534 THE CHRISTIAN COURTIER. 



that a king was a human being, that he could be angry 

 and forgive, that there was room for favour and kind- 

 ness, but that the law was a deaf and inexorable 

 thing — leges rem surdam inexorabilem esse, that it 

 allowed of no relaxation and indulgence — nihil laxa- 

 menti nee Venice habere, and that it was a dangerous 

 thing for weak and erring men to live by their in- 

 tegrity alone — periculosum esse in tot humanis error- 

 ibus sola innocentia vivere. Christians believe 

 themselves to be the aristocracy of heaven upon 

 earth; they are admitted to the spiritual court, while 

 millions of men in foreign lands have never been pre- 

 sented. They bow their knees and say that they are 

 miserable sinners, and their hearts rankle with abomi- 

 nable pride. Poor infatuated fools! Their servility 

 is real, and their insolence is real, but their king is a 

 phantom and their palace is a dream. 



Even with Christians of comparatively blameless 

 lives their religion is injurious. It causes a waste 

 of moral force. There are passionate desires of 

 virtue, yearnings for the good, which descend from 

 time to time like a holy spirit upon all cultivated 

 minds, and from which, strange as it may seem, not 

 even free thinkers are excluded. When such an im- 

 pulse animates the godless man he expends it in the 

 service of mankind : the Christian wastes it on the 

 air ; he fasts, he watches, and he prays. And what 

 is the object of all his petitions and salaams ? He 

 will tell you that he is trying to save his soul. But 

 the strangest feature in the case is this. He not only 

 thinks that it is prudent and wise on his part to 

 improve his prospects of happiness in a future state ; 

 he considers it the noblest of all virtues. But there 

 is no great merit in taking care of one's own interests 



