ently lashes out
with his usual intemperance against the contrary tradition, which is
undeniably well represented. It is not as though the advocates of the
"flight" policy in regard to temptations against this particular virtue
were ignorant of the general principle which undoubtedly holds as
regards all other temptations, and bids us turn and face the dog that
barks at our heels. This counsel is as old as the world. But from the
earliest time a special exception has been made to it in the one case of
impurity by those who have professedly spoken in the light of experience
rather than of _a priori_ inference. Both views are encompassed with
difficulty, nor does any compromise suggest itself.

What seems to us one of the most interesting points raised by the story
of Durtal's spiritual re-birth and development is the precise relation
between the Catholic religion and fine art.

God has not chosen to save men by logic; so neither has He chosen to
save them by fine art. If the "election" of the Apostolic Church counted
but few scribes or philosophers among its members--and those few
admitted almost on sufferance--we may also be sure that the followers of
the Galilean fishermen were not as a body distinguished by a fastidious
criticism in matters of fine art. In after ages, when the Church
asserted herself and moulded a civilization more or less in accordance
with her own exigencies and ideals, it is notorious how she made
philosophy and art her own, and subjected them to her service; but
whether in so doing she in any way departed from the principles of
Apostolic times is what interests us to understand.

There is certainty no more unpardonable fallacy than that of "Bible
Christians," who assume that the Church in the Apostolic age had reached
its full expansion and expression, and therefore in respect of polity,
liturgy, doctrinal statement and discipline must be regarded as an
immutable type for all ages and countries; from which all departure is
necessarily a corruption. They take the flexible sapling and compare it
with aged knotty oak, and shake their heads over the lamentable
unlikeness: "That this should be the natural outgrowth of that! _O
tempora, O mores!_"

Like every organism, in its beginning, the Church was soft-bodied and
formless in all these respects; but she had within her the power of
fashioning to herself a framework suited to her needs, of assuming
consistency and definite shape in due time. The ol