Silence Dogood - Essay No. 9 - Religious Hypocrites

Benjamin Franklin published fourteen Silence Dogood essays in the New-England Courant in 1722, slipping them under the print shop door so his brother James wouldn't know who wrote them. It's the first case of a founding father not only trolling his brother but also catfishing when James developed an affection for Silence. 

 By Essay Nine, Silence had found her footing — and her targets. This one aims at a particular Boston type: the man who wraps himself in religion just long enough to get elected, then sets it aside like a Sunday coat.

Franklin was sixteen years old when he wrote it, and he already understood that the loudest piety in the room is often the least trustworthy. 

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome to the Spectral Summit where the past speaks and the present listens. I'm your host, Kelly Cody Graham, and in this podcast we examine history and literature, and we work to make it fun and approachable. Benjamin Franklin published 14 Silence Dugad essays in the New England Current in 1722, slipping them under the print shop door so that his brother James wouldn't know who wrote them. By essay nine, silence had found her footing. And her targets. This one takes aim at a particular Boston type, the man who wraps himself in religion just long enough to get elected and then sets it aside like a Sunday coat. Franklin was sixteen years old when he wrote it. Sixteen, and already he understood that the loudest piety in the room is often the least trustworthy. Silence Doogood, widow, and keen observer of human nature, had a few things to say about that. She still does. Enjoy. July twenty third, seventeen twenty two. To the author of the New England Current, Sir, it has been for some time a question with me whether a commonwealth suffers more by hypocritical pretenders to religion or by the openly profane. But some late thoughts of this nature have inclined me to think that the hypocrite is the most dangerous person of the two, especially if he sustains a post in the government, and we consider his conduct as it regards the public. The first artifice of a state hypocrite is by a few savory expressions which cost him nothing, to betray the best men in his country into an opinion of his goodness. And if the country wherein he lives is noted for the purity of religion, he is the more easily gains of his end, and consequently may more justly be exposed and detested. A notoriously profane person in a private capacity ruins himself and perhaps forwards the destruction of a few of his equals. But a public hypocrite every day deceives his betters and makes them the ignorant trumpeters of his supposed godliness. They take him for a saint and pass him for one without considering that they are, as it were, the instruments of public mischief out of conscience and ruin their country for God's sake. This political description of a hypocrite may, for I ought to know, be taken for a new doctrine by some of your readers, but let them consider that a little religion and a little honesty goes a great way in courts. He has many temptations to propagate public destruction for personal advantages and security. And if his natural temper be covetous, and his actions often contradict his pious discourse, we may with great reason conclude that he has some other design in his religion besides barely getting to heaven. But the most dangerous hypocrite in the Commonwealth is the one who leaves the gospel for the sake of law. A man compounded of law and gospel is able to cheat a whole country with his religion, and then destroy them under the colour of law. And here the clergy is in great danger of being deceived, and people are being deceived by the clergy, until the monster arrives to such power and wealth that he is out of reach of both, and can oppress the people without your own blind assistance. And it is a sad observation that when people too late see their error, yet your clergy still persists in their acrimums and the hypocrite, and when he happens to die for the good of the country without leaving behind him the memory of one good action, he shall be sure to have his funeral sermon stuffed with pious expressions, which he dropped at such a time and at such a place and on such an occasion, than which nothing can be more prejudicial to the interest of religion, nor indeed to the memory of the person deceased. The reason of this blindness in the clergy is because they are honorably supported, and they ought to be by the people, and see nor feel nothing of the oppression which is obvious and burdensome to everyone else. But this subject raises in me an indignation not to be bored, and if we have had, or like any instances of this nature in New England, we cannot better manifest our love to religion and country than by setting the deceivers in a true light, and undeceiving the deceived, however such discoveries may be represented by the ignorant or designing enemies of our peace and safety. A raging passion for immoderate gain has made men universally and intensely hard-hearted. They were everywhere devouring one another, and yet the directors and their accomplices, who were the acting instruments of all this outrageous madness and mischief, set up for wonderful pious persons, while they were defying almighty God and plundering men. And they set apart a fund of subscriptions for charitable uses, that is, they mercilessly made a whole people beggars, and charitably supported a few necessitous and worthless favorites. I doubt not, but if the villainy had gone on with success, they would have had their names handed down to posterity, with acronyms, and all the names of the other public robbers have been. We have historians and oat makers now living very proper for such a task. It is certain that most people did at one time believe the directors to be great and worthy persons. And an honest country clergyman told me last summer upon the road that Sir John was an excellent public spirited person, for he had beautified his council. Upon the whole we must not judge one another by their best actions, since the worst men do some good and all men make fine professions. But we must judge of men by the whole of their conduct and the effects of it. Thorough honesty requires great and long proof, since many a man long thought honest has at length proved a knave. And it is from judging without proof or false proof that mankind continue unhappy. I am, sir, your humble servant, Silence Do Good. Now, Silence describes hypocrites as wolves in sheep's clothing, people whose public religious performance masks private self-interest? Where do you see that dynamic playing out in public life today? And a second question we're sitting with. Silence was a fictional character, a mask worn by a 16-year-old boy to say things he couldn't say under his own name. Does knowing who's behind the voice change how you receive what she's saying? Does the truth of an argument depend on who's delivering it? Thank you for tuning in. And if you'd like to learn more, you can go to our website, spectral-summit.com, where we have additional literature and historical podcasts, including our series, in which a high school newspaper reporter named Sierra, who can see and talk to ghosts, goes to museums and historic places and asks those spirits questions from today's perspective. We have work and activity sheets along with quizzes to complement the learning and subscription started just to dollars a month. Thanks again, and remember history likes to speak to us if we're just willing to listen.