he finds
himself, on every particular point, out of sympathy with the acts and
tendencies of the church to which he belongs; and then he yields to
the most pathetic of his many illusions--he sets about to purge this
church, so as not to be compelled to abandon it; to purge it of its
first principles, of its whole history, and of its sublime if
chimerical ideal.

The modernist wishes to reconcile the church and the world. Therein he
forgets what Christianity came into the world to announce and why its
message was believed. It came to announce salvation from the world;
there should be no more need of just those things which the modernist
so deeply loves and respects and blushes that his church should not be
adorned with--emancipated science, free poetic religion, optimistic
politics, and dissolute art. These things, according to the Christian
conscience, were all vanity and vexation of spirit, and the pagan
world itself almost confessed as much. They were vexatious and vain
because they were bred out of sin, out of ignoring the inward and the
revealed law of God; and they would lead surely and quickly to
destruction. The needful salvation from these follies, Christianity
went on to announce, had come through the cross of Christ; whose
grace, together with admission to his future heavenly kingdom, was
offered freely to such as believed in him, separated themselves from
the world, and lived in charity, humility, and innocence, waiting lamp
in hand for the celestial bridegroom. These abstracted and elected
spirits were the true disciples of Christ and the church itself.

Having no ears for this essential message of Christianity, the
modernist also has no eyes for its history. The church converted the
world only partially and inessentially; yet Christianity was outwardly
established as the traditional religion of many nations. And why?
Because, although the prophecies it relied on were strained and its
miracles dubious, it furnished a needful sanctuary from the shames,
sorrows, injustices, violence, and gathering darkness of earth; and
not only a sanctuary one might fly to, but a holy precinct where one
might live, where there was sacred learning, based on revelation and
tradition, to occupy the inquisitive, and sacred philosophy to occupy
the speculative; where there might be religious art, ministering to
the faith, and a new life in the family or in the cloister,
transformed by a permeating spirit of charity, sacrifice,