hop will act it very well. You may bid him be as short as
you will. It will do the queen no hurt, no more than any good; and it
will satisfy all the wise and good fools, who will call us all atheists
if we don't pretend to be as great fools as they are."[93] This low
state of religious sentiment was brought about by much the same causes
which, at a later time, substituted a moral and liberal for the old
dogmatic Christianity. The dislike of theological controversy left by
the civil wars was aided by the Act of Toleration in giving the nation
a religious peace, and in diverting human energy from religious
speculations or emotions. The rational character of the national
intellect was inclined to what was material and tangible, to physical
study or industry. The general desire to submit all questions to the
test of a critical reason, induced the clergy to apply the same test to
theology. But while these tendencies, in their final result, were on
the whole beneficial to religion, their temporary effect was injurious
to it in a high degree. With a few exceptions, such as Butler,
Berkeley, and Wilson, the clergy shared the indifference of their
flocks. The upper ranks were indolent, selfish, often immoral; the
lower, poor, ignorant, and degraded in social position. Bishops and
prominent clergymen, under the system of pluralities, left their
congregations to the care of hungry curates, and sought promotion by
assiduous attendance at ministers' levees, or by paying court to the
king's mistresses. It is not surprising that public respect for them
and for their calling almost died away. Pope wrote sneeringly:[94]

EVEN _in a_ BISHOP _I can spy desert_;
_Seeker is decent, Rundle has a heart_.

A naked Venus hung in the room where prayers were read while Queen
Caroline dressed, which Dr. Madox sarcastically termed "a very proper
altar-piece."[95] Of the High Churchmen Defoe declared that "the spirit
of Christianity is fled from among them." When the Prince of Wales
died, George the Second appointed governors and preceptors for the
prince's children. Horace Walpole's description[96] of one of these is
significant. "The other Preceptor was Hayter, Bishop of Norwich, a
sensible well-bred man, natural son of Blackbourn, the jolly old
Archbishop of York, who had all the manners of a man of quality, though
he had been a Buccaneer and was a Clergyman; but he retained nothing of
his first profession except his seraglio."

Wh