y which means thinking and
doing exactly as the people around us think and do, then the religious
spirit is not a good thing, but a thoroughly bad and hateful thing. To
that we owe no management of any kind. Any one who suppresses his real
opinions, and feigns others, out of deference to such a spirit as this
in his household, ought to say plainly both to himself and to us that he
cares more for his own ease and undisturbed comfort than he cares for
truth and uprightness. For it is that, and not any tenderness for holy
things, which is the real ground of his hypocrisy.

Now with reference to the religious spirit in its nobler form, it is
difficult to believe that any one genuinely animated by it would be
soothed by the knowledge that her dearest companion is going through
life with a mask on, quietly playing a part, uttering untrue
professions, doing his best to cheat her and the rest of the world by a
monstrous spiritual make-believe. One would suppose that instead of
having her religious feeling gratified by conformity on these terms,
nothing could wound it so bitterly nor outrage it so unpardonably. To
know that her sensibility is destroying the entireness of the man's
nature, its loyalty alike to herself and to truth, its freedom and
singleness and courage--surely this can hardly be less distressing to a
fine spirit than the suspicion that his heresies may bring him to the
pit, or than the void of going through life without even the semblance
of religious sympathy between them. If it be urged that the woman would
never discover the piety of the man to be a counterfeit, we reply that
unless her own piety were of the merely formal kind, she would be sure
to make the discovery. The congregation in the old story were untouched
by the disguised devil's eloquence on behalf of religion: it lacked
unction. The verbal conformity of the unbeliever lacks unction, and its
hollowness is speedily revealed to the quick apprehension of true
faith.[24]

Let us not be supposed to be arguing in favour of incessant battle of
high dialectic in the household. Nothing could be more destructive of
the gracious composure and mental harmony, of which household life ought
to be, but perhaps seldom is, the great organ and instrument. Still less
are we pleading for the freethinker's right at every hour of day or
night to mock, sneer, and gibe at the sincere beliefs and
conscientiously performed rites of those, whether men or women, whether
st