phrase, holiness of spirit) by introducing legality; which is no cant phrase of Methodism, but of authenticated standing in the ethics of the profoundest philosophers—­even those who rejected Christianity, as a miraculous event, and revelation itself as far as anything supernatural is implied in it.  I must not mention Plato, I suppose,—­he was a mystic; nor Zeno,—­he and his were visionaries:—­but Aristotle, the cold and dry Aristotle, has in a very remarkable passage in his lesser tract of Ethics asserted the same thing; and called it “a divine principle, lying deeper than those things which can be explained or enunciated discursively.”

Ib. p. 45, 46.

Sure I am that no father of a family that can at all estimate the importance of keeping from the infant mind whatever might raise impure ideas or excite improper inquiries will ever commend the Pilgrim’s Progress to their perusal.

And in the same spirit and for the same cogent reasons that the holy monk Lewis prohibited the Bible in all decent families;—­or if they must have something of that kind, would propose in preference Tirante the White!  O how I abhor this abominable heart-haunting impurity in the envelope of modesty!  Merciful Heaven! is it not a direct consequence from this system, that we all purchase our existence at the price of our mother’s purity of mind?  See what Milton has written on this subject in the passage quoted in the Friend in the essays on the communication of truth. [6]

Ib. p. 47.

Let us ask whether the female mind is likely to be trained to purity by studying this manual of piety, and by expressing its devotional desires after the following example.  “Mercy being a young and breeding woman longed for something,” &c.

Out upon the fellow!  I could find it in my heart to suspect him of any vice that the worst of men could commit!

Ib. pp. 55, 56.

’As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous’.  The interpretation of this text is simply this:—­As by following the fatal example of one man’s disobedience many were made sinners; so by that pattern of perfect obedience which Christ has set before us shall many be made righteous.

What may not be explained thus?  And into what may not any thing be thus explained?  It comes out little better than nonsense in any other than the literal sense.  For let any man of sincere mind and without any system to support look round on all his Christian neighbours, and will he say or will they say that the origin of their well-doing was an attempt to imitate what they all believe to be inimitable, Christ’s perfection in virtue, his absolute sinlessness?  No—­but yet perhaps some particular virtues; for instance, his patriotism in weeping over Jerusalem, his active benevolence in curing the sick and preaching to the poor, his