He expresses,
perchance, a fervent desire that the heathen may be converted to
Christianity, and we catch ourselves saying, "Does he mean _this_ sort
of thing?" When we pronounce the word Christianity, it calls up
recollections and associations that do not exactly harmonize with the
scene around us. We think rather of the fishermen of Palestine, on the
lonely sea-shore; of the hunted fugitives of Italy and Scotland; we
think of it as something lowly, and suited to the lowly,--a refuge for
the forsaken and the defeated, not the luxury of the rich and the
ornament of the strong. It may be an infirmity of our mind; but we
experience a certain difficulty in realizing that the sumptuous and
costly apparatus around us has anything in common with what we have
been accustomed to think of as Christianity.
Sometimes, the incongruity reaches the point of the ludicrous. We
recently heard a very able and well-intentioned preacher, near the
Fifth Avenue, ask the ladies before him whether they were in the habit
of speaking to their female attendants about their souls'
salvation,--particularly those who dressed their hair.
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