y were producing a general indifference to
all questions of religious speculation or religious life. In the higher
circles "every one laughs," said Montesquieu on his visit to England,
"if one talks of religion." Of the prominent statesmen of the time the
greater part were unbelievers in any form of Christianity, and
distinguished for the grossness and immorality of their lives.
Drunkenness and foul talk were thought no discredit to Walpole. A later
prime minister, the Duke of Grafton, was in the habit of appearing with
his mistress at the play. Purity and fidelity to the marriage vow were
sneered out of fashion; and Lord Chesterfield, in his letters to his
son, instructs him in the art of seduction as part of a polite
education.

[Sidenote: Sloth of the clergy.]

At the other end of the social scale lay the masses of the poor. They
were ignorant and brutal to a degree which it is hard to conceive, for
the increase of population which followed on the growth of towns and the
developement of commerce had been met by no effort for their religious
or educational improvement. Not a new parish had been created. Hardly a
single new church had been built. Schools there were none, save the
grammar schools of Edward and Elizabeth. The rural peasantry, who were
fast being reduced to pauperism by the abuse of the poor-laws, were left
without much moral or religious training of any sort. "We saw but one
Bible in the parish of Cheddar," said Hannah More at a far later time,
"and that was used to prop a flower-pot." Within the towns things were
worse. There was no effective police; and in great outbreaks the mob of
London or Birmingham burnt houses, flung open prisons, and sacked and
pillaged at their will. The criminal class gathered boldness and numbers
in the face of ruthless laws which only testified to the terror of
society, laws which made it a capital crime to cut down a cherry tree,
and which strung up twenty young thieves of a morning in front of
Newgate; while the introduction of gin gave a new impetus to
drunkenness. In the streets of London gin-shops at one time invited
every passer-by to get drunk for a penny, or dead drunk for twopence.
Much of this social degradation was due without doubt to the apathy and
sloth of the priesthood. A shrewd, if prejudiced, observer, Bishop
Burnet, brands the English clergy of his day as the most lifeless in
Europe, "the most remiss of their labours in private and the least
severe of th