"]
above all things; to remember that hypocrisy is the most hopeless as
well as the meanest of crimes, and that those must surely be polluted
by it, who do not reserve a part of their morality and religion for
private use. Landor says that he cannot have a great deal of mind who
cannot afford to let the larger part of it lie fallow; and what is true
of genius is not less so of virtue. The tongue is a valuable member,
but should appropriate but a small part of the vital juices that are
needful all over the body. We feel that the mind may "grow black and
rancid in the smoke" even "of altars." We start up from the harangue
to go into our closet and shut the door. There inquires the spirit,
"Is this rhetoric the bloom of healthy blood, or a false pigment
artfully laid on?" And yet again we know where is so much smoke, must
be some fire; with so much talk about virtue and freedom, must be
mingled some desire for them; that it cannot be in vain that such have
become the common topics of conversation among men, rather than schemes
for tyranny and plunder, that the very newspapers see it best to
proclaim themselves "Pilgrims," "Puritans," "Heralds of Holiness." The
king that maintains so costly a retinue cannot be a mere boast, or
Carabbas fiction.
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