consensus regarding truths that are as obscure as they are vital to
individual and social happiness; and thus to afford a means of sure and
easy guidance to those uncritical multitudes whose necessary
preoccupations forbid their engaging in theology and controversy. This
ideal was sufficiently realized for practical purposes in the "ages of
faith," when the whole public opinion of Europe, then believed to be
coterminous with civilization, was Catholic; when dissent needed as much
independence of character, as in so many places, profession does now.
And surely it is a narrow-hearted criticism to prefer the primitive
conditions in which none but those strong enough to face persecution
could reap the benefits of Christianity. The weak and dependent are ever
the majority, and if Christianity had been intended to pass them by or
sift them out, "its province were not large," nor could it claim to be
the religion of humanity. The Christian leaven was never meant to be
kept apart, but to be hidden and lost in that unleavened mass which it
seeks slowly to transform into its own nature. The majority, in respect
to religion and civilization, are like unwilling school-boys who need to
be coerced for their own benefit, to be kept to their work till they
learn (if they ever do) to like it, and to need no more coercion. The
support that Catholic surroundings give to numbers, who else were too
weak to stand alone, cannot be overvalued, although it may weaken a few
who else had exerted themselves more strenuously, or may foster
hypocrisy in secret unbelievers who would like to, but dare not
withstand public opinion.

Now it is the gradual decay of this support--of this non-rational yet
most reasonable cause of belief, that is rendering the religious
condition of the man in the street so increasingly unsatisfactory. Not
only is there no longer an agreement of experts, and a consequent
consensus of nations, touching the broad and fundamental truths of
Christianity, but what is far more to the point, the knowledge of this
Babylonian confusion has become a commonplace with the multitudes. No
doubt there are yet some shaded patches where the dew still struggles
with the desiccating sun--old-world sanctuaries of Catholicism whose
dwellers hardly realize the existence of unbelief or heresy, or who give
at best a lazy, notional assent to the fact. But there are few regions
in so-called Christendom where the least educated are not now quite
awar