ne for
forcing one foot in due succession before the other would be to a man
who could not walk: while the study of rhetoric is exclusively one for
men who desire to deceive or be deceived; he who has the truth at his
heart need never fear the want of persuasion on his tongue, or, if he
fear it, it is because the base rhetoric of dishonesty keeps the truth
from being heard.

Sec. C. The study of these sciences, therefore, naturally made men shallow
and dishonest in general; but it had a peculiarly fatal effect with
respect to religion, in the view which men took of the Bible. Christ's
teaching was discovered not to be rhetorical, St. Paul's preaching not
to be logical, and the Greek of the New Testament not to be grammatical.
The stern truth, the profound pathos, the impatient period, leaping from
point to point and leaving the intervals for the hearer to fill, the
comparatively Hebraized and unelaborate idiom, had little in them of
attraction for the students of phrase and syllogism; and the chief
knowledge of the age became one of the chief stumbling-blocks to its
religion.

Sec. CI. But it was not the grammarian and logician alone who was thus
retarded or perverted; in them there had been small loss. The men who
could truly appreciate the higher excellences of the classics were
carried away by a current of enthusiasm which withdrew them from every
other study. Christianity was still professed as a matter of form, but
neither the Bible nor the writings of the Fathers had time left for
their perusal, still less heart left for their acceptance. The human
mind is not capable of more than a certain amount of admiration or
reverence, and that which was given to Horace was withdrawn from David.
Religion is, of all subjects, that which will least endure a second
place in the heart or thoughts, and a languid and occasional study of it
was sure to lead to error or infidelity. On the other hand, what was
heartily admired and unceasingly contemplated was soon brought nigh to
being believed; and the systems of Pagan mythology began gradually to
assume the places in the human mind from which the unwatched
Christianity was wasting. Men did not indeed openly sacrifice to
Jupiter, or build silver shrines for Diana, but the ideas of Paganism
nevertheless became thoroughly vital and present with them at all times;
and it did not matter in the least, as far as respected the power of
true religion, whether the Pagan image was believed