The world found the _Epistle to All Christians_ very piquant, not on account of novelty, but because of the nude vivid candour with which old and trite truths were enunciated dogmatically. Christianity, the Pope proclaimed, was a great deal more than a mere ritual service. It extended to every part of human life; and its rules must regulate Christians in all matters of principle and practice. He laid great stress on the assertion of the principle of the Personal Responsibility of the Individual. It was quite unavoidable, quite incapable of being shifted on to societies or servants. Each soul would have to render its own account to its Creator. In connection with the last doctrine, He denounced as damnable nonsense the fashionable heresy which is crystallized in the Quatrains of Edward Fitzgerald, _"O Thou, Who didst with pitfall and with gin "Beset the road I was to wander in, "Thou wilt not, with predestined evil, round "Enmesh; and then impute my fall to sin. "O Thou, Who man of baser earth didst make; "And, e'en with paradise, devise the snake;-- "For all the sin, wherewith the face of man "Is blackened, man's forgiveness give,--and take!"_ He described those lines as the whine of a whimpering coward: pertinently inquiring whether a human father would be blameable, who, having taught his boy to swim, should fling him into the sea that he might have the merit of fighting his own way to shore where the rope was ready at hand? He condemned all attempts at uniformity as unnatural crimes, because they insulted the Divine intelligence Which had deigned to differentiate His creatures. He declared that God's servants were to be known by their broad minds, generous hearts, and staunch wills. "The Church of God is not narrow, nor 'Liberal,' but Catholic with room for all: for 'there are diversities of gifts.'" It was the individual soul which must be saved; and it was that which was addressed in the Evangel. He considered the immense strength of the single verse, "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." Hence He would have no barrier erected between Christians of the Roman Obedience and Christians of other denominations. The following passage, containing His Own idea of His relation to other men, attracted much attention:--