flippancy
and ridicule, abound on all sides, in private conversation, in
public discussion, and in every form of literary activity. The
hearty thoroughness and fervor with which the faith of the Church
was once held have gone from whole classes. Subtle skepticism or
blank negation is a common characteristic. Whether this tendency
towards unbelief be sound or fallacious, temporary or permanent,
it is at least actual. And it is important that we examine the
causes of it, and test their logical validity while tracing their
historic spread. Why, then, we ask, is the faith in a future life
for man suffering such a marked decay in the present generation of
Christendom?

In the first place, the faith pales and dwindles, from the general
neglect of that strenuous and constant cultivation of it formerly
secured by the stern doctrinal drill and by the rigid supervision
of daily thought and habit in the interests of religion. Never
before were men so absorbed as now in material toil and care
during the serious portion of their existence; never before so
beset as now during the leisure portion by innumerable forms of
amusement and dissipation. The habit of lonely meditation and
prayer grows rarer. The exactions of the struggle of ambition grow
fiercer, the burdens of necessity press more heavily; the vices
and temptations of society thicken: and they withdraw the
attention of men from ideal and sacred aims. More and more men
seem to live for labor and pleasure, for time and sense; less and
less for truth and good, for God and eternity. Absorbed in the
materialistic game, or frittered and jaded in frivolous
diversions, all eternal aims go by default. In what precious age
was maddening rivalry so universal, giggling laughter so pestilent
an epidemic, triviality at such a premium and sublimity at such a
discount? But the things to which men really devote themselves
dilate to fill the whole field of their vision. They soon come to
disbelieve that for which they take no thought and make no
sacrifice or investment. The average men of our time, as well
those of the educated classes as those of the laboring classes, do
not live for immortality. Therefore their faith in it diminishes.
Our fathers, to a degree not common now, walked in mental
companionship with God, practiced solitary devotion, shaped their
daily feelings and deeds with reference to the effect on their
future life. Thus that hidden life became real to them. Now the
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