machinery for realizing this standard:
(first) Christ's atonement, (second) grace.

But, according to some bigots (as Jeremy Taylor and Sir Thomas Browne),
as cited by Coleridge, Christianity first opened any road at all. Yet,
surely they forget that, if simply to come too early was the fatal bar
to their claims in the case, Abraham, the father of the faithful, could
not benefit.

Yesterday, Thursday, October 21 (1843), I think, or the day before, I
first perceived that the first great proof of Christianity is the proof
of Judaism, and the proof of that lies in the Jehovah. What merely
natural man capable of devising a God for himself such as the Jewish?

Of all eradications of this doctrine (of human progress), the most
difficult is that connected with the outward shows--in air, in
colouring, in form, in grouping of the great elements composing the
furniture of the heavens and the earth. It is most difficult, even when
confining one's attention to the modern case, and neglecting the
comparison with the ancient, at all to assign the analysis of those
steps by which to us Christians (but never before) the sea and the sky
and the clouds and the many inter-modifications of these, A, B, C, D,
and again the many interactions of the whole, the sun (S.), the moon
(M.), the noon (N. S.)--the breathless, silent noon--the gay
afternoon--the solemn glory of sunset--the dove-like glimpse of Paradise
in the tender light of early dawn--by which these obtain a power utterly
unknown, undreamed of, unintelligible to a Pagan. If we had spoken to
Plato--to Cicero--of the deep pathos in a sunset, would he--would
either--have gone along with us? The foolish reader thinks, Why, perhaps
not, not altogether as to the quantity--the degree of emotion.
Doubtless, it is undeniable that we moderns have far more sensibility to
the phenomena and visual glories of this world which we inhabit. And it
_is_ possible that, reflecting on the singularity of this characteristic
badge worn by modern civilization, he may go so far as to suspect that
Christianity has had something to do with it. But, on seeking to
complete the chain which connects them, he finds himself quite unable to
recover the principal link.

Now, it will prove, after all, even for myself who have exposed and
revealed these new ligatures by which Christianity connects man with
awful interests in the world, a most insurmountable task to assign the
total nidus in which this new pow