he sale of secularist tracts would doubtless give an
exaggerated idea of it. The high standard of morality advocated in them,
so likely to attract rather than repel, the clear writing, and the
agreement of the views with the experience afforded by the daily life of
working men, give them power among the lower orders. The absorbing
character of labour has a tendency, especially in an advanced state of
civilization, to depress the sense of the supernatural in man, and fix his
thoughts on the present world: and it is generally the sense of trouble
alone which can lift men out of themselves, and recall to their
remembrance the presence of a God on whom the sorrowing heart may lean for
help.

Opinions derived from positivism, or at least from physical science, enter
into other spheres of thought than those just named; and both affect
writers who hardly touch upon the subject of religion; and create
difficulties in the minds of Christians themselves, either in reference to
prime doctrines of religion, or the particular teaching on physical
questions implied in the sacred books.

The diffusion of the fundamental conception of the perpetuity of nature's
laws, has a tendency to create in literature a mode of viewing the world
alien to the providential view of the divine government implied in
religion. The application of statistics in social philosophy for the
discovery of the general laws which regulate society and create
civilization, not unfrequently leaves an impression that man as well as
matter depends upon fixed laws; which is irreconcileable with belief in
human freedom or in divine interference, and sometimes causes religion to
be regarded as a conservative force, which in its nature is alien to
civilization.(907)

Nor is the danger confined to the various branches of secular literature:
the views of even religious men are not unfrequently modified by it, or
painful doubts are created where the head contradicts the heart. In
proportion as phenomena are shown not to depend on chance, the misgiving
is felt as to the reality of special providence and the value of prayer,
in reference to temporal affairs. The sphere for confiding petitions is
felt to be narrowed; and miracles, instead of becoming an evidence for
religion, become a difficulty. Even where fundamental difficulties, such
as these, do not sap the religious life, the belief that the inspiration
of the sacred books guarantees the truth of the views of physical sc