us, and
mythological narratives which have been handed down to us from a remote,
uncritical and superstitious past, may be transformed or discredited;
but there are elements in religion which have their roots much less in
the reason of man than in his sorrows and his affections, and are the
expression of wants, moral appetites and aspirations which are an
essential, indestructible part of his nature.

No one, I think, can doubt that this way of thinking, whether it be
right or wrong, has very widely spread through educated Europe, and it
is a habit of thought which commonly strengthens with age. Young men
discuss religious questions simply as questions of truth or falsehood.
In later life they more frequently accept their creed as a working
hypothesis of life; as a consolation in innumerable calamities; as the
one supposition under which life is not a melancholy anti-climax; as
the indispensable sanction of moral obligation; as the gratification and
reflection of needs, instincts and longings which are planted in the
deepest recesses of human nature; as one of the chief pillars on which
society rests. The proselytising, the aggressive, the critical spirit
diminishes. Very often they deliberately turn away their thoughts from
questions which appear to them to lead only to endless controversy or to
mere negative conclusions, and base their moral life on some strong
unselfish interest for the benefit of their kind. In active, useful and
unselfish work they find the best refuge from the perplexities of belief
and the best field for the cultivation of their moral nature, and work
done for the benefit of others seldom fails to react powerfully on their
own happiness. Nor is it always those who have most completely abandoned
dogmatic systems who are the least sensible to the moral beauty which
has grown up around them. The music of the village church, which sounds
so harsh and commonplace to the worshipper within, sometimes fills with
tears the eyes of the stranger who sits without, listening among the
tombs.

It is difficult to say how far the partial truce which has now fallen in
England over the great antagonisms of belief is likely to be permanent.
No one who knows the world can be insensible to the fact that a large
and growing proportion of those who habitually attend our religious
services have come to diverge very widely, though in many different
degrees, from the beliefs which are expressed or implied in the
formula