rs from a house which was to her but a waiting-room between
services, while she looked at me with sad, wondering, grey eyes. Such
people have often reached by instinct, and in spite of dogma, heights,
to which no system of philosophy can ever raise us.

But making full allowance for the high products of every creed, which
may be only, a proof of the innate goodness of civilised humanity, it
is still beyond all doubt that Christianity has broken down, and that
this breakdown has been brought home to everyone by the terrible
catastrophe which has befallen the world. Can the most optimistic
apologist contend that this is a satisfactory, outcome from a religion
which has had the unopposed run of Europe for so many centuries? Which
has come out of it worst, the Lutheran Prussian, the Catholic Bavarian,
or the peoples who have been nurtured by the Greek Church? If we, of
the West, have done better, is it not rather an older and higher
civilisation and freer political institutions that have held us back
from all the cruelties, excesses and immoralities which have taken the
world back to the dark ages? It will not do to say that they have
occurred in spite of Christianity, and that Christianity is, therefore,
not to blame. It is true that Christ's teaching is not to blame, for
it is often spoiled in the transmission. But Christianity has taken
over control of the morals of Europe, and should have the compelling
force which would ensure that those morals would not go to pieces upon
the first strain. It is on this point that Christianity must be
judged, and the judgment can only be that it has failed. It has not
been an active controlling force upon the minds of men. And why? It
can only be because there is something essential which is wanting. Men
do not take it seriously. Men do not believe in it. Lip service is
the only service in innumerable cases, and even lip service grows
fainter.

Men, as distinct from women, have, both in the higher and lower classes
of life, ceased, in the greater number of cases, to show a living
interest in religion. The churches lose their grip upon the
people--and lose it rapidly. Small inner circles, convocations,
committees, assemblies, meet and debate and pass resolutions of an ever
narrower character. But the people go their way and religion is dead,
save in so far as intellectual culture and good taste can take its
place. But when religion is dead, materialism becomes active,