virtue of charity. He has a strange idea that he will make it
easier to forgive sins by saying that there are no sins to forgive.
Mr. Blatchford is not only an early Christian, he is the only
early Christian who ought really to have been eaten by lions.
For in his case the pagan accusation is really true: his mercy
would mean mere anarchy. He really is the enemy of the human race--
because he is so human. As the other extreme, we may take
the acrid realist, who has deliberately killed in himself all
human pleasure in happy tales or in the healing of the heart.
Torquemada tortured people physically for the sake of moral truth.
Zola tortured people morally for the sake of physical truth.
But in Torquemada's time there was at least a system that could
to some extent make righteousness and peace kiss each other.
Now they do not even bow. But a much stronger case than these two of
truth and pity can be found in the remarkable case of the dislocation
of humility.

It is only with one aspect of humility that we are here concerned.
Humility was largely meant as a restraint upon the arrogance
and infinity of the appetite of man. He was always outstripping
his mercies with his own newly invented needs. His very power
of enjoyment destroyed half his joys. By asking for pleasure,
he lost the chief pleasure; for the chief pleasure is surprise.
Hence it became evident that if a man would make his world large,
he must be always making himself small. Even the haughty visions,
the tall cities, and the toppling pinnacles are the creations
of humility. Giants that tread down forests like grass are
the creations of humility. Towers that vanish upwards above
the loneliest star are the creations of humility. For towers
are not tall unless we look up at them; and giants are not giants