"I have often wondered," said Sir John, "at the success of attacks which seemed to have nothing but the badness of the cause to recommend them. But the assailant, whose object it is to make good men ridiculous, well knows that he has secured to himself a large patronage in the hearts of all the envious, the malignant, and the irreligious, who, like other levelers, find it more easy to establish the equality of mankind by abasing the lofty, than by elevating the low." "In my short experience of life," said I, when Sir John had done speaking, "I have often observed it as a hardship, that a man must not only submit to be condemned for doctrines he disowns, but also for consequences which others may draw from the doctrines he maintains, though he himself, both practically and speculatively, disavows any such consequences." "There is another class of enemies," resumed Mr. Stanley. "To do them justice, it is not so much the individual Christian as Christianity itself, which _they_ hope to discredit; _that_ Christianity which would not only restrain the conduct, but would humble the heart; which strips them of the pride of philosophy, and the arrogant plea of merit; which would save, but will not flatter them. In this enlightened period, however, for men who would preserve any character, it would be too gross to attack religion itself, and they find they can wound her more deeply and more creditably through the sides of her professors." "I have observed," said I, "that the uncandid censurer always picks out the worst man of a class, and then confidently produces him as being a fair specimen of it." "From our more thoughtless, but less uncharitable acquaintance, the gay and the busy," resumed Mr. Stanley, "we have to sustain a gentler warfare. A little reproach, a good deal of ridicule, a little suspicion of our designs, and not a little compassion for our gloomy habits of life, an implied contempt of our judgment, some friendly hints that we carry things too far, an intimation that being righteous overmuch in the practice has a tendency to produce derangement in the faculties. These are the petty but daily trials of every man who is seriously in earnest; and petty indeed they are to him whose prospects are well-grounded, and whose hope is full of immortality." "This hostility, which a real Christian is sure to experience," said I, "is not without its uses. It quickens his vigilance over her own heart, and enlarges his charity toward others, whom reproach perhaps may as unjustly stigmatize. It teaches him to be on his guard, lest he should really deserve the censure he incurs; and what I presume is of no small importance, it teaches him to sit loose to human opinion; it weakens his excessive tenderness for reputation, makes him more anxious to deserve, and less solicitous to obtain it."