the traces of a divine wisdom and love in the government of all the
races of mankind, and to recognize, if possible, even in the lowest and
crudest forms of religious belief, not the work of demoniacal agencies,
but something that indicates a divine guidance, something that makes us
perceive, with St. Peter, 'that God is no respecter of persons, but that
in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is
accepted with Him.'" "There is a principle," said John Woolman--"the man
who," it is said, "in all the centuries since the advent of Christ,
lived nearest to the Divine pattern"--"there is a principle," said that
Christian man, "which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in
different places and ages hath had different names; it is, however,
pure, and proceeds from God. It is deep and inward, confined to no forms
of religion nor excluded from any, when the heart stands in perfect
sincerity. In whomsoever this takes root and grows, they become
brethren."
"The turning-point," remarks Frances Power Cobbe, "between the old world
and the new was the beginning of the Christian movement. The action upon
human nature, which started on its new course, was the teaching and
example of Christ. Christ was he who opened the age of endless progress.
The old world grew from without, and was outwardly symmetric. The new
one grows from within, and is not symmetric, nor ever will be; bearing
in its heart the germ of an everlasting, unresting progress. The old
world built its temples, hewed its statues, framed its philosophies, and
wrote its glorious epics and dramas, so that nothing might evermore be
added to them. The new world made its art, its philosophy, its poetry,
all imperfect, yet instinct with a living spirit beyond the old. To the
Parthenon not a stone could be added from the hour of its completion. To
Milan and Cologne altar and chapel, statue and spire, will be added
through the ages. Christ was not merely a moral reformer, inculcating
pure ethics; not merely a religious reformer, clearing away old
theological errors and teaching higher ideas of God. These things He
was; but He might, for all we can tell, have been them both as fully,
and yet have failed to be what He has actually been to our race. He
might have taught the world better ethics and better theology, and yet
have failed to infuse into it that new tide which has ever since coursed
through its arteries and penetrated its minutest veins. What Christ has
really done is beyond the kingdom of the intellect and its theologies;
nay, even beyond the kingdom of the conscience and its recognition of
duty. His work has been in that of the heart. He has transformed the law
into the gospel. He has changed the bondage of the alien for the liberty
of the sons of God. He has glorified virtue into holiness, religion into
piety, and duty into love." His was "a religion," says Jeremy Taylor,
"that taught men to be meek and humble, apt to receive injuries, but
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