ied his soul
into others. He {308} was dipped into Justice as it were over head and
ears; he had not a slight tincture but was dyed and coloured quite
through with it. He cared only for those substantial and solid things
of a Divine and Immortal Nature, which he might carry out of the world
with him. He was a living library, a walking study, a whole college in
himself, that carried his learning about with him; a man of great
industry, indefatigable pains, and herculean labours. His learning was
so concocted that it lay not in notions in his head, but was wrought
out and formed in his very soul so that a man came away always better
after converse with him. His faith did not busy itself about fine
notions, subtilties, and curiosities, but it was firmly set and fixed
in an experience of the mercy and goodness of God, seen in Jesus
Christ. He lived in a continuous enjoyment of God and perpetually drew
nearer to the Centre of his soul's rest and always stayed God's time of
advancement. His spirit was absorbed in the business and employment of
becoming perfect in his art and profession--which was the art _of being
a good man_.[15] The devoted scholar's highest wish, as he closes his
glowing account of his beloved master, who "enshrined so much Divinity
that everything about him had a kind of sacredness," was that those who
had enjoyed his presence and inspiration and had formed their lives
under his instruction might "so express his life" in theirs, that men
would say as they saw these disciples of his, "There walks at least a
shadow of Mr. Smith!"[16]

It would be difficult to find any one, in the long list of those who
have interpreted Christianity, who has been more insistent than was
John Smith that religion is the normal function of the soul and the
surest evidence of its health and sanity. But religion of this normal
and spiritual type must be sharply differentiated both from
superstition and from legalistic religion. The mark of superstition in
his mind is the apprehension of God as capricious, a hard Master, and
of such a character that his {309} favour can be gained only by servile
flattery or bribery or by spells of magic. Superstition is "a brat of
darkness" born in a heart of fear and consternation. It produces
invariably "a forced and jejune devotion"; it makes "forms of worship
which are grievous and burdensome" to the life; it chills or destroys
all free and joyous converse with God; it kills out lo