30 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



the circumstances of their birth, neither having been adopted 

 from a rational process in their own minds. Seeing the 

 childish absurdity of many forms which they have been 

 trained to consider necessary, natural, and ordered of God, 

 they lose confidence in all their previous ideas that have re 

 sulted from a merely receptive education, and religion and 

 royalty are classed together as old-fashioned notions, nursery 

 bugbears, and romances. It is partly the result of the 

 abominable masquerade of words which is still constantly 

 played off in England on all public occasions, clothing gov 

 ernment with antiquated false forms of sacredness. The 

 simple majesty and holy authority that depends on the exer 

 cise of justice, love, and good judgment, so far from being 

 made more imposing by this mummery, is lost sight of; 

 while all the folly, indiscretion, and injustice of the adminis 

 tration of the law by fallible and unsanctified agents, is inev 

 itably associated in the minds of the ignorant with all that 

 is holy and true. 



The only idea now, these our shipmates entertain of 

 Christianity, seemed to be the particular humbug by which the 

 bishops and clergy make the people think that they must 

 support them in purple and fine linen, just as royalty is 

 the humbug on which the queen is borne, and government 

 the humbug by which the aristocracy are carried on their 

 shoulders, all, of course, in combination. And nothing would 

 convince them of the sincerity of the clergy short of their 

 martyrdom even that, I fear, should the time come for them 

 to act as judges, they would rather attribute to pride, or, at 

 best, to an exceptional deluded mind. With these ideas, 

 nothing but thorough contempt for him, or fear of punish 

 ment, would prevent them from putting a bishop to the test 

 of the stake, if he should fall into their hands. 



While this explanation, if it is correct, should not hinder 



