egun to perceive how very wide apart Christ's
beautiful teaching is from the interpretation of it which they often
receive in church; while the others, who had never any religious
aspirations at all, are glad that the weight of public opinion and
custom no longer forces them into irksome attendance. To fill churches
with worshippers drawn there largely through hope of Heaven or fear of
Hell, or because it was considered respectable and custom bound them
to conform to its mandates, surely could not have been very acceptable
to God. And the percentage who went truly to pour forth their love and
worship, are still pouring it forth, because it came, and comes, from
their hearts whether they attend church or no.

The modern spirit is full of what Edmond Holmes calls the desire to
ask the teacher or person in authority for his credentials. And if
these are not entirely satisfactory, the influence he can hope to
wield will be nil.

To deplore anything that may happen to a country, or to ourselves, is
waste of time. We should search for the reason of it, and if it proves
to be because there is some ineradicable cause, intelligence should
then be used to better the condition which results. Worship of
something glorious and beyond ourselves will always swell the human
heart, and if the accepted forms of the religion of a country can no
longer produce this emotion, it is not because the human heart is
changing, but because there is something in those forms which no
longer fulfils its mission.

The cry of the fear of the net of Rome is futile also. People drift to
where they belong, and Rome seems to offer to take all spiritual
responsibility from the shoulders of her children. It gives them an
emotional satisfaction which brings comfort to all, and amongst these
any of hysterical nature probably become far happier and better
citizens under her wing than they would otherwise have been. No nets
will catch the expanding soul which is rising out of its paltry self
into ideals nearer to God.

During the earlier days when religion held sway in England over at
least nine-tenths of female lives, superfluous women were content as a
rule to lead grey, uneventful existences, making no more mark on their
time than if they had been flocks of sheep. But with the breakdown of
this force, and greater freedom of ideas, they have brought themselves
into prominence--the scum as a shrieking sisterhood, and the pure
elements unobtrusively, as lea