The elevation of appearance over substance, of celebrity over character, of short term gains over lasting achievement displays a poverty of ambition. It distracts you from what's truly important.
Let mental culture go on advancing, let the natural sciences progress in even greater extent and depth, and the human mind widen itself as much as it desires: beyond the elevation and moral culture of Christianity, as it shines forth in the Gospels, it will not go.
There are two sorts of hypocrites; ones that are deceived with their outward morality and external religion; and the other are those that are deceived with false discoveries and elevation; and men's own rigtheousness, and talk much of free grace; but at the same time make rigtheousness of their discoveries, and of their humiliation, and exalt themselves to heaven with them.