of
appearances, it was limited and cowardly, because it did not really
believe in itself. It was the outcome, as it was the sole relief, of the
unhappiness of the period which made life so bitter even to the rich, and
which, as you may see with your bodily eyes, the great change has swept
away. More akin to our way of looking at life was the spirit of the
Middle Ages, to whom heaven and the life of the next world was such a
reality, that it became to them a part of the life upon the earth; which
accordingly they loved and adorned, in spite of the ascetic doctrines of
their formal creed, which bade them contemn it.

"But that also, with its assured belief in heaven and hell as two
countries in which to live, has gone, and now we do, both in word and in
deed, believe in the continuous life of the world of men, and as it were,
add every day of that common life to the little stock of days which our
own mere individual experience wins for us: and consequently we are
happy. Do you wonder at it? In times past, indeed, men were told to
love their kind, to believe in the religion of humanity, and so forth.
But look you, just in the degree that a man had elevation of mind and
refinement enough to be able to value this idea, was he repelled by the
obvious aspect of the individuals composing the mass which he was to
worship; and he could only evade that repulsion by making a conventional
abstraction of mankind that had little actual or historical relation to
the race; which to his eyes was divided into blind tyrants on the one
hand and apathetic degraded slaves on the other. But now, where is the
difficulty in accepting the religion of humanity, when the men and women
who go to make up humanity are free, happy, and energetic at least, and
most commonly beautiful of body also, and surrounded by beautiful things
of their own fashioning, and a nature bettered and not worsened by
contact with mankind? This is what this age of the world has reserved
for us."

"It seems true," said I, "or ought to be, if what my eyes have seen is a
token of the general life you lead. Can you now tell me anything of your
progress after the years of the struggle?"

Said he: "I could easily tell you more than you have time to listen to;
but I can at least hint at one of the chief difficulties which had to be
met: and that was, that when men began to settle down after the war, and
their labour had pretty much filled up the gap in wealth caused by t