result."

There are some things that should remain unspoken and undescribed. Have
you never listened to some great brute of a sincere preacher of the
gospel, as he warned his congregation against the terrible dangers
attending the omission of purely theological rites upon infants? Have
you thought of the mothers of those children, listening, whose little
ones were sick or delicate, and who felt each word of that hard, ominous
warning as an agonizing terror? And haven't you wanted to kick the
minister out of the pulpit, through the reredos and into the middle
of next week? How can anybody harrow up such tender feelings? How can
anybody like to believe that a little child will be held to account?
Many of us do so believe, perhaps, whether or no; but is it not cruel to
shake the rod of terror over us in public? "Suffer little children to
come unto Me," said the Master; He did not instruct us to drive them
with fear and terror and trembling. Whenever I have heard such sermons I
have wanted to get up and stalk out of the church with ostentatiousness
of contempt, as if to say to the preacher that his conduct
did--not--meet--with--my--approval. But I didn't; the philosopher has
his cowardice not less than the preacher.

But there is something meretricious and cheap in the use of material
and subjects that lie warm against the very secret heart of nature. The
mystery of love and the sanctity of death are to be used by writers and
artists only in their ennobling aspect of results. A certain class of
French writers have sickened the world by invading the sacredness of
passion and giving prostitution the semblance of self-abnegated love; a
certain class of English and American writers have purchased popularity
by the meretricious parade of the scenes of death-beds. Both are
violations of the ethics of art as they are of nature. True love as true