d
the dead.

Of these two influences--that of Reason and that of Living
Example--which would a wise reformer reinforce? Christ chose the
last He gathered all men into a common relation to himself, and
demanded that each should set him on the pedestal of his heart,
giving a lower place to all other objects of worship, to father
and mother, to husband or wife. In him should the loyalty of all
hearts centre; he should be their pattern, their Authority and
Judge. Of him and his service should no man be ashamed, but to
those who acknowledged it morality should be an easy yoke, and the
law of right as spontaneous as the law of life; sufferings should
be easy to bear, and the loss of worldly friends repaired by a new
home in the bosom of the Christian kingdom; finally, in death
itself their sleep should be sweet upon whose tombstone it could
be written "Obdormivit in Christo."

In his treatment of this part of the subject, the work of Christ as the
true Creator, through the Christian Church, of living morality, what is
peculiar and impressive is the way in which sympathy with Christianity
in its antique and original form, in its most austere, unearthly,
exacting aspects, is combined with sympathy with the practical
realities of modern life, with its boldness, its freedom, its love of
improvement, its love of truth. It is no common grasp which can embrace
both so easily and so firmly. He is one of those writers whose strong
hold on their ideas is shown by the facility with which they can afford
to make large admissions, which are at first sight startling. Nowhere
are more tremendous passages written than in this book about the
corruptions of that Christianity which yet the writer holds to be the
one hope and safeguard of mankind. He is not afraid to pursue his
investigation independently of any inquiry into the peculiar claims to
authority of the documents on which it rests. He at once goes to their
substance and their facts, and the Person and Life and Character which
they witness to. He is not afraid to put Faith on exactly the same
footing as Life, neither higher nor lower, as the title to membership
in the Church; a doctrine which, if it makes imperfect and rudimentary
faith as little a disqualification as imperfect and inconsistent life,
obviously does not exclude the further belief that deliberate heresy is
on the same level with deliberate profligacy. But the