The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-06-27

away long before his death. seem to be.
| hold Shelley stretching out hands OF faith
after the divine, imploring, demanding to be
led into his pure light, and to find shelter in
the fatherhood of his Creator, through bro
therhood with one Of whom he nobly sang,
and of,whose reign he uttered such glorious
burst of triumph as this:
power from TIE unknown God,
A Promethean conqueror came;
Like triumphsl path he trod
The thorns of death and shame.
A mortal shape to him
Was like the vapor dim
| Which the orient planet Animates with light
He'll, sin and slavery came,
Like bloodhounds mild and tame,
Nor preyed until their lord had taken flight.
The moon OF Mahomet
Arose, and it shall set;
While blazoned as on Heavens immortal noon,
The cross leads generations on.
The skepticism which Shelly INDUCED was
not one of utter disbelief in the future per-
lection of humanity, but it undoubtedly had
its root in the sadness which he experienced
for world which was apparently without q
guiding principle or power, and in the transit
toriness Of everything human He looked
abroad with great, tear brimmed, brooding
eyes, and wept over the absence Of that sta
biiity in some person or thing which his
soul longed to have revealed. Earth to him
was o land of shadows, and men "as clouds
that veil the midnight moon" In one line
he sadly affirms, "Naught may endure but
mutability."
A priest at Lausanne once gesticulated on
reading sQueen Mab," 'Infidel, Jacobin,
leveler; nothing cad stop this spread of bias
phemy but the stake and the fagot; the world
is retrograding into accursed heathenism and
universal anarchy" It was seeing 30 much
of the spirit which animated this priest that
retarded Shelley's religious development But
with every respect for the Lausanne clerical
whose bigotry too often finds its exemplifca-
ton in the cloth of our own day-another
critic of Shelley's, in humber life, . simple
bookseller, was nearer to the truth when he
remarked that Shelley aimed at regenerating,
not leveling mankind, as Byron and Moore.
The detestation of the name of religion
which he at one time questionably displayed
arose from the lack Of one thing itself in those
who profeesed it. He looked upon religion,
as practiced, ''as hostile instead of friendly
to the cultivation of those virtues which
would make men brothers," From the poem
of "Oueen Nab" it is impossible to come to
the conclusion that Shelley was an atheist,
except as regards the God of the Christians,
whom indeed he rejects with scorn. But
there are glimmerings of belief in some
power which molds all things and rules
through all things-in fact pantheistic God.
To the God of the theologians he exhibited
an answering luminosity +; but the pamphlet
he wrote at Oxford was much more atheistical
than the poem. There is abundant evidence,
however, that in after life he abjured both the
pamphlet and the poem. By far the most
terrible thing. doubtless, Shelley ever wrote
are to be found in the notes to ''Queen Nah"
but here. appended to the quotation from the
poem. "There is no God 2" we find him say
ING. "This negation must be understood
solely to effect creative Deity. The by
pothesis of pervading spirit, coeternal with
the universe. remains mistaken.
, This is an admission which no man who
ives an atheist in the strict sense OF the term
would make. But as one fact is worth many
arguments. it may be as well to remind the
reader that in q letter to the editor Of the
Examiner on the subject of ''Queen Mai,
Shelley eaid the poem was never intended TOR
publication, and that in regard to the subtle
DETERMINATIONS Of metaphysical and religious
doctrine, it was very crude and immature. 1t
was written at period when the poet was DIS
gusted with the constitution Of things, ana
when he was DESTROYS of hurting from his
throne the Deity which Christians held up
for reverence.
! He Yepudiated the notion that this being
described to him could be the active governor
of the universe At the same time he did
believe distinctly in some spirit that was pro-
creesively working for perfection. My views
are corroborated by Shelley's reply to Ire
lawney, when the latter asked, why do you
cali yourself an atheist2" and he answered,
81 used it (the name atheist) to express my
adherence Of superstition; took up the
word, as . knight took up the gauntlet in
defiance of injustice" This is clear indi-
cation Of the character Of Shelley's atheism;
it was, as have maintained, not universal
negative. The very spirituality of his nature
would have prevented him from embracing
the everlasting "No." -CnrahM Magazine.