MEMOIR RELATING TO THE PREVALENT

SUPERSTITION OF THE THALAMISTS.

CHRONOLOGISTs have generally admitted that the sect of the Thalamists is co-eval with that of the Non-doers; and it is presumed that at an early period the two parties entered into an alliance, founded on principles common to both, the terms of which have been preserved inviolate to the present time. Some writers have connected the Thalamistic superstition with the ancient mythology, alleging that the sect has, from the most remote antiquity, paid divine honors to Somnus, son of Erebus and Nox, and to Phobetor, Phantasia, and Morpheus, the ministers of that sullen deity. The mysteries of the Thalamists were, however, long anterior to Polytheism, though the advocates of the above-mentioned hypothesis have advanced arguments in its support which might startle incredulity itself.

Another class of antiquaries, arguing from the Thalamistic rite of immolating human victims, has labored to identify that worship with the sanguinary superstition of the Druids. It will appear in the sequel, that every individual among the Thalamists is both priest and sacrifice.

As it is by no means the design of this memoir to meddle with the endless controversies of antiquaries and mythologists, the compiler hastens to describe existing facts, begging leave to premise, that evident allusions to the worship of the Thalamists are to be found in the Book of Proverbs, which was probably written a thousand years before the christian era. The reader is referred to chap. vi. 9-11, and xxiv. 30-34.

The ritual observances of the sect in question commence in the morning, precisely at the hour when the conscientious are rising to their early orisons, and the industrious to their daily employments. The devotee is generally a solitary worshipper; for, strange as it may appear, where two or more assemble in the same temple, they restrain each other's idolatrous propensities, unless, as sometimes occurs, these abject idolists consent to forbear mutual reprehension. During the sacrificial rites the devotee continues

prostrate on the Thalamos* or altar, concealed, though not entirely, under the sacred vestments. The silence of the temple is only interrupted by the deep-drawn sighs of the aspirant, who, excepting occasional changes of posture, involuntary contractions of the limbs, or convulsive starts, remains motionless: animation seems to be suspended; and the devotee's countenance bears the pallid impress of death. The period of this gloomy devotion varies according to the strength of the devotee's principles. A bigot, it is said, will consume whole mornings in his private chantry, whispering an almost silent mass. The temples or chantries, where the Thalamistic mysteries are celebrated, are in some mansions decorated with costly furniture; and the altar is their distinguished ornament. This, elevated on four low pillars, is a quadrangular frame of carpentry, supporting the softest spoils of the feathered world; and upon these the willing victim is offered. Above him is a superb canopy, adorned with magnificent drapery. The temple is supplied with a lavatory, and all the apparatus necessary to cleanse the victim from ceremonial feculence.

The Thalamists gain numerous proselytes among all sects and parties, but are peculiarly successful in their efforts to convert the young, and such as have no regular occupation. It is confidently affirmed, that in our colleges the Thalamistic heresy would generally prevail, were not the immature heretics disturbed every morning, at an early hour, by the unwelcome expostulations of a faithful and sonorous monitor. Many a student, however, contrives, three or four mornings in the week, to disregard the admonitions of metallic orthodoxy, and, instead of duly attending the college primes, prolongs the Thalamistic nocturn. Yet these idolatrous habits are readily detected in the fatal hour of examination, where the academical devotee too late recognizes the value of sound principles.

* From this ancient Greek name of the altar, the superstition derives its name. The word signifies a bed. By some authors the Thalamists have been called Cu bilians. Others, who, like Horne Tooke in his Diversions of Purley, amalgamate etymology with politics, insist that the Thalamists' proper appellation is Tory, from Torus, which, as well as Cubile and Oaλapos, these restless critics aver, signifies a couch or bed.

In our public schools the sect has numbered few adherents, the teachers having ever opposed tenets which ultimately tend to the destruction of all scholastic discipline. These teachers are decided Anti-Thalamistics ;* and, in defiance of that received maxim which forbids the propagation of opinions by violence, do nevertheless employ that rude argument, by subjecting the trembling little Thalamists, if such be found, to the terrors of the torturing scourge; and the youthful devotees regain purity of principle at the expense of lacerated shins, and amidst sighs, and groans and

tears.

The sect has numbered few illustrious characters among its patrons. Its creed has ever been deemed hostile to all that can be admired or loved. The faction is, indeed, popular, and glorious in the number of its adherents, while it is silent with regard to their moral respectability.

And now, dropping the sportive style of this paper, and to be serious on a serious subject, the writer invites the attention of all who consume their morning hours in criminal sloth,† to the following extracts from a work which, with all its acknowledged blemishes, deserves a place in every library.

"I take it for granted," says my author, "that every christian, that is in health, is up early in the morning; for it is much more reasonable to suppose a person up early, because he is a christian, than because he is a laborer, or a tradesman, or a servant, or has business that wants him. Sleep is such a dull, stupid state of existence, that even amongst mere animals, we despise them most which are most drowsy. You will perhaps say, though you rise late, yet you are always careful of your devotions when you are

* The reader need not be apprized, that the opposers of Thalamism are a numerous and highly respectable body. The lover of poetry will remember in Dryden's Fable of Palæmon and Arcite, the following mention of an elegant AntiThalamist.

"Up rose the sun, and up rose Emily."

† A late eminent divine calculated that the difference between rising at five and at seven, in the morning, for the space of forty years, supposing a man to go to bed at the same hour at night, is equivalent to the addition of ten years to a man's life, of which (supposing the two hours in question to be so spent) eight hours every day should be employed in study and devotion.

up. It may be so. But what then? Is it well done of you to rise late, because you pray when you are up? Is it pardonable to waste a great part of the day in bed, because some time after you say your prayers? It is as much your duty to rise to pray, as to pray when you are risen. And if you are late at your prayers, you offer to God the prayers of an idle, slothful worshipper, that rises to prayers as idle servants rise to their labor. Farther, if you fancy that you are careful of your devotions when you are up, though it be your custom to rise late, you deceive yourself; for you cannot perform your devotions as you ought. Now he that turns sleep into an idle indulgence, does as much to corrupt and disorder his soul, to make it a slave to bodily appetites, and keep it incapable of all devout and heavenly tempers, as he that turns the necessities of eating into a course of indulgence.

"A person that eats and drinks too much, does not feel such effects from it as those do who live in notorious instances of gluttony and intemperance: but yet his course of indulgence, though it be not scandalous in the eyes of the world, nor such as torments his own conscience, is a great and constant hindrance to his improvement in virtue : it gives him eyes that see not, and ears that hear not: it creates a sensuality in the soul, increases the power of bodily passions, and makes him incapable of entering into the true spirit of religion.

"Now this is the case of those who waste their time in sleep: it does not disorder their lives, or wound their conscience, as notorious acts of intemperance do; but, like any other moderate course of indulgence, it silently, and by smaller degrees, wears away the spirit of religion, and sinks the soul into a state of dulness and sensuality. If you consider devotion only as a time of so much prayer, you may perhaps perform it, though you live in this daily indulgence: but if you consider it as a state of the heart, as a lively fervor of the soul, that is deeply affected with a sense of its own misery and infirmities, and desiring the spirit of God more than all things in the world, you will find that the spirit of indulgence and the spirit of prayer cannot subsist together. Mortification of all kinds is the very life and soul of piety; but he that has not so small a degree of it as not to be able to be early at his prayers, can have no reason to think that he has taken up his cross and is following Christ. What conquest has he got over

himself? What right hand has he cut off? What trials is he prepared for? What sacrifice is he ready to offer unto God, who cannot be so cruel to himself as to rise to prayer at such time as the drudging part of the world are content to rise to their labor? Some people will not scruple to tell you, that they indulge themselves in sleep because they have nothing to do; and that if they had either business or pleasure to rise to, they would not lose so much of their time in sleep. But such people must be told that they mistake the matter; that they have a great deal of business to do; they have a hardened heart to change; they have the whole spirit of religion to get. For, surely, he that thinks devotion to be of less moment than business or pleasure; or he that has nothing to do, because nothing but his prayers want him, may be justly said to have the whole spirit of religion to seek. You must not, therefore, consider how small a crime it is to rise late, but you must consider how great a misery it is to want the spirit of religion, to have a heart not rightly affected with prayer, and to live in such softness and idleness, as makes you incapable of the most fundamental duties of a truly christian and spiritual life. You must not consider the thing barely in itself, but what it proceeds from; what virtues it shows to be wanting; what vices it naturally strengthens. For every habit of this kind discovers the state of the soul, and plainly shews the whole turn of your mind. When you read the scriptures, you see a religion that is all life, and spirit, and joy in God; that supposes our souls risen from earthly desires and bodily indulgences, to prepare for another body, another world, and other enjoyments. You see christians represented as temples of the Holy Ghost, as children of the day, as candidates for an eternal crown, as watchful virgins, that have their lamps always burning in expectation of the bridegroom. But can he be thought to have this joy in God, this care of eternity, this watchful spirit, who has not zeal enough to rise to his prayers?

"When you look into the writings and lives of the first christians, you see the same spirit that you see in the scriptures. All is reality, life and action. From that time to this, there has been no person like them, eminent for piety, who has not, like them, been eminent for self-denial and mortification. This is the only royal way that leads to a kingdom."