en disproved
or to have become doubtful. Their uneasiness is shown by writings,
such as "Lux Mundi," struggling to reconcile orthodoxy with free
thought. It is shown by a growing tendency on the part of pastors to
slide from the office of spiritual guide into that of leader of
philanthropic effort and social reform. It is seen, perhaps, even in
the tendency to give increased prominence to musical attraction in the
service. Sermons grow more secular.

Clerical biographies, such as that of Jowett, sometimes reveal private
misgivings. The writer has even seen the pastorate of a large parish
assumed by one who in private society was an evident rationalist and
must have satisfied his conscience by promising to himself that he
would do a great deal of social good. There is, no doubt, practically,
more latitude than there was; heresy trials seem to have ceased, and
one of the writers of "Essays and Reviews" became, without serious
outcry, Primate of the Church of England. But ordination vows remain;
so does the performance of a religious service which includes the
repetition of creeds and forms a practical confession of faith. Hollow
profession cannot fail to impair mental integrity, or, if generally
suspected, to kill confidence in our guides. Read Canon Farrar's "Life
of Christ" and you will see to what shifts orthodoxy puts a clerical
writer who was, no doubt, a sincere lover of truth.

The religious disturbance shows itself at the same time in the
prevalence of wild superstitions, such as Spiritualism, rising out of
the grave of religious faith, and attesting the lingering craving for
the supernatural, somewhat like the mysteries of Isis after the fall of
national religion at Rome.

The crisis has come on us rather suddenly, in consequence partly of
great physical discoveries. The writer as a young student heard
Buckland struggling to reconcile geology with Genesis. Now the
struggle is to reconcile Genesis with geology. Before this wonderful
advance of science and criticism combined, there had been comparatively
little of avowed, still less of popular, scepticism. Rousseau was a
sentimental theist; Voltaire erected a church to God. This vast
"Modernism," as the poor, quaking Pope rather happily calls the
ascendancy of science and criticism, has changed all. It is
conceivable that, now as on some former occasions, the range of
discovery may have been overrated and the pendulum of opinion may
consequently