Note 2 — LETTER XLIX.
Reading edition
It is not, however, by men of this stamp that the principal mischief is done to the Church of Christ. Their foolish congregations are not enough in earnest even to be misled; and the increasing London or Liverpool respectable suburb is simply provided with its baker’s and butcher’s shop, its alehouse, its itinerant organ-grinders for the week, and stationary organ-grinder for Sunday, himself his monkey, in obedience to the commonest condition of demand and supply, and without much more danger in their Sunday’s entertainment than in their Saturday’s. But the importunate and zealous ministrations of the men who have been strong enough to deceive themselves before they deceive others;—who give the grace and glow of vital sincerity to falsehood, and lie for God from the ground of their heart, produce forms of moral corruption in their congregations as much more deadly than the consequences of recognizedly vicious conduct, as the hectic of consumption is more deadly than the flush of temporary fever. And it is entirely unperceived by the members of existing churches that the words, “speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron,” do not in the least apply to wilful and self-conscious hypocrites, but only to those who do not recognize themselves for such. Of wilful assumption of the appearance of piety, for promotion of their own interests, few, even of the basest men, are frankly capable; and to the average English gentleman, deliberate hypocrisy is impossible. And, therefore, all the fierce invectives of Christ, and of the prophets and apostles, against hypocrisy, thunder above their heads unregarded; while all the while Annas and Caiaphas are sitting in Moses’ seat for ever; and the anger of God is accomplished against the daughter of His people, “for the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her. They have wandered blind in the streets; they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments.”2