He has written some things that prudence, nay, wisdom, might wish to
erase. But, qualified by other statements, and above all, interpreted by
his own life, his religion appears in its true proportion--without gloom,
without extravagance. To his honor be it spoken, that in an age when
priests and prelates eminent for saintly piety sanctioned the scourging
and death of heretics, and enforced the Gospel chiefly by the fears of
perdition, Fenelon was censured for dwelling too much on the power of
love, that perfect charity that casteth out fear. It may, perhaps, be a
failing with him that he had too little sympathy with the fears and
passions of men, and appreciated too little the more sublime and terrible
aspects of Divine Providence. His mind was tuned too gently to answer to
all of the grandest music of our humanity, and we must abate something of
our admiration of him for his want of loyalty to the new ages of Christian
thought and heroism. He evidently loved Virgil more than Dante, Cicero
more than Chrysostom, and thought the Greek Parthenon, in its horizontal
lines and sensuous beauty, a grander and more perfect structure, alike in
plan and execution, than Notre Dame or Strasbourg Cathedral, with its
uplifting points and spiritual sublimity.
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