No More Learning

I
always hated politics, in the ordinary sense of the word, and I am not
likely to grow, fonder of them, now that I have learned how rare it is
to find a man who can keep principle clear from party and personal
prejudice, or can conceive the possibility of another's doing so. I feel
as if I could in some sort claim to be an _emeritus_, and I am sure that
political satire will have full justice done it by that genuine and
delightful humorist, the Rev. Petroleum V. Nasby. I regret that I killed
off Mr. Wilbur so soon, for he would have enabled me to bring into this
preface a number of learned quotations, which must now go a-begging, and
also enabled me to dispersonalize myself into a vicarious egotism. He
would have helped me likewise in clearing myself from a charge which I
shall briefly touch on, because my friend Mr. Hughes has found it
needful to defend me in his preface to one of the English editions of
the 'Biglow Papers. ' I thank Mr. Hughes heartily for his friendly care
of my good name, and were his Preface accessible to my readers here (as
I am glad it is not, for its partiality makes me blush), I should leave
the matter where he left it. The charge is of profanity, brought in by
persons who proclaimed African slavery of Divine institution, and is
based (so far as I have heard) on two passages in the First Series--

'An' you've gut to git up airly,
Ef you want to take in God,'

and,

'God'll send the bill to you,'

and on some Scriptural illustrations by Mr. Sawin.

Now, in the first place, I was writing under an assumed character, and
must talk as the person would whose mouthpiece I made myself. Will any
one familiar with the New England countryman venture to tell me that he
does _not_ speak of sacred things familiarly? that Biblical allusions
(allusions, that is, to the single book with whose language, from his
church-going habits, he is intimate) are _not_ frequent on his lips?
If
so, he cannot have pursued his studies of the character on so many
long-ago muster-fields and at so many cattle-shows as I. But I scorn any
such line of defence, and will confess at once that one of the things I
am proud of in my countrymen is (I am not speaking now of such persons
as I have assumed Mr. Sawin to be) that they do not put their Maker away
far from them, or interpret the fear of God into being afraid of Him.
The Talmudists had conceived a deep truth when they said, that 'all
things were in the power of God, save the fear of God;' and when people
stand in great dread of an invisible power, I suspect they mistake quite
another personage for the Deity. I might justify myself for the passages
criticised by many parallel ones from Scripture, but I need not. The
Reverend Homer Wilbur's note-books supply me with three apposite
quotations. The first is from a Father of the Roman Church, the second
from a Father of the Anglican, and the third from a Father of Modern
English poetry. The Puritan divines would furnish me with many more
such. St. Bernard says, _Sapiens nummularius est Deus: nummum fictum non
recipiet_; 'A cunning money-changer is God: he will take in no base
coin. ' Latimer says, 'You shall perceive that God, by this example,
shaketh us by the noses and taketh us by the ears. ' Familiar enough,
both of them, one would say! But I should think Mr. Biglow had verily
stolen the last of the two maligned passages from Dryden's 'Don
Sebastian,' where I find

'And beg of Heaven to charge the bill on me! '

And there I leave the matter, being willing to believe that the Saint,
the Martyr, and even the Poet, were as careful of God's honor as my
critics are ever likely to be.




II.