it--art, science, literature,
law, statecraft, and the rest--have, one and all, freed themselves by
slow degrees from ecclesiastical control, till little or nothing has
been left for the Church to regulate but her own rites and
ceremonies, the morals (in a narrow and ever-narrowing sense of the
word), and the faith (in the theological sense of the word), of the
faithful.

With the emancipation of Man's higher activities from ecclesiastical
control, the distinction between the _religious_ and the _secular_
life has gradually established itself. That this should happen was
inevitable. Mechanical obedience being of the essence of supernatural
religion, the secularising of human life became absolutely necessary
if any vital progress was to be made. The Church patronised art,
music, and the drama so far as they served her purposes. When they
outgrew those purposes, in response to the expansive forces of human
nature, she treated them as secular and let them go their several
ways. In the interests of theology she tried to keep physical science
in leading-strings; but when, after a bitter struggle, science broke
loose from her control, she treated it too as secular and let it go
its way.

Let us see what this distinction involves. As salvation is to be
achieved by obedience to the Church and in no other way, it follows
that in all those spheres of life which are outside the jurisdiction
of the Church (except, of course, so far as questions of "morals" may
arise in connection with them), Man's conduct and general demeanour
are supposed to have no bearing on his eternal destiny. This is the
view of the secular life which is taken by the Church. And not by the
Church alone. As, little by little, the Institution--be it Church, or
Sect, or Code, or Scripture--which claims to be the sole accredited
agent of the Eternal God, relaxes its hold upon the ever-expanding
life of Humanity, all those developments of human nature which cease
to be amenable to its control come to be regarded as mundane, as
unspiritual, as carnal, as matters with which God has no concern.

Were this view of the secular life confined to those who call
themselves religious, no great harm would be done. Unfortunately, the
secular life, which is under the influence of the current conception
of God as one who holds no intercourse with Man except through
certain accredited agents, is ready to acquiesce in the current
estimate of itself as godless, and to accept a