Religion has no argument unless we can tell good
men it will make them better. The observance of
civil and social law would be a gospel of improvement
to bad men : can Christianity promise nothing more
in this world ? This would be to proclaim it a vast
pretension, and us a vast body of pretenders. And
if the Christ which is in us is not patient enough to
do His will through our members, dare we tell men
that we rely upon this power to move our bodies
when they are senseless dust, and raise them in the
first resurrection for our reward? Who is able for
these things ? Who dare decide how much of this
practical infidelity God will pardon ? Any divergence
the world more willingly overlooks than an unloving
spirit among Christians. A contentious Christian is
a recruiting officer for the grand army of infidels, in
every true practical sense ; in all except the senti-



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. jji



ment (for religion has its sentiment), he crucifies the
Lord again, and puts Him to an open shame.
When we consider the Church of Christ as a com-
monwealth, a community of interests, a partnership
of capital, an insurance of happiness here and here-
after, with privileges as broad as the powers of man,
■with promises as high as Heaven and deep as the
grave, and added to this the aesthetic beauty, the
sentiment of religion, which is the concentrated es-
sence of all poetry, we stand appalled by the magni-
tude of our pretensions compared with the meagre-
ness of our realization.
