ligion.”[1] In the public services “no prayers be used, but such as every man may boldly pronounce without giving offence to any sect.” He says significantly (p. 143), “There be that give worship to a man that was once of excellent virtue or of famous glory, not only as God, but also the chiefest and highest God. But the most and the wisest part, rejecting all these, believe that there is a certain godly power unknown, far above the capacity and reach of man’s wit, dispersed throughout all the world, not in bigness, but in virtue and power. Him they call the Father of All. To him alone they attribute the beginnings, the increasings, the proceedings, the changes, and the ends of all things. Neither give they any divine honors to any other than him.” So far was More from sharing the popular beliefs of his time. Yet at the end he reminds us that he does not in all respects agree with the customs and opinions of the Utopians which he describes. And we should let him have the benefit of this saving clause, and not rudely withdraw the veil behind which he has been pleased to conceal himself.
Nor is he less in advance of popular opinion in his political and moral speculations. He would like to bring military glory into contempt; he would set all sorts of idle people to profitable occupation, including in the same class, priests, women, noblemen, gentlemen, and “sturdy and valiant beggars,” that the labor of all may be reduced to six hours a day. His dislike of capital punishment, and plans for the reformation of offenders; his detestation of priests and lawyers;[2] his remark that “although everyone may hear of ravenous dogs and wolves and cruel man-eaters, it is not easy to find States that are well and wisely governed,” are curiously at variance with the notions of his age and, indeed, with his own life. There are many points in which he shows a modern feeling and a prophetic insight like Plato. He is a sanitary reformer; he maintains that civilized States have a right to the
- ↑ “One of our company in my presence was sharply punished. He, as soon as he was baptized, began against our wills, with more earnest affection than wisdom to reason of Christ’s religion, and began to wax so hot in this matter, that he did not only prefer our religion before all other, but also did despise and condemn all other, calling them profane, and the followers of them wicked and devilish, and the children of the everlasting damnation. When he had thus long reasoned the matter, they laid hold on him, accused him, and condemned him into exile, not as a despiser of religion, but as a seditious person and a raiser up of dissension among the people” (p. 145).
- ↑ Compare his satirical observation: “They (the Utopians) have priests of exceeding holiness, and therefore very few” (p. 150).
