Not only do we
see many of the eminent, but also countless multitudes of the lowly and
obscure, whose common lives are, as it were, transfigured with a light
from heaven. Unhappy, indeed, is he who has not known such men in
person, and whose hopes and habits have not caught some touch of
radiance reflected from the nobility and virtue of lives like these. The
thought has been well expressed by the author of _Ecce Homo_, and we may
well ask with him, "If this be so, has Christ failed, or can
Christianity die?"
No, it has not failed; it cannot die; for the saving knowledge which it
has imparted is the most inestimable blessing which God has granted to
our race. We have watched philosophy in its loftiest flight, but that
flight rose as far above the range of the Pagan populace as Ida or
Olympus rises above the plain: and even the topmost crests of Ida and
Olympus are immeasurably below the blue vault, the body of heaven in its
clearness, to which it has been granted to some Christians to attain. As
regards the multitude, philosophy had no influence over the heart and
character; "it was sectarian, not universal; the religion of the few,
not of the many.
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