ed it. The creed which makes
human nature richer and larger makes men at the same time capable
of profounder sins; admitted into a holier sanctuary, they are
exposed to the temptation of a greater sacrilege; awakened to the
sense of new obligations, they sometimes lose their simple respect
for the old ones; saints that have resisted the subtlest
temptations sometimes begin again, as it were, by yielding without
a struggle to the coarsest; hypocrisy has become tenfold more
ingenious and better supplied with disguises; in short, human
nature has inevitably developed downwards as well as upwards, and
if the Christian ages be compared with those of heathenism, they
are found worse as well as better, and it is possible to make it a
question whether mankind has gained on the whole....

But the triumph of the Christian Church is that it is
_there_--that the most daring of all speculative dreams, instead
of being found impracticable, has been carried into effect, and
when carried into effect, instead of being confined to a few
select spirits, has spread itself over a vast space of the earth's
surface, and when thus diffused, instead of giving place after an
age or two to something more adapted to a later time, has endured
for two thousand years, and at the end of two thousand years,
instead of lingering as a mere wreck spared by the tolerance of
the lovers of the past, still displays vigour and a capacity of
adjusting itself to new conditions, and lastly, in all the
transformations it undergoes, remains visibly the same thing and
inspired by its Founder's universal and unquenchable spirit.

It is in this and not in any freedom from abuses that the divine
power of Christianity appears. Again, it is in this, and not in
any completeness or all-sufficiency....

But the achievement of Christ in founding by his single will and
power a structure so durable and so universal, is like no other
achievement which history records. The masterpieces of the men of
action are coarse and common in comparison with it, and the
masterpieces of speculation flimsy and insubstantial. When we
speak of it the commonplaces of admiration fail us altogether.
Shall we speak of the originality of the design, of the skill
displayed in the execution? All such terms are inadequate.
Originality and contriving skil