" His quarrel with Christianity
was that it had never done justice to beauty, that it had a gloom upon
it, and an unlovely austerity. This indeed is a strange accusation from
so perfect an interpreter of the Celtic gloom as he was, and the retort
_tu quoque_ is obvious enough. There have indeed been phases of
Christianity which seemed to love and honour the ugly for its own sake,
yet there is a rarer beauty in the Man of Sorrows than in all the
smiling faces of the world. This is that hidden beauty of which the
saints and mystics tell us. They have seen it in the face more marred
than any man's, and their record is that he who would find a lasting
beauty that will satisfy his soul, must find it through pain conquered
and ugliness transformed and sorrow assuaged. The Christ Beautiful can
never be seen when you have stripped him of the Crown of Thorns, nor is
there any loveliness that has not been made perfect by tears. Thus
though there is truth in Sharp's complaint that Christianity has often
done sore injustice to beauty as such, yet it must be repeated that this
exponent of the Celtic heart somehow missed the element in Christianity
which was not only like, but actually identical with, his own deepest
truth.
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