ints of
doctrine, who, nevertheless, shamed by the blamelessness and nobility of
their conduct multitudes of ardent Christians of the lip-service sort.
Indeed this contradiction between creed and conduct struck him with
considerable force in the midst of his harsh judgments against unbelief
and unbelievers. "There are, in fact," he had remarked a year or two
after he had attained his majority, "few _reasoning_ Christians; the
majority of them are swayed more by the usages of the world than by any
definite perception of what constitutes duty--so far, we mean, as
relates to the subjugation of vices which are incorporated, as it were,
into the existence of society; else why is it that intemperance, and
slavery, and war, have not ere this in a measure been driven from our
land?"

As the months of his earnest young life passed him by, they showed him
as they went how horrible a thing was faith without works. "By their
fruits ye shall know them," the Master had said, and more and more as he
saw how many and great were the social evils to be reformed, and in what
dire need stood his country of righteous action, did he come to put
increasing emphasis on conduct, as the one thing needful to rid the land
of the triple curse of slavery, intemperance, and war. As he mused upon
these giant evils, and the desolation which they were singly and
together causing in the world, and upon the universal apathy of the
churches in respect of them, it seemed to him that the current religion
was an offence and an abomination. And in his prophetic rage he
denounced it as "a religion which quadrates with the natural depravity
of the heart, giving license to sin, restraining no lust, mortifying not
the body, engendering selfishness, and cruelty!--a religion which walks
in silver slippers, on a carpeted floor, having thrown off the burden of
the cross and changed the garments of humiliation for the splendid
vestments of pride! a religion which has no courage, no faithfulness, no
self-denial, deeming it better to give heed unto men than unto God!"
This was in the autumn of 1829, but though he was thus violently
denunciatory of contemporary religion, the severity of his judgment
against the skepticism of the times had not been materially modified. He
still regarded the unbeliever with narrow distrust and dislike. When,
after his discharge from Baltimore jail, he was engaged in delivering
his message on the subject of slavery, and was seeking an opport