Page:Life and Works of the Sisters Bronte - Volume I.djvu/40

 certain obvious distinctions ; I would remind them of certain simple truths.

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.

These things and deeds are diametrically opposed : they are as distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often con- found them : they should not be confounded : appearance should not be mistaken for truth ; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There is -- I repeat it -- a difference ; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between them.

The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has been accustomed to blend them ; finding it convenient to make external show pass for sterling worth to let white-washed walls vouch for clean shrines. It may hate him who dares to scrutinise and expose to rase the gilding, and show base metal under it to penetrate the sepulchre, and reveal chamel relics : but hate as it will, it is indebted to him.

Ahab did not like Micaiah, because he never prophesied good concerning him, but evil : probably he liked the sycophant son of Chenaanah better ; yet might Ahab have escaped a bloody death, had he but stopped his ears to flattery and opened them to faithful counsel.

There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to tickle delicate ears : who, to my thinking, comes before the great ones of society, much as the son of Imlah came before the throned Kings of Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a power as prophet-like and as vital -- a mien as dauntless and as daring. Is the satirist