Chapter 7: Religion of Public Opinion favor of it as you please, there is only one way to reach this kind of people, and that is by creating a new public sentiment. When you have brought over, by the power of benevolence and of conscience, a sufficient number in the community to create a public sentiment in its favor, then they will adopt your new proposals, and not before.
17. They are always distressed at what they call the "ultraism" of the day.
They are much afraid the ultraism of the present day will destroy the church. They say we are carrying things too far, and we shall produce a reaction. Take, for instance, the Temperance Reformation. The true friends of temperance now know, that alcohol is the same thing, wherever it is found, and that to save the world and banish intemperance, it is necessary to banish alcohol in all its forms. The pinch of the Temperance Reformation has never yet been decided. The mass of the community have never been called to any selfdenial in the cause. The place where it will pinch is, when it comes to the question, whether men will exercise SELF-DENIAL, to crush the evil. If they may continue to drink wine and beer, it is no self-denial; to give up ardent spirits. It is only changing the form in which alcohol is taken, and they can drink as freely as before.
Many friends of the cause, when they saw what multitudes were rushing into it, were ready to shout a triumph. But the real question is not yet tried. And multitudes will never yield, until the friends of God and man can form a public sentiment so strong as to crush the character of every man who will not give it up. You will find many doctors of divinity and pillars of the church, who are able to drink their wine, that will stand their ground, and no command of God, no requirement of benevolence, no desire to save souls, no pity for bleeding humanity, will move such persons, until you can form a public sentiment so powerful as to force them to it, on penalty of loss of reputation. For they love the praise of men.
And it is a query now in my mind, a matter of solemn and anxious doubt, whether in the present low state of piety and decline of revivals of religion in the church, a public sentiment can be formed, so powerful as to do this. If not, we shall be driven back. The Temperance Reformation, like a dam of sand, will be swept away, the floodgates will be opened again, and the world will go reeling down to hell. And yet thousands of professors of religion, who want to enjoy public respect and at the same time enjoy themselves in their own way, are crying out as if they were in distress at the ultraism of the times!
18. They are often opposed to men, and measures, and things, while they are unpopular and subject to reproach; and when they become popular, fall in with them.
Let an individual go through the churches in any section, and wake them up to a revival of religion, and while he is little known, these persons are not backward to speak against him. But let him go on, and gain influence, and they will fall in and commend him and profess to be his warmest friends. It was just so with Jesus Christ. Before his death, he had a certain degree of popularity. Multitudes would follow him, as he went through the streets,