Three Things

apart Christ’s beautiful teaching is from the interpretation of it which they often receive in church; while the others, who had never any religious aspirations at all, are glad that the weight of public opinion and custom no longer forces them into irksome attendance. To fill churches with worshippers drawn there largely through hope of Heaven or fear of Hell, or because it was considered respectable and custom bound them to conform to its mandates, surely could not have been very acceptable to God. And the percentage who went truly to pour forth their love and worship, are still pouring it forth, because it came, and comes, from their hearts whether they attend church or no. The modern spirit is full of what Edmond Holmes calls the desire to ask the teacher or person in authority for his credentials. And if these are not entirely satisfactory, the influence he can hope to wield will be nil. To deplore anything that may happen to a country, or to ourselves, is waste of time. We should search for the reason of it, and if it proves to be because there is some ineradicable cause, intelligence should then be used to better the condition which results. Worship of something glorious and beyond ourselves will always swell the human heart, and if the accepted forms of the religion of a country can no longer produce this emotion, it is not because the human heart is changing, but because there is something in those forms which no longer fulfils its mission. The cry of the fear of the net of Rome is futile also. People drift to where they belong, and Rome seems to offer to take all spiritual responsibility from the shoulders of her children. It gives them an emotional satisfaction which brings comfort to all, and amongst these any of hysterical nature probably become far happier and better citizens under her wing than they would otherwise have been. No nets will catch the expanding soul which is rising out of its paltry self into ideals nearer to God. During the earlier days when religion held sway in England over at least nine-tenths of female lives, superfluous women were content as a rule to lead grey, uneventful existences, making no more mark on their time than if they had been flocks of sheep. But with the breakdown of this force, and greater freedom of…