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.