mind the chief expression of which is a strong sense of
personal status, and of which devoutness is one feature.

In the older communities of the European culture, the hereditary leisure
class, together with the mass of the indigent population, are given to
devout observances in an appreciably higher degree than the average
of the industrious middle class, wherever a considerable class of
the latter character exists. But in some of these countries, the two
categories of conservative humanity named above comprise virtually the
whole population. Where these two classes greatly preponderate, their
bent shapes popular sentiment to such an extent as to bear down any
possible divergent tendency in the inconsiderable middle class, and
imposes a devout attitude upon the whole community.

This must, of course, not be construed to say that such communities or
such classes as are exceptionally prone to devout observances tend to
conform in any exceptional degree to the specifications of any code
of morals that we may be accustomed to associate with this or that
confession of faith. A large measure of the devout habit of mind
need not carry with it a strict observance of the injunctions of the
Decalogue or of the common law. Indeed, it is becoming somewhat of a
commonplace with observers of criminal life in European communities that
the criminal and dissolute classes are, if anything, rather more devout,
and more naively so, than the average of the population. It is among
those who constitute the pecuniary middle class and the body of
law-abiding citizens that a relative exemption from the devotional
attitude is to be looked for. Those who best appreciate the merits of
the higher creeds and observances would object to all this and say that
the devoutness of the low-class delinquents is a spurious, or at the
best a superstitious devoutness; and the point is no doubt well taken
and goes directly and cogently to the purpose intended. But for the
purpose of the present inquiry these extra-economic, extra-psychological
distinctions must perforce be neglected, however valid and however
decisive they may be for the purpose for which they are made.

What has actually taken place with regard to class emancipation from the
habit of devout observance is shown by the latter-day complaint of
the clergy--that the churches are losing the sympathy of the artisan
classes, and are losing their hold upon them. At the same time it is
currently belie