Some thrilling view of the surplice-question)
—The Professor’s grave voice, sweet though hoarse,
Broke into his Christmas-Eve discourse.
The stanza which follows gives an account of the discourse, which is a learned discussion of “this Myth of Christ,” “which, when reason had strained and abated it of foreign matter, left, for residuum, a man!—a right true man,” but nothing more. He has no difficulty in determining his duty here (“this time He would not bid me enter.”) The religious atmosphere in which Papist and Dissenter live may be far from pure, in the one case for one reason, and in the other for the opposite; but either of the two is immeasurably better than the vacuum left when the Critic has done his work of destruction. Then follows a long argument to show the unreasonableness of denying the divinity of Christ, only a part of which can be given here.
XVI.
* * * * *
This time he would not bid me enter
The exhausted air-bell of the Critic.
Truth’s atmosphere may grow mephitic
When Papist struggles with Dissenter,