But there are folk whose admiration of the muscularity is very great, but whose regard for the Christianity is very small. They are captivated by the dash and glitter of physical pluck; they are quite content to accept it without any Christianity, and even without the most ordinary morality and decency. They appear, indeed, to think that the grandeur of the character is increased by the combination of thorough blackguardism with high physical qualifications: their gospel, in short, may be said to be that of _Unchristian Muscularity_. And you will find various books in which the hero is such a man: and while the writer of the book frankly admits that he is in strict morality an extremely bad man, the writer still recalls his doings with such manifest gusto and sympathy, and takes such pains to make him agreeable on the whole, and relates with such approval the admiration which empty-headed idiots express for him when he has jumped his horse over some very perilous fence or thrashed some insolent farmer, that it is painfully apparent what is the writer's ideal of a grand and imposing character. You know the kind of man who is the hero of some novels,--the muscular blackguard,--and you remember what are his unfailing characteristics. He has a deep chest. He has huge arms and limbs,--the muscles being knotted. He has an immense moustache. He has (God knows why) a serene contempt for ordinary mortals. He is always growing black with fury, and bullying weak men. On such occasions, his lips may be observed to be twisted into an evil sneer. He is a seducer and liar: he has ruined various women, and had special facilities for becoming acquainted with the rottenness of society: and occasionally he expresses, in language of the most profane, not to say blasphemous character, a momentary regret for having done so much harm,--such as the Devil might sentimentally have expressed, when he had succeeded in misleading our first parents. Of course, he never pays tradesmen for the things with which they supply him. He can drink an enormous quantity of wine without his head becoming affected. He looks down with entire disregard on the laws of God and man, as made for inferior beings. As for any worthy moral quality,--as for anything beyond a certain picturesque brutality and bull-dog disregard of danger, not a trace of such a thing can be found about him.