The New York herald., 1873-08-25
Religious Coquetry.

We never dovstail with our own ideals.
Bulwer was very different man from the
Kenelm Chillingly OF his latest years. Per-
haps it is partly the impatience we experience
in this endeavor to be what we would like to
be that makes some of us fly from one form of
religion to another, vainly seeking in each
something that shall lure us from our SELF
disapproved selves Hence we have the class
of religious coquets, people who firt with
personal piety, and. because they do not find
in one sect all the peace they banker after,
presently fall in love with some other. 1t is
in vain to argue with such persons. If you
entreat them to remember that consistency is
jewel, they will tell you that they prefer the
ornament of meek and quiet spirit, and that
that is all they are after. They are peculiarly
susceptible to the subtle magnetisms Of friend
ship, and for Damon of this stamp to become
q Mussulman it would only be necessary for
his Pythias to be Turk. Yet it is among the
female sex that most Of these variations are to
be found, and she who is developing for q
medium this year may not improbably next
year think Of taking the veil Nothing is
more surprising than the quantity of excellent
reasons the religious coquet can give.
When, after number of months, you find her
taking an interest in her Bible class and her
Dorcas society, you are only prevented from
complmenting her on her consistency by the
reflection that this admirable system is, in all
probability the beginning of the end and
that, by the time you next see her, she will
have exchanged the Presbyterian catechism
for the Episcopal prayerbook and be deep in
questions connected with ritualsm and auric-
ular confession. If you impugn her motives
and suggest that the bias Of personal friend
ship has something to do with the change, she
assumes that injured look which it is 30 diff
cult for a tender masculine heart to with
stand, and when you leave gives you paper
on the laying-on of hands, together with the
latest sermon by the bishop of that diocese.
II she lives in place where the books she
wants are not readily procurable she entrusts
you with various little commissions the
sequel to which is that the next time you travel
that way you find yourself bearing to her
a set Of choice tracts on prayers for the dead
or a portable library on church government.
We must not be misunderstood as ridiculing
taste for serious or even sectarian reading. It
is perfectly proper and creditable one, and
without it one Of the best means for staying
vice and strengthening virtue would fall into
decay. We are only pointing out the tenden-
cies of an Unbalanced temperament with
strong religious basis, to fly from one form of
belief to another, imagining that each change
is for conscience sake and will last forever.
We have said that it is among the gentler
sex that these caprices are usually met with;
but among men. also there are q quite appre-
ciable number Of instances. Who has not been
surprised, not to say outraged, by more than
one detection of a favorite minister? There
are some clergymen who seem born to run the
gauntlet OF religious belief Sceptics before
they enter the ministry, they often settle upon
a creed that has been consecrated by ages of
assent. For some years minister having
some such antecedents as these will preach
upon this platform until circumstances induce
him to modify his belief, and he delivers q
farewell sermon before a weeping congregation
which mourns his heresy. As the years pass
ON the same scene is repeated by him at
intervals, and by the time he has reached forty
we find him veering around toward scepticism
again or endeavoring to make final stand as
the pioneer of some unique religious society
created by himself It is not wonderful that
something of the reputation of the coquet
should attach to clergymen of this description.
They fall in love with. creed after creed only
to Jilt them all at last and by the time they
reach the average boundary of human life it is
no unusual thing for them to turn their backs
on the ministry altogether and take to writing
psychological novels or the invention of yeast
powders or some other pursuit equally useful
to mankind
Yet among all the caprces and inconsistent
cies of the religious coquet there is some
thing to admire. While the mood lasts the
pious flirt does an amount of useful work
which might well arouse the envy and emula-
tion of staider brethren. If il be a woman
who betravs the foible in question, she is