there will seem to be dissimulation. I cannot deny that it is so, though
most anxious to assert the honesty of Cicero. I can only say that such
dissimulation did prevail then, and that it does prevail now. If any be
great enough to condemn the hierarchs of all the churches, he may do so,
and may include Cicero with the Archbishop of Canterbury. I am not. It
seems necessary to make allowance for the advancing intelligence of men,
and unwise to place yourself so far ahead as to shut yourself out from
that common pale of mankind. I distrust the self-confidence of him who
thinks that he can deduce from one acknowledged error a whole scheme of
falsehood. I will take our Protestant Church of England religion and
will ask some thoughtful man his belief as to its changing doctrines,
and will endeavor to do so without shocking the feelings of any. When
did Sabbatarian observances begin to be required by the Word of God, and
when again did they cease to be so? If it were worth the while of those
who have thought about the subject to answer my question, the replies
would be various. It has never begun! It has never wavered! And there
would be the intermediate replies of those who acknowledge that the
feeling of the country is altering and has altered. In the midst of
this, how many a father of a family is there who goes to church for the
sake of example? Does not the Church admit prayers for change of
weather? Ask the clergyman on his way from church what he is doing with
his own haystack, and his answer will let you know whether he believes
in his own prayers. He has lent all the sanctity of his voice to the
expression of words which had been written when the ignorance of men as
to the works of nature was greater; or written yesterday because the
ignorance of man has demanded it. Or they who have demanded it have not
perhaps been ignorant themselves, but have thought it well to subserve
the superstition of the multitude. I am not saying this as against the
religious observances of to-day, but as showing that such is still the
condition of men as to require the defence which Cicero also required
when he wrote as follows: "Former ages erred in much which we know to
have been changed by practice, by doctrine, or by time. But the custom,
the religion, the discipline, the laws of the augurs and the authority
of the college, are retained, in obedience to the opinion of the people,
and to the great good of the State. Our Consuls, Claudius