n of them has long ago been
intrusted to poets and mythologists. Thus the love of God, for example,
is said to be the root of Christian charity, but is in reality only its
symbol. For no man not having a superabundant need and faculty of loving
real things could have given a meaning to the phrase, "love of God," or
been moved by it to any action. History shows in unequivocal fashion
that the God loved shifts his character with the shift in his
worshippers' real affections. What the psalmist loves is the beauty of
God's house and the place where his glory dwelleth. A priestly quietude
and pride, a grateful, meditative leisure after the storms of sedition
and war, some retired unity of mind after the contradictions of the
world--this is what the love of God might signify for the levites. Saint
John tells us that he who says he loves God and loves not his neighbour
is a liar. Here the love of God is an anti-worldly estimation of things
and persons, a heart set on that kingdom of heaven in which the humble
and the meek should be exalted. Again, for modern Catholicism the phrase
has changed its meaning remarkably and signifies in effect love for
Christ's person, because piety has taken a sentimental turn and centred
on maintaining imaginary personal relations with the Saviour. How should
we conceive that a single supernatural influence was actually
responsible for moral effects themselves so various, and producing, in
spite of a consecutive tradition, such various notions concerning their
object and supposed source?

[Sidenote: The religion of humanity.]

Mankind at large is also, to some minds, an object of piety. But this
religion of humanity is rather a desideratum than a fact: humanity does
not actually appear to anybody in a religious light. The _nihil homine
homini utittus_ remains a signal truth, but the collective influence of
men and their average nature are far too mixed and ambiguous to fill the
soul with veneration. Piety to mankind must be three-fourths pity. There
are indeed specific human virtues, but they are those necessary to
existence, like patience and courage. Supported on these indispensable
habits, mankind always carries an indefinite load of misery and vice.
Life spreads rankly in every wrong and impracticable direction as well
as in profitable paths, and the slow and groping struggle with its own
ignorance, inertia, and folly, leaves it covered in every age of history
with filth and blood. It would