And, if they were violent Protestants, they would not have read you with the relish and gratitude with which, as it is, they have perhaps accepted your testimony against us. This is ever the case in concrete matters, which have life. Life in this world is motion, and involves a continual process of change. Living things grow into their perfection, into their decline, into their death. No rule of art will suffice to stop the operation of this natural law, whether in the material world or in the human mind.
Life has the same right to decay, as it has to wax strong.
This is specially the case with great ideas. If what I have been saying be true of energetic ideas generally, much more is it the case in matters of religion. They hurry right on to their object, and often in their case it is, the more haste, the worse speed. So it is with devotional feelings. Burning thoughts and words are as open to criticism as they are beyond it.