s or
boastful disregard of moral sanctions which they still regarded as
existing; but the novel of the present is an immoral propaganda--it is
deliberately and of malice immoral, not out of careless levity, but out
of deliberate intention. You do not feel that the modern author is just
describing immoral actions which grow out of his story, but that he is
constructing his story for the purpose of propagating immoral theory. He
hates the whole teaching of the Christian Religion in the matter of
purity. He has thrown it overboard on the ground that it is an
"unnatural" restraint. To those who have studied the development of
thought since the Renaissance there is nothing surprising in this.

But what does still surprise those who are as yet capable of being
surprised is the light way in which the mass of Christians take their
religion. Occasionally, in moments of frankness, they admit that they
are not getting anything out of it; but it is harder to get them to
admit that the reason is that they are not putting anything into it. You
do not expect to get returns from a business into which you are putting
no capital, and you have no right to expect returns from a religion into
which you are putting no energy. What is meant by that is that those
Christians who are keeping the minimum routine of Christianity, who are
going to High Mass on Sunday (or perhaps only to low Mass) and then
making the rest of the day a time of self-indulgence and pleasure; who
make their communions but rarely; who do not go to confession, or go
only at Easter; who are giving no active support to the work of the
Gospel as represented in parish and diocese have no right to be
surprised if they find that they do not seem to get any results from
their religion; that it is often rather a bore to do even so much as
they do, and that they see no point in permitting it further to
interfere with their customary amusements and avocations. I do not know
what such persons expect from their religion, but I am sure that they
will be disappointed if they are expecting any spiritual result.
Naturally, they will be disappointed if they look in themselves for any
evidence of the virtue of hope. The most that can be looked for under
the circumstances is that mockery of hope, presumption.

We are not to be discouraged in our estimate of the Christian Religion
by this which seems to be the failure of God. We are not to echo the
cry: "Since the fathers fell asleep, all t