o
society in such a place." Ask an evangelical churchman as to a certain
locality, and he will reply, "Oh it is very dark, dark, indeed;" as if
there was a spot on this blessed earth where God's sun did not shine.
The dancing Bayaderes, who visited London some fifteen years back, were
shocked at what they conceived the immodest attire of our English dames,
who, in their turn, were thankful that they did not dress as the
Bayaderes. All uneducated people, or rather all unreflective people, are
apt to reason in this way; orthodoxy is my doxy, heterodoxy, yours. But
we English, especially, are liable to this fallacy, on account of our
insular position, and the reserve and phlegm of our national character.
Abroad people travel more, come more into collision with each other,
socially are more equal. We can only recognize goodness and greatness in
certain forms. People must be well-dressed, must be of respectable
family, must go to church, and then they may carry on any rascality. Sir
John Dean Paul, Redpath, and others, were types of this class. Hence it
is society stagnates--such is a description of a general law, illustrated
in all history, especially our own. Society invariably sets itself
against all great improvements in their birth. Society gives the cold
shoulder to whatever has lifted up the human race--to whatever has
illustrated and adorned humanity--to whatever has made the world wiser
and better. Our fathers stoned the prophets, and we continue the amiable
custom. Our judgment is not our own, but that of other people. We think
what will other people think? our first question is not, Is a course of
action right or wrong? but; What will Mr. Grundy say? Here is the great
blunder of blunders. John the Baptist lived in a desert. "If I had read
as much as other men," said Hobbes, "I should have been as ignorant as
they." "When I began to write against indulgences," says Luther, "I was
for three years entirely alone; not a single soul holding out the hand of
fellowship and cooperation to me." Of Milton, Wordsworth writes, "his
soul was like a star, and dwelt apart."

The great original thinker of the last generation, John Foster, actually
fled the face of man. What a life of persecution and misrepresentation
had Arnold of Rugby to endure, and no wonder, when we quote against the
conclusions of common sense the imaginary opinions of an imaginary
scarecrow we term society. This deference to the opinion of