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Hall has long since come to laugh at his own early follies, his official sanctimoniousness, and all that; and why should not I, who have been a callow circuit-preacher myself in my day, laugh at my Brother Hall, for the good of his kind?
"Apparently the old chap is stark staring mad." "He is possessed by devils, I fancy. Last week three of his 'prentices bolted because they could not stand his sanctimoniousness any longer.
I regret to say it I blush while I record it: I have frequently seen professors of religion approach non-professors with all the sanctimoniousness which they could possibly assume, and abruptly address them in the following words: "Come, my friend, you must be religious; you must get religion and join the church."
If you are inclined to be severe, you may console yourselves with the reflection that this genius, who had given the highest intellectual pleasure to hundreds and thousands of human beings, was hounded by hypocritical sanctimoniousness out of his native land; and though, two years afterwards, one is glad to say, for the honor of one's country, a complete reaction took place, and his reappearance was greeted with every mark of hearty welcome, the blow had been struck from which neither his mind or his body ever recovered.
Of this man Des Hermies spoke much, and one day he said, "You really ought to know him. He likes the books of yours which I have lent him, and he wants to meet you. You think I am interested only in obscure and twisted natures. Well, you will find Carhaix really unique. He is the one Catholic with intelligence and without sanctimoniousness; the one poor man with envy and hatred for none."
I feel sure we generally miss the force of these words through our Caucasian sanctimoniousness. We can think of God's Kingdom and righteousness only in the light of the pietistic. The minute they are mentioned we strike what I have already called our artificial pose, our funereal frame of mind.
Thus men have distorted the finest feelings of their nature that they might view with complacency the eternal torments of the damned. They really believed, or tried to believe, that such was God's feeling and attitude; and to that divine ideal they felt that they must aspire. It was surely hard work, and would naturally issue in a degree of sanctimoniousness and unreality.
It is particularly rich in words descriptive of our failures. As the procession of the virtues passes by, there are pseudo-virtues that tag on like the small boys who follow the circus. After Goodness come Goodiness and Goody-goodiness; we see Sanctity and Sanctimoniousness, Piety and Pietism, Grandeur and Grandiosity, Sentiment and Sentimentality.
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