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the Supreme Being, of which they say many instances have occurred among |
them; and that sometimes their public prayers, which upon great and |
dangerous occasions they have solemnly put up to God, with assured |
confidence of being heard, have been answered in a miraculous manner. |
"They think the contemplating God in His works, and the adoring Him for |
them, is a very acceptable piece of worship to Him. |
"There are many among them that upon a motive of religion neglect |
learning, and apply themselves to no sort of study; nor do they allow |
themselves any leisure time, but are perpetually employed, believing that |
by the good things that a man does he secures to himself that happiness |
that comes after death. Some of these visit the sick; others mend |
highways, cleanse ditches, repair bridges, or dig turf, gravel, or stone. |
Others fell and cleave timber, and bring wood, corn, and other |
necessaries, on carts, into their towns; nor do these only serve the |
public, but they serve even private men, more than the slaves themselves |
do: for if there is anywhere a rough, hard, and sordid piece of work to |
be done, from which many are frightened by the labour and loathsomeness |
of it, if not the despair of accomplishing it, they cheerfully, and of |
their own accord, take that to their share; and by that means, as they |
ease others very much, so they afflict themselves, and spend their whole |
life in hard labour: and yet they do not value themselves upon this, nor |
lessen other people's credit to raise their own; but by their stooping to |
such servile employments they are so far from being despised, that they |
are so much the more esteemed by the whole nation. |
"Of these there are two sorts: some live unmarried and chaste, and |
abstain from eating any sort of flesh; and thus weaning themselves from |
all the pleasures of the present life, which they account hurtful, they |
pursue, even by the hardest and painfullest methods possible, that |
blessedness which they hope for hereafter; and the nearer they approach |
to it, they are the more cheerful and earnest in their endeavours after |
it. Another sort of them is less willing to put themselves to much toil, |
and therefore prefer a married state to a single one; and as they do not |
deny themselves the pleasure of it, so they think the begetting of |
children is a debt which they owe to human nature, and to their country; |
nor do they avoid any pleasure that does not hinder labour; and therefore |
eat flesh so much the more willingly, as they find that by this means |
they are the more able to work: the Utopians look upon these as the wiser |
sect, but they esteem the others as the most holy. They would indeed |
laugh at any man who, from the principles of reason, would prefer an |
unmarried state to a married, or a life of labour to an easy life: but |
they reverence and admire such as do it from the motives of religion. |
There is nothing in which they are more cautious than in giving their |
opinion positively concerning any sort of religion. The men that lead |
those severe lives are called in the language of their country |
Brutheskas, which answers to those we call Religious Orders. |
"Their priests are men of eminent piety, and therefore they are but few, |
for there are only thirteen in every town, one for every temple; but when |
they go to war, seven of these go out with their forces, and seven others |
are chosen to supply their room in their absence; but these enter again |
upon their employments when they return; and those who served in their |
absence, attend upon the high priest, till vacancies fall by death; for |
there is one set over the rest. They are chosen by the people as the |
other magistrates are, by suffrages given in secret, for preventing of |
factions: and when they are chosen, they are consecrated by the college |
of priests. The care of all sacred things, the worship of God, and an |
inspection into the manners of the people, are committed to them. It is |
a reproach to a man to be sent for by any of them, or for them to speak |
to him in secret, for that always gives some suspicion: all that is |
incumbent on them is only to exhort and admonish the people; for the |
power of correcting and punishing ill men belongs wholly to the Prince, |
and to the other magistrates: the severest thing that the priest does is |
the excluding those that are desperately wicked from joining in their |
worship: there is not any sort of punishment more dreaded by them than |
this, for as it loads them with infamy, so it fills them with secret |
horrors, such is their reverence to their religion; nor will their bodies |
be long exempted from their share of trouble; for if they do not very |
quickly satisfy the priests of the truth of their repentance, they are |
seized on by the Senate, and punished for their impiety. The education |
of youth belongs to the priests, yet they do not take so much care of |
instructing them in letters, as in forming their minds and manners |
aright; they use all possible methods to infuse, very early, into the |
tender and flexible minds of children, such opinions as are both good in |
themselves and will be useful to their country, for when deep impressions |
of these things are made at that age, they follow men through the whole |
course of their lives, and conduce much to preserve the peace of the |
government, which suffers by nothing more than by vices that rise out of |
ill opinions. The wives of their priests are the most extraordinary |
women of the whole country; sometimes the women themselves are made |
priests, though that falls out but seldom, nor are any but ancient widows |
chosen into that order. |
"None of the magistrates have greater honour paid them than is paid the |
priests; and if they should happen to commit any crime, they would not be |
questioned for it; their punishment is left to God, and to their own |
consciences; for they do not think it lawful to lay hands on any man, how |
wicked soever he is, that has been in a peculiar manner dedicated to God; |
nor do they find any great inconvenience in this, both because they have |
so few priests, and because these are chosen with much caution, so that |
it must be a very unusual thing to find one who, merely out of regard to |
his virtue, and for his being esteemed a singularly good man, was raised |
up to so great a dignity, degenerate into corruption and vice; and if |
such a thing should fall out, for man is a changeable creature, yet, |
there being few priests, and these having no authority but what rises out |
of the respect that is paid them, nothing of great consequence to the |
public can proceed from the indemnity that the priests enjoy. |
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