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The Witness of Character

Though religion, in its ordinary mode of exhibition, commands but little respect, when it rises to the sublime, and is perceived to colour and pervade the whole character, it rarely fails to draw forth the homage of mankind. The most hardened ungodliness, and daring immorality, will find it difficult to despise the man who manifestly appears to walk with God, whose whole system of life is evidently influenced and directed by the power of the world to come. The ridicule cast on religious characters, is not always directed towards their religion, but more often perhaps to the little it performs, contrasted with the loftiness of its pretensions; a ridicule which derives its force from the very sublimity of the principles which the profession of piety assume. 

ROBERT HALL
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