t of all it is a house or a seminary. It is the godly life
according to the precepts and example of Jesus. There may be men who
think they are attacking Christianity when they investigate the
historical origin or the morality of some dogma; I do not think so.
Honest investigation can result only in growth. Christianity, with or
without its whole apparatus of dogma, will endure in its essence for
thousands of years after us; there will always be spiritually-minded
people who will be ennobled by it, and some made great. I honor all
the noble. I have friends among the Christians, whom I love, and never
for a moment have I thought of attacking their Christianity. I have no
higher wish than to see them by its help transform certain aspects of
our society into seriousness. (2) _Concerning the attack on
monarchy._ Monarchy is, on the other hand, an institution, here the
circumstances are naturally different. I have attacked monarchy, and I
will attack it. But--and to this 'but' I call the closest attention.
Shortly before the July Revolution, when its first signs were declared,
Chateaubriand was talking with the King, who asked what it all meant.
'It is monarchy that is done with,' replied the royalist, for he was
also a seer. Certainly there have been in France both kingdom and
empire since that day. If there should be no more hereafter, they
still exist in other lands, and will endure for generations after us.
But 'done with' are they none the less; notice was given them by the
French Revolution. It does not concern them all simultaneously; it
fixes terms, different for the different kingdoms, and far removed for
the kingdoms based upon conquest. But the face of civilization is now
turned toward the republic, and every people has reached the first,
second, or third stage of the way. "If a work of the mind is born of
Norse conditions and stands before the ethical judgment seat--let it
have its full action; otherwise it will not produce its full reaction.
If the faith that gave shape to the piece is not the strongest force in
the society that gave it birth, it will evoke an opposing force of
greater strength. Thereby all will gain. But to ignore it, or seek to
crush it--that in a large society may not greatly matter, so rich are
the possibilities of other work taking its place; but in a small
society it may be equivalent to destroying the sight of its only eye."

In the clean-cut phrases and moral earnestness of