And there went with it a peculiarity of which I shall have to speak more markedly, as a note of all Christian notions, but which distinctly began in this one.

The Christian attitude to the martyr and the suicide was not what is so often affirmed in modern morals.

It was not a matter of degree.

It was not that a line must be drawn somewhere, and that the self-slayer in exaltation fell within the line, the self-slayer in sadness just beyond it.

The Christian feeling evidently was not merely that the suicide was carrying martyrdom too far.