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Updated: June 14, 2025
Waverley at length found an opportunity to interrupt Janet's narrative, by an inquiry after Miss Bradwardine. 'She's weel and safe, thank God! at the Duchran, answered the Baron. 'The laird's distantly related to us, and more nearly to my chaplain, Mr. Rubrick; and, though he be of Whig principles, yet he's not forgetful of auld friendship at this time.
Rubrick afterwards told Edward, that the Duke had done him this honour on account of his being the first to mount the breach of a fort in Savoy during the memorable campaign of 1709, and his having there defended himself with his half-pike for nearly ten minutes before any support reached him.
The nonjuring clergyman was a pensive and interesting old man, with much the air of a sufferer for conscience' sake. He was one of those, Who, undeprived, their benefice forsook. For this whim, when the Baron was out of hearing, the Bailie used sometimes gently to rally Mr. Rubrick, upbraiding him with the nicety of his scruples.
Rubrick afterwards told Edward, that the Duke had done him this honour on account of his being the first to mount the breach of a fort in Savoy during the memorable campaign of 1709, and his having there defended himself with his half-pike for nearly ten minutes before any support reached him.
Bradwardine loved to talk of the scenes of his youth, whichl had been spent in camps and foreign lands, and had many interesting particulars to tell of the generals under whom he had served and the actions he had witnessed. There was no other guest except Mr. Rubrick, whose information and discourse, as a clergyman and a scholar, harmonised very well with that of the Baron and his guest.
Bradwardine began to ascend, by two steps at once, a very steep, narrow, and winding stair, leaving Mr. Rubrick and Waverley to follow at more leisure, while he should announce their approach to his daughter.
The nuptial party travelled in great style. There was a coach and six after the newest pattern, which Sir Everard had presented to his nephew, that dazzled with its splendour the eyes of one half of Scotland; there was the family coach of Mr. Rubrick; both these were crowded with ladies, and there were gentlemen on horseback, with their servants, to the number of a round score.
The nonjuring clergyman was a pensive and interesting old man, with much of the air of a sufferer for conscience' sake. He was one of those Who, undeprived, their benefice forsook. For this whim, when the Baron was out of hearing, the Bailie used sometimes gently to rally Mr. Rubrick, upbraiding him with the nicety of his scruples.
He sent these verses to Boswell in 1775. Ante ii. 293. "Legitimas faciunt pectora pura preces," be according to the rubrick, but that is your concern; for you know, he is a Presbyterian. In Johnson's Works, i. 167, these lines are given with amendments and additions, mostly made by Johnson, but some, Mr. Croker believes, by Mr. Langton. In the following copy the variations are marked in italics.
Of other features of Comtist philosophy it would be out of place to speak here, where, indeed, that philosophy would not have been mentioned at all but for its having been transformed by its author into a religion, and that, too, an atheistical religion the 'Religion of Humanity. To myself, as to most people, a religion without a God is a contradiction in terms. To constitute what is almost universally understood by religion it does not suffice that there be a 'creed or conviction claiming authority over the whole of human life: a belief or set of beliefs deliberately adopted respecting human destiny and duty, to which the believer inwardly acknowledges that all his actions ought to be subordinate: nor that there be in addition 'a sentiment connected with this creed or capable of being invoked by it, sufficiently powerful to give it, in fact, the authority over human conduct to which it lays claim in theory: nor yet that there be, moreover, 'an ideal object, the believer's attachment and sense of duty towards which are able to control and discipline all his other sentiments and propensities, and prescribe to him a rule of life. That such an object is fully capable of gathering round it feelings sufficiently strong to enforce the most rigid rule of life, will certainly not be denied by me, privileged as I am to count among my friends more than one whose whole life is little else than a life of devotion to an object, 'the general interest of the human race, plainly incapable of affording them in exchange that 'eternity of personal enjoyment' to which ordinary devotees look forward as their reward, and whose virtue I honour as approaching the sublime, on account of its independence of all the props and stimulants which ordinary virtue finds indispensable. But the sublimest virtue does not of itself constitute religion. For, besides the 'creed, 'conviction, and 'sentiment' indicated above, there is needed some suitable object of worship to which the soul may alternately bow down in humble reverence, and look up in fervent love some being to whom its prayer, praise, and thanksgiving may be fittingly addressed. This want, recognised as one of the few who do not recognise it admits by nine out of every ten persons, was distinctly recognised by Comte, who, however, attempted to supply it by pointing, not to God, but to Man. His reason for this was not a conviction that there is no God. On the contrary, he habitually disclaimed, not without acrimony, dogmatic atheism; and once even condescended so far as to declare that 'the hypothesis of design has much greater verisimilitude than that of a blind mechanism. But in the 'mature state of intelligence' at which his mind had arrived, 'conjecture founded on analogy did not seem to him a basis to rest a theory upon. He preferred a religious theory without a basis, and therefore adopted one as destitute of support as the tortoise on which stands the earth-upholding elephant of Hindoo mythology; selecting, as the 'Grand Être' to be worshipped, 'the entire Human Race, conceived as a continuous whole, past, present, and future. For this great collective non-existence, this compound of that which is, that which has been but has ceased to be, and that which is not yet, he elaborated a minute ritual of devotional observances, and would, if he had had the chance, have consecrated a complete sacerdotal hierarchy, subordinated to himself as supreme pontiff. Having, for fear of recognising what possibly might not be, begun by, wilfully and with his eyes open, recognising what could not possibly be, he proceeded to invest this sanctified non-existence with precisely those attributes best calculated to render it unfit to receive the admiration he prescribed for it. That feeble Humanity the actually living portion thereof, that is may need and be the better for our services, which Divine Omnipotence of course cannot be, was distinctly urged by him as a reason why prayers, or at least those outpourings of feeling which he so designated, should be addressed to the former and not to the latter. That Humanity is in a constant state of progress, so that both the collective mass and choice specimens of each successive generation of men must always be superior to the corresponding masses and specimens of all previous generations, is a prime article of the Comtist creed; but not the less is it an imperative injunction of the Comtist rubrick that religious homage shall be paid, not only to the collective 'Grand Être' of Humanity, but also to individual worthies of past ages that superiors shall consequently fall down before, and worship, and take as models, their intellectual and moral inferiors. The fact of a religion made up of tenets like these having been thought out by one of the profoundest of reasoners does not prevent its being the very perfection of unreason. Even though on the one side there were nothing more than some doubt whether Deity might not exist, still with complete certainty on the other of the non-existence of 'Humanity, Deity ought in fairness to have at least the benefit of the doubt. In selection for adoration, that which only perhaps may be, at any rate deserves to be, preferred to that which positively is not. The excess of superstition with which St. Paul reproached the Athenians, for raising an altar to the 'Unknown God, looks like excessive circumspection, beside the solemn dedication of temples to a chimera known not to be. Nay, even Isaiah's maker of graven images is at length outdone. Even he who, having hewn down a tree, 'burneth part thereof in the fire, with part thereof eateth flesh, roasteth roast, and is satisfied, warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire; and with the residue maketh a god, yea, his graven image, and falleth down unto it and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me, for thou art my god' even he has at last found more than his match in irrationality. For he has at least before him a visible tangible block of wood, not the mere memory of one that has long ago rotted, nor the dream of one that is yet to grow, whereas that mental figment, Consecrated Humanity, is not even a real shadow, but only a fancied one, a shadow cast by no substance. And it is to Comtists of all people intellectual salt of the earth as they are that this figment is recommended for adoration yes, to those who, pharisaically standing aloof from the common herd, thank their imaginary substitute for God, or whatever else it is they deem thankworthy, that they are not blind as other men are, and least of all as those dazed metaphysicians who actually personify their own mental abstractions. No wonder that such extreme provocation should try the patience of all but the stanchest disciples. No wonder that Mr. Lewes himself should seem half inclined to apostrophise his quondam master in words resembling those once addressed to Robespierre, 'Avec ton Grand Être, tu commences
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