government of duties andof rights, that rule of spiritualism, which finds in _ideas_ its onlysovereignty. "

Seek God, then. This is your nature and your grandeur. And do notseek Him in these Materialisms! For God is not below, --he is on high!

 LAMARTINE, _Representative of the People_. 

THE END. 

Transcriber's Note

This text uses some variant spelling--for example, partizan, demagoguical, apostacy, corruptors. This has been preserved asprinted. 

The ellipsis in this text uses asterisks rather than dots. 

On page 62, the semicolon following 'rose' has been moved to follow'suffered'--". .. Fought, spoke, suffered; rose and fell . .. "

A repetition of the book title has been deleted.