Europe have become without Biblical literature; and lastly, what
would the social order of Europe have become without its hierarchy.

43. You see I have connected the words 'charity' and 'labour' under
the general term of 'bearing the cross.' "If any man will come after
me, let him deny himself, (for charity) and take up his cross (of
pain) and follow me."

The idea has been _exactly_ reversed by modern Protestantism, which
sees, in the cross, not a furca to which it is to be nailed;
but a raft on which it, and all its valuable properties,[37] are to be
floated into Paradise.

[Footnote 37: Quite one of the most curious colours of modern
Evangelical thought is its pleasing connection of Gospel truth with
the extension of lucrative commerce! See farther the note at p. 83.]

44. Only, therefore, in days when the Cross was received with courage,
the Scripture searched with honesty, and the Pastor heard in faith,
can the pure word of God, and the bright sword of the Spirit, be
recognised in the heart and hand of Christianity. The effect of
Biblical poetry and legend on its intellect, must be traced farther,
through decadent ages, and in unfenced fields;--producing 'Paradise
Lost' for us, no less than the 'Divina Commedia';--Goethe's 'Faust,'
and Byron's 'Cain,' no less than the 'Imitatio Christi.'

45. Much more, must the scholar, who would comprehend in any degree
approaching to completeness, the influence of the Bible on mankind, be
able to read the interpretations of it which rose into the great arts of
Europe at their culmination. In every province of Christendom, according
to the degree of art-power it possessed, a series of illustrations of
the Bible were produced as time went on; beginning with vignetted
illustrations of manuscript, advancing into life-size sculpture, and
concluding in perfect power of realistic painting. These teachings and
preachings of the Church, by means of art, are not only a most important
part of the general Apostolic Acts of Christianity; but their study is a
necessary part of Biblical scholarship, so that no man can in any large
sense understand the Bible itself until he has learned also to read
these national commentaries upon it, and been made aware of their
collective weight. The Protestant reader, who most imagines himself
independent in his thought, and private in his study, of Scripture, is
nevertheless usually at the mercy of the nearest preacher who has a
pleasant voice and in