On Compromise by John Morley
page 28 of 180 (15%)
page 28 of 180 (15%)
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suppose that it is firm persuasion of the greater scripturalness of
episcopacy that turns the second generation of dissenting manufacturers in our busy Lancashire into churchmen? Certainly such conversions do no violence to the conscience of the proselyte, for he is intellectually indifferent, a spiritual neuter. That brings us to the root of the matter, the serious side of a revolution that in this social consequence is so unspeakably ignoble. This root of the matter is the slow transformation now at work of the whole spiritual basis of thought. Every age is in some sort an age of transition, but our own is characteristically and cardinally an epoch of transition in the very foundations of belief and conduct. The old hopes have grown pale, the old fears dim; strong sanctions are become weak, and once vivid faiths very numb. Religion, whatever destinies may be in store for it, is at least for the present hardly any longer an organic power. It is not that supreme, penetrating, controlling, decisive part of a man's life, which it has been, and will be again. The work of destruction is all the more perturbing to timorous spirits, and more harassing even to doughtier spirits, for being done impalpably, indirectly, almost silently and as if by unseen hands. Those who dwell in the tower of ancient faiths look about them in constant apprehension, misgiving, and wonder, with the hurried uneasy mien of people living amid earthquakes. The air seems to their alarms to be full of missiles, and all is doubt, hesitation, and shivering expectancy. Hence a decisive reluctance to commit one's self. Conscience has lost its strong and on-pressing energy, and the sense of personal responsibility lacks sharpness of edge. The native hue of spiritual resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of distracted, wavering, confused thought. The souls of men have become void. Into the void have entered in triumph the seven devils of Secularity. |
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