sand ways, some
great some small, but all subtle, we are daily tempted to that
great sin. To speak of such a thing seems dishonouring to God; but
it is not religion as it comes from Him, it is religion with the
strange and evil mixtures which it gathers from abiding in us.
This frightful evil seems to rage in the Roman church more than
anywhere else, probably from its highly wrought political spirit,
the virtues and the vices of a close organisation being much
associated with one another. That same influence which keeps the
mother from her child teaches Montalembert to glorify the
corruption, cruelty, and baseness which in the government of the
papal states put the gospel itself to shame.

_1861_

_11 Carlton H. Terrace, March 5._--I dare scarcely reply to your
letter, for although the scene at Trentham [the death of the Duke
of Sutherland] is much upon my mind, it is, amidst this crowd and
pressure of business, an image reflected in ruffled waters, while
it is also eminently one that ought to be kept true. A sacred
sorrow seems to be profaned by bringing it within the touch of
worldly cares. Still I am able, I hope not unnaturally, to speak
of the pleasure which your letter has given me, for I could not
wish it other than it is.

I am not one of those who think that after a stroke like this, it
is our duty to try and make it seem less than it is. It is great
for all, for you it is immense, for there has now been first
loosened and then removed, the central stay of such a continuation
of domestic love as I should not greatly exaggerate in calling
without rival or example; and if its stay centred in him, so did
its fire in you. I only wish and heartily pray that your sorrow
may be a tender and gentle one, even as it is great and strong. I
call it great and strong _more_ than sharp, for then only the
fierceness of Death is felt when it leaves painful and rankling
thoughts of the departed, or when it breaks the kindly process of
nature and reverses the order in which she would have us quit the
place of our pilgrimage, by ravishing away those whose life is but
just opened or is yet unfulfilled. But you are now yearning over a
Death which has come softly to your door and gone softly from it;
a death in ripeness of years, ripeness of love and honour and
peace, ripeness abo