8/24 He understood how to say the grandest things in the most vulgar of idioms. As he spoke all tongues, he entered into all hearts. He condemned nothing in haste and without taking circumstances into account. He said, "Examine the road over which the fault has passed." Being, as he described himself with a smile, an ex-sinner, he had none of the asperities of austerity, and he professed, with a good deal of distinctness, and without the frown of the ferociously virtuous, a doctrine which may be summed up as follows:-- "Man has upon him his flesh, which is at once his burden and his temptation. He drags it with him and yields to it. |