popular. Do men love truth, or readily accept it, when it
conflicts with passions and interests? Is any truth popular which
is arrayed against the pride of reason? When has pure moral truth
ever been fashionable? When have its advocates not been reviled,
slandered, misrepresented, and persecuted, if it has interfered
with the domination of prevailing interests? The lower the scale
of pleasures the more eagerly are they sought by the great mass of
the people, even in Christian communities. You can best make
colleges thrive by turning them into schools of technology, with a
view of advancing utilitarian and material interests. You cannot
make a newspaper flourish unless you fill it with pictures and
scandals, or make it a vehicle of advertisements,--which are not
frivolous or corrupt, it is true, but which have to do with merely
material interests. Your libraries would never be visited, if you
took away their trash. Your Sabbath-school books would not be
read, unless you made them an insult to the human understanding.
Your salons would be deserted, if you entertained your guests with
instructive conversation. There would be no fashionable
gatherings, if it were not to display dresses and diamonds. Your
pulpits would be unoccupied, if you sought the profoundest men to
fill them.

Everything, even in Christian communities, shows that vanities and
follies and falsehoods are the most sought, and that nothing is
more discouraging than appeals to high intelligence or virtue, even
in art. This is the uniform history of the race, everywhere and in
all ages. Is it darkness or light which the world loves? I never
read, and I never heard, of a great man with a great message to
deliver, who would not have sunk under disappointment or chagrin
but for his faith. Everywhere do you see the fascination of error,