The inmost thought or sentiment of mediaval art to adapt a remarkable passage from Heine6 was the depression of the body and the elevation of the soul. Statues of martyrs, pictures of crucifixions, dying saints, pale, faint sufferers, drooping heads, long, thin arms, meager bones, poor, awkwardly hung dresses, emaciated features celestially illuminated by faith and love, expressed the Christian self denial and unearthliness. Architecture enforced the same lesson as sculpture and painting. Entering a cathedral, we at once feel the soul exalted, the flesh degraded. The inside of the dome is itself a hollow cross, and we walk there within the very witness work of martyrdom. The gorgeous windows fling their red and green lights upon us like drops of blood and decay. Funereal music wails and fades away along the dim arches. Under our feet are gravestones and corruption. With the colossal columns the soul climbs aloft, loosing itself from the body, which sinks to the floor as a weary weed. And when we look on one of these vast Gothic structures from without, so airy, graceful, tender, transparent, it seems cut out of one piece, or may be taken for an ethereal lace work of marble.
6 Die Romantische Schule, buch i.
Then only do we feel the power of the inspiration which could so subdue even stone that it shines spectrally possessed, and make the most insensate of materials voice forth the grand teaching of Christianity, the triumph of the spirit over the flesh.
In these six ways, therefore, by placing a tangible image of it in the imagination through the resurrection of Christ, by the powerful stirring of the springs of moral faith through the persecutions that attended its confession, by the apparent inspiration of the martyrs who died in its strength, by calling out the latent force of the heart's affections that crave it, by the moulding power of establishment, custom, and education, by the spiritualizing, vision conjuring effect of its worship and art, has Christianity done a work of incalculable extent in strengthening the world's belief in a life to come.7
A remarkable evidence of the impression Christianity carried before it is furnished by an incident in the history of the missionary Paulinus. He had preached before Edwin, King of Northumbria. An old earl stood up and said, "The life of man seems, when compared with what is hidden, like the sparrow, who, as you sit in your hall, with your thanes and attendants, warmed by the blazing fire, flies through. As he flies through from door to door, he enjoys a brief escape from the chilling storms of rain and snow without. Again he goes forth into the winter and vanishes. So seems the short life of man. If this new doctrine brings us something more certain, in my mind it is worthy of adoption."8
The most glorious triumph of Christianity in regard to the doctrine of a future life was in imparting a character of impartialness and universality to the proud, oligarchic faith which had previously excluded from it the great multitude of men. The lofty conceptions of the fate of the soul cherished by the illustrious philosophers of Greece and Rome were not shared by the commonalty until the gospel its right hand touching the throne of God, its left clasping humanity announced in one breath the resurrection of Jesus and the brotherhood of man.
"Their highest lore was for the few conceived, By schools discuss'd, but not by crowds believed. The angel ladder clomb the heavenly steep, But at its foot the priesthoods lay, asleep. They did not preach to nations, 'Lo, your God!' No thousands follow'd where their footsteps trod: Not to the fishermen they said, 'Arise!' Not to the lowly offer'd they the skies. Wisdom was theirs: alas! what men most need Is no sect's wisdom, but the people's creed. Then, not for schools, but for the human kind, The uncultured reason, the unletter'd mind, The poor, the oppress'd, the laborer, and the slave, God said, 'Be light!' and light was on the grave! No more alone to sage and hero given, For all wide oped the impartial gates of heaven." 9
7 Compare Bengal's essay, Quid Doctrina de Animarum Immortalitate Religioni Christiana debeat.
8 Venerable Bede, book ii. ch. xiv.
9 Bulwer, New Timon, part iv.