Page:Studies in Letters and Life (Woodberry, 1890).djvu/139

Rh opposition to God means opposition to a demon, to whom the name of God in his mind is appended, is an enemy of God;... change the name and I will bid that character defiance with you!" A candid examination must show, however, that Trelawney is right; there is no doubt that Shelley rejected altogether what is properly known as Christianity, in youth violently and with hatred, while in later years he came to care less about it. At the same time it is to be remembered that he had seen Christianity only in those forms whose most prominent characteristic is defect in charity and love, which Shelley believed to be the central virtues. Probably he never dissociated the Christian God from the Jewish Jehovah, and his feeling towards him is well illustrated in the terrible indictment he makes against him in reference to Milton's delineation of Satan as one "who, in the cold security of undoubted triumph, inflicts upon his fallen enemy the most horrible punishment, not from any mistaken hope of thereby reforming him, but with the avowed purpose of exasperating him to deserve new torments." It is, therefore, impossible to deny Shelley's atheism; the most that can be