All were essentially amiable, though accidentally wretched
and depraved; and by the magic of a new faith and hope this soul of
goodness in all living things might be freed from the hideous incubus
of circumstance that now oppresses it, and might come to bloom openly
as the penetrating eye of the lover, even now, sees that it could
bloom. Love, then, and sympathy, particularly towards the sinful and
diseased, a love relieved of sentimentality by the deliberate practice
of healing, warning, and comforting; a complete aversion from all the
interests of political society, and a confident expectation of a
cataclysm that should suddenly transfigure the world--such was
Christian religion in its origin. The primitive Christian was filled
with the sense of a special election and responsibility, and of a
special hope. He was serene, abstracted, incorruptible, his inward eye
fixed on a wonderful revelation. He was as incapable of attacking as
of serving the state; he despised or ignored everything for which the
state exists, labour, wealth, power, felicity, splendour, and
learning. With Christ the natural man in him had been crucified, and
in Christ he had risen again a spiritual man, to walk the earth, as a
messenger from heaven, for a few more years. His whole life was an
experience of perpetual graces and miracles.
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