" So far is he
from being an opponent of Christianity properly so called, that one can
hardly help feeling what a Christian he would have been, could he but
have seen Christianity in any other way than through the traditional and
practical misrepresentations of it which surrounded him. All his attacks
on Christianity are, in reality, directed against evils to which the
true doctrines of Christianity are more opposed than those of Shelley
could possibly be. How far he was excusable in giving the name of
Christianity to what he might have seen to be only a miserable
perversion of it, is another question, and one which hardly admits of
discussion here. It was in the _name_ of Christianity, however, that the
worst injuries of which he had to complain were inflicted upon him.
Coming out of the cathedral at Pisa one day, [Footnote: From _Shelley
Memorials_, edited by Lady Shelley, which the writer of this paper has
principally followed in regard to the external facts of Shelley's
history.] Shelley warmly assented to a remark of Leigh Hunt, "that a
divine religion might be found out, if charity were really made the
principle of it instead of faith.
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