e that a very different view of
religion prevailed; they testify to a simpler and stronger sense of
religion than now exists, but not, I think, to a truer sense of it.
They stand, I do not doubt, for a much more superstitious and barbarous
view of the relation of God to men; the people who built them had, I
imagine, the idea of conciliating God by the gift of a seemly
sanctuary, a hope of improving not only their spiritual prospects in
the after-life, but of possibly advancing their material prosperity in
this, by thus displaying their piety and zeal in God's service. I
cannot believe that the churches were designed with the intention of
making the rustic inhabitants of the place holier, more virtuous, more
refined--except incidentally; they were built more in obedience to
ecclesiastical tradition, in a time when rationalism had not begun to
cast doubt on what I may call the Old Testament theory of the relation
of God to men--the theory of a wrathful power, vindictive, jealous of
recognition, withholding blessings from the impious and heaping them
upon the submissive. As to those who worshipped there, I imagine that
the awe and reverence they felt was based upon the same sort of view,
and connected religious observance with the hope of prosperity and
wealth, and the neglect of it with the fear of chastisement. If
misfortune fell upon the godly, they regarded it as the chastening of
God inflicted upon the sons of His love; if it fell upon the ungodly,
it was a punishment for sin; religion was a process by which one might
avert the punishment of sin, induce the bestowal of favours, and in any
case improve one's future prospects of heaven. No doubt this form of
religion produced a simpler kind of faith, and a profounder reverence;
but I do not think that they were very beautiful qualities when so
produced, because they seem to me very alien from the simplicity of the
religion of Christ. The difficulty in which popular religion finds
itself, nowadays, is that in a Protestant Church like our own, neither
priest nor people believe in the old mechanical theories of religion,
and yet the people are not yet capable of being moved by purer
conceptions of it. A priest can no longer threaten his congregation
sincerely with the penalties of hell for neglecting the observances of
the Church; on the other hand, the conception of religion as a
refining, solemnising attitude of soul, bringing tranquillity and
harmony into life, is too su