on,
bearing along the mass of men to the grosser agitations of life,
and to such schemes of belief as make these the prominent
object, _there will always be in reserve a force of antagonist
opinion, strengthened by opposition, and attesting the sanctity
of those higher principles, which are despised or forgotten by
the majority_. These men _are secured by natural temperament_
and peculiar circumstances from participating in the common
delusion; but if some other and deeper fallacy be invented; if
some more subtle beast of the field should speak to them in
wicked flattery; if a digest of intellectual aphorisms can be
substituted in their minds for a code of living truths, and the
lovely semblances of beauty, truth, affection, can be made first
to obscure the presence, and then to conceal the loss, of that
religious humility, without which, as their central life, all
these are but dreadful shadows; if so fatal a stratagem can be
successfully practised, I see not what hope remains for a people
against whom the gates of hell have so prevailed."

"But the number of pure artists is small: few souls are so
finely tempered as to preserve the delicacy of meditative
feeling, untainted by the allurements of accidental suggestion.
The voice of the critical conscience is still and small, like
that of the moral: it cannot entirely be stifled where it has
been heard, but it may be disobeyed. Temptations are never
wanting: some immediate and temporary effect can be produced at
less expense of inward exertion than the high and more ideal
effect which art demands: it is much easier to pander to the
ordinary and often recurring wish for excitement, than to
promote the rare and difficult intuition of beauty. _To raise
the many to his own real point of view, the artist must employ
his energies, and create energy in others: to descend to their
position is less noble, but practicable with ease._ If I may be
allowed the metaphor, one partakes of the nature of redemptive
power; the other of that self-abased and degenerate will, which
'flung from his splendors' the fairest star in heaven."

"_Revelation is a voluntary approximation of the Infinite Being
to the ways and thoughts of finite humanity._ But until this
step has been taken by Almighty Grace, how should man have a
warrant for loving w