rch
to canonize one particular class of virtues--as for instance, purity
or martyrdom--so now, in every age, and in every individual bosom,
there is a tendency to canonize, or honour, or reckon as Christian,
only one or two classes of Christian qualities. For example, if you
were to ask in the present day where you should find a type of the
Christian character, many in all probability would point you to the
man who keeps the Sabbath-day, is regular in his attendance upon the
services of the Church, who loves to hear the Christian sermon. This
is a phase of Christian character--that which is essentially and
peculiarly the _feminine_ type of religion. But is there in God's
Church to be found no place for that type which is rather masculine
than feminine?--which, not in litanies or in psalm-singing does the
will of God, but by struggling for principles, and contending for the
truth--_that_ life, whose prayer is action, whose aspiration is
continual effort?

Or again, in every age, amongst all men, in the history of almost
every individual, at one time or another, there has been a tendency
towards that which has been emphatically named in modern times
_hero-worship_--leading us to an admiration of the more singular,
powerful, noble qualities of humanity. And wherever this tendency to
hero-worship exists there will be found side by side with it a
tendency to undervalue and depreciate excellences of an opposite
character--the humble, meek, retiring qualities. But it is precisely
for these that the Church of Christ finds place. "Blessed are the
meek, blessed are the merciful, blessed are they that hunger and
thirst after righteousness, blessed are the poor in spirit." In God's
world there is a place for the wren and the violet, just as truly as
there is for the eagle and the rose. In the Church of God there is a
place--and that the noblest--for Dorcas making garments for the poor,
and for Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus, just as truly as there is
for Elijah confounding a false religion by his noble opposition; for
John the Baptist making a king tremble on his throne; or for the
Apostle Paul "compassing sea and land" by his wisdom and his heroic
deeds.

Once more, there are ages, as well as times in our own individual
experience, when we set up charity as if it were the one only
Christian character. And wherever this tendency is found there will be
found at the same time, and side by s