ilt by one who did not
with his own hands lay the bricks and spread the mortar.

The objection which practical men take is a very important one, as the
criticisms of such men always are, being founded commonly upon large
observation and not perverted by theory. They say that the love of
Christ does not in practice produce the nobleness and largeness of
character which has been represented as its proper and natural result;
that instead of inspiring those who feel it with reverence and hope for
their kind, it makes them exceedingly narrow in their sympathies,
disposed to deny and explain away even the most manifest virtues
displayed by men, and to despair of the future destiny of the great
majority of their fellow-creatures; that instead of binding them to
their kind, it divides them from it by a gulf which they themselves
proclaim to be impassable and eternal, and unites them only in a gloomy
conspiracy of misanthropy with each other; that it is indeed a
law-making power, but that the laws it makes are little-minded and
vexatious prohibitions of things innocent, demoralising restraints upon
the freedom of joy and the healthy instincts of nature; that it favours
hypocrisy, moroseness, and sometimes lunacy; that the only vice it has
power to check is thoughtlessness, and its only beneficial effect is
that of forcing into activity, though not always into healthy activity,
the faculty of serious reflection.

This may be a just picture of a large class of religious men, but it is
impossible in the nature of things that such effects should be produced
by a pure personal devotion to Christ. We are to remember that nothing
has been subjected to such multiform and grotesque perversion as
Christianity. Certainly the direct love of Christ, as it was felt by its
first followers, is a rare thing among modern Christians. His character
has been so much obscured by scholasticism, as to have lost in a great
measure its attractive power. The prevalent feeling towards him now
among religious men is an awful fear of his supernatural greatness, and
a disposition to obey his commands arising partly from dread of future
punishment and hope of reward, and partly from a nobler feeling of
loyalty, which, however, is inspired rather by his office than his
person. Beyond this we may discern in them an uneasy conviction that he
requires a more personal devotion, which leads to spasmodic efforts to
kindle the feeling by means of violent raptures of