Mischief III.—Impressing Undefined Terrors.

In treating generally of the efficacy of these posthumous anticipations in the character of sanctions, I have already indicated the mode in which they kindle up, on certain occasions, the most terrific feelings of which the human bosom is susceptible. Their operation is indeed most afflicting, in this point of view; it is always most cruelly preponderant upon those unhappy subjects whose title to exemption is the greatest—upon those who are already broken down by sickness and despondency—upon those whose only point of distinction from their neighbours is the actual calamity under which they suffer. This unfortunate casualty shatters the nervous system, enfeebles the judgment, and lays open the victim to the incursions of imaginary terrors, the extent and reality of which he cannot measure. The force, which religion thus casts into the already over-poised scale of misery, may be best appreciated by stating, that it frequently drives the sufferer into insanity. It augments also most fatally the horrors which usually environ the prospect of death.

But I need not again repeat what has been before urged, that these anticipations redouble their severity precisely at the time when no benefit can possibly result from it. They slumber during the period of health and comfort; they await the appearance of sorrow and disaster before they can obtain a congenial atmosphere. The mass of suffering which they thus occasion to almost every one, at different times of life, must be very considerable. There is no one who has not been occasionally assailed by illness, and by the page 68 despondency which generally attends it, and few, therefore, into whose mind posthumous fears do not at times find admission, with more or less effect. We are warranted then in assuming the aggregate of misery introduced by them in this shape, as highly important in amount. That almost all persons, in whom religion is deeply and fervently implanted, are much harassed by these distressing apprehensions, may be asserted with confidence. But it is seldom that we can obtain a testimony at once so striking and authentic, of their power and extent, as the following account of the Spanish monasteries—written by a philosophical Spanish clergyman, and contained in a most eloquent and interesting work entitled, "Don Leucadio Doblado's Letters from Spain"—(London, 1822).

"The common source of suffering [says this author, p. 252] among the Catholic recluses, proceeds from a certain degree of religious melancholy, which, combined with such complaints as originate in perpetual confinement, affect more or less the greater number. The mental disease to which I allude, is commonly known by the name of Escrupulos, and might be called religious anxiety. It is the natural state of a mind, perpetually dwelling on hopes connected with an invisible world, and anxiously practising means to avoid an unhappy lot in it, which keep the apprehended danger for ever present to the imagination. Consecration for life at the altar promises, it is true, increased happiness in the world to come; but the numerous and difficult duties attached to the religious profession, multiply the hazards of eternal misery with the chances of failure in their performance, and while the plain Christian's offences against the moral law are often considered as mere frailties, those of the professed votary seldom escape the aggravation of sacrilege. The odious diligence of the Catholic moralist has raked together an endless catalogue of sins, by thought, word, and deed, to every one of which the punishment of eternal flames has been assigned. This list, alike horrible and disgusting, haunts the imagination of the unfortunate devotee, till reduced to a state of perpetual anxiety, she can neither think, speak, nor act, without discovering in every vital motion a sin which invalidates all her past sacrifiecs, and dooms her painful efforts after Christian perfec- page 69 tion to end in everlasting misery. Absolution, which adds boldness to the resolute and profligate, becomes a fresh source of disquietude to a timid and sickly mind. Doubts innumerable disturb the unhappy sufferer, not, however, as to the power of the priest in granting pardon, but respecting her own fulfilment of the conditions, without which to receive pardon is sacrilege. These agonizing fears, cherished and fed by the small circle of objects to which a nun is con-fined, are generally incurable, and usually terminate in an untimely death or insanity."