Fictitious virtue, if formed on the model of the Koran, naturally assumes the style of martial arrogance, of fanatical zeal and of bluff devotion. But if it be the Gospels that furnish the pattern, then an opposite phase of sanctity is shown. Abject lowliness, and voluntary poverty (which is no poverty at all,) and ingenious austerities, and romantic exploits of charity, and other similar misinterpretations of the spirit and letter of New Testament morality, are combined to form a tawdry effigy of the humility, purity, and beneficence of Christian holiness. But compel the imitator to relinquish all that is heroic, and picturesque, and poetical in his style of behavior: oblige him to lay aside whatever makes the vulgar gape at his sanctity; let him uncowl his ears, and cover his naked feet: ask him to acquit himself patiently, faithfully, Christianly, amid the non-illustrious and difficult duties of common life, and he will find himself destitute of motive and of zest for his daily task. Temperance without abstinence will have no charm for him; nor purity without a vow; nor self-denial without austerity; nor patience without stoicism; nor charity without a trumpet. The man of sackcloth, who was a prodigy of holiness in the cloister, becomes, if transported into the sphere of domestic life, a monster of selfishness and sensuality. * * * * * Time, which insensibly aggravates the abuses of every corrupt system, does also furnish an apology, more and more valid from age to age, for the conduct of the individuals who spring up, in succession, to act their parts within its machinery. While ancient institutions rest tranquilly on their bases, while venerable usages obtain unquestioned submission, while opinion paces forwards with a slumbering step upon its deep-worn tracks, men are not more conscious of the enormity of the errors that may be chargeable upon their creeds and practices, than a secluded tribe is of the strangeness and inelegance of the national costume. This principle should never be lost sight of when we are estimating the personal character of the members of the Romish church before the period of the Reformation; or indeed in later times, where no free and fair conflict of opinions has taken place. The system and its victims are always to be thought of apart.