to all that was loud and rude, wife an intensified reluctance to mingle with the coarser throng.  Was it not utterly alien to the spirit of Christ thus to seclude oneself in light and warmth, among sweet strains of music and holy pictures?  I do not doubt that these delights have a certain ennobling effect upon the spirit; but are they a medicine for the sorrows of the world? are they not rather the anodyne for sensitive spirits fond of tranquil ease?

I could not restrain the thought that if a man of sensitive nature is penetrated with the spirit of Christ first, if the passion of his soul to seek and save the lost is irresistible, if his faith runs clear and strong, he might win a holy refreshment from these peaceful, sweet solemnities.  But the danger is for those who have no such unselfish enthusiasm, and who are tempted, under the guise of religion, to yield themselves with a sense of fastidious complacency to what are, after all, mere sensuous delights.  Is it right to countenance such error?  If piety frankly said, “These things are no part of religion at all; they are only a pure region of spiritual beauty, a garden of refreshment into which a pilgrim may enter by the way; only a mere halting-place, a home of comfort,”—­then I should feel that it would be a consistent attitude.  But if it is only a concession to the desire of beauty, if it distracts men from the purpose of Christ, if it is a mere bait for artistic souls, then I cannot believe that it is justified.

While I thus pondered, the anthem rose loud and sweet upon the air; all the pathos, the desire of the world, the craving for delicious rest, stirred and spoke in those moving strains—­round a quiet minor air, sung by a deep grave voice of a velvety softness, a hundred mellow pipes wove their sweet harmonies:  it told assuredly of a hope and of a truth far off; it drew the soul into a secret haven, where it listened contentedly to the roar of the surge outside.  But the error seemed to be that one desired to rest there, like the Lotos-eaters in the enchanted land, and not to fare forth as a soldier of God.  It spoke of delight, not of hardness; of acquiescence, not of effort.

XXXII

Strange that the sight of a man being guillotined should inspire me with a burning desire to inflict the very thing which I see another suffer!  What a violent metaphor for a very minute matter!  It is only a review which I have been reading, in which a pompous, and I imagine clerical, critic comes down with all his might on a man whom I gather to be a graceful and mildly speculative writer.  The critic asks ponderously.  What right has a man who seems to be untrained in philosophy and theology to speculate on philosophical and religious matters?  He then goes on to quote a passage in which the writer attacks the current view of the doctrine of the Atonement, and he adds that a man who is unacquainted with the