The Open Court, Vol. 37 (Classic Reprint) PDF Download

Author: Paul Carus
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781330531655
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 84

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Book Description
Excerpt from The Open Court, Vol. 37 The Open Court A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Science of Religion, the Religion of Science, and the Extension of the Religious Parliament Idea. Vol. XXXVII (No. Ii) November, 1923 No.810 Copyright by The Open Court Publishing Company, 1923 The Religious Opinions Of Charles Lamb By Dudley Wright Some of the most erratic and contradictory statements have been made with regard to the religious opinions of Charles Lamb. In an official publication of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association, as well as in the Life by B.W. Procter (Barry Cornwall), he is claimed as a Unitarian by education and habit, whilst W. Carew Hazlitt, though admitting that Lamb adopted Unitarianism, claims that he did so through the accident of education. These statements are opposed to fact and the evidence of Lambs letters. Admission to Christs Hospital, where Lamb spent several years of his early life, was, until well within the last half-century, limited strictly to members of the Church of England, and a certificate of baptism had to be produced before a boy could gain admission. At Christs Hospital, Lamb did steady work and, according to Leigh Hunt, Southey, and others, attained to the rank of Deputy Grecian. His achievements merited an exhibition, but one of the implied conditions of acceptance was preparation for Holy Orders. Lamb was unable to accept, not by reason of any religious opinions which he held or to which he was unable to subscribe, but because of his unfortunate impediment in speech the same bar to Leigh Hunts acceptance of the like distinction. It is evident that, at that time. Lamb must have been nominally, at any rate, a member of the Established Church. His inability to accept the exhibition explains why he did not pass on to Cambridge, as did Valentine Le Grice, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and other of his school companions. As Talfourd has said: This acquiescence in his different fortunes must have been a hard trial for the sweetness of his disposition; as he always, in after life, regarded the ancient seats of learning with the fondness of one who had been hardly divorced from them. He delighted when other duties did not hinder, to pass his vacations in their neighborhood and indulge in that fancied association with them which he has so beautifully mirrored in his Sonnet written at Cambridge. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.