happily and profitably rest for a little while beneath the first
vault of the arcade, to review the manner in which these symbols of the
virtues were first invented by the Christian imagination, and the
evidence they generally furnish of the state of religious feeling in
those by whom they were recognised.

Sec. XLV. In the early ages of Christianity, there was little care taken
to analyze character. One momentous question was heard over the whole
world,--Dost thou believe in the Lord with all thine heart? There was
but one division among men,--the great unatoneable division between the
disciple and adversary. The love of Christ was all, and in all; and in
proportion to the nearness of their memory of His person and teaching,
men understood the infinity of the requirements of the moral law, and
the manner in which it alone could be fulfilled. The early Christians
felt that virtue, like sin, was a subtle universal thing, entering into
every act and thought, appearing outwardly in ten thousand diverse
ways, diverse according to the separate framework of every heart in
which it dwelt; but one and the same always in its proceeding from the
love of God, as sin is one and the same in proceeding from hatred of
God. And in their pure, early, and practical piety, they saw there was
no need for codes of morality, or systems of metaphysics. Their virtue
comprehended everything, entered into everything; it was too vast and
too spiritual to be defined; but there was no need of its definition.
For through faith, working by love, they knew that all human excellence
would be developed in due order; but that, without faith, neither reason
could define, nor effort reach, the lowest phase of Christian virtue.
And therefore, when any of the Apostles have occasion to describe or
enumerate any forms of vice or virtue by name, there is no attempt at
system in their words. They use them hurriedly and energetically,
heaping the thoughts one upon another, in order as far as possible to
fill the reader's mind with a sense of the infinity both of crime and of
righteousness. Hear St. Paul describe sin: "Being filled with all
unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness;
full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters,
haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things,
disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers,
without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful