ay to him, or praise you refuse to him; who is hostile generally to
human pleasure, but may be bribed by sacrifice of a part of that
pleasure into permitting the rest. This, whatever form of faith it
colors, is the essence of superstition. And religion is the belief in a
Spirit whose mercies are over all His works--who is kind even to the
unthankful and the evil; who is everywhere present, and therefore is in
no place to be sought, and in no place to be evaded; to whom all
creatures, times, and things are everlastingly holy, and who claims--not
tithes of wealth, nor sevenths of days--but all the wealth that we have,
and all the days that we live, and all the beings that we are, but who
claims that totality because He delights only in the delight of His
creatures; and because, therefore, the one duty that they owe to Him,
and the only service they can render Him, is to be happy. A Spirit,
therefore, whose eternal benevolence cannot be angered, cannot be
appeased; whose laws are everlasting and inexorable, so that heaven and
earth must indeed pass away if one jot of them failed: laws which attach
to every wrong and error a measured, inevitable penalty; to every
rightness and prudence, an assured reward; penalty, of which the
remittance cannot be purchased; and reward, of which the promise cannot
be broken.

284. And thus, in the history of art, we ought continually to endeavor
to distinguish (while, except in broadest lights, it is impossible to
distinguish) the work of religion from that of superstition, and the
work of reason from that of infidelity. Religion devotes the artist,
hand and mind, to the service of the gods; superstition makes him the
slave of ecclesiastical pride, or forbids his work altogether, in terror
or disdain. Religion perfects the form of the divine statue,
superstition distorts it into ghastly grotesque. Religion contemplates
the gods as the lords of healing and life, surrounds them with glory of
affectionate service, and festivity of pure human beauty. Superstition
contemplates its idols as lords of death, appeases them with blood, and
vows itself to them in torture and solitude. Religion proselytes by
love, superstition by war; religion teaches by example, superstition by
persecution. Religion gave granite shrine to the Egyptian, golden temple
to the Jew, sculptured corridor to the Greek, pillared aisle and
frescoed wall to the Christian. Superstition made idols of the splendors
by which Religio