this is a fancy only, and hardly dares communicate it to his fellows.
Here and there, however, by accident, it is already finding unintended
expression; and signs come to the surface of the vague distrust and
misgiving that are working under it. The form it takes amongst the
general masses that are affected by it is, as might be expected,
practical rather than analytical. They are conscious of the loss that
the loss of faith is to them; and more or less coherently they long for
its recovery. Outwardly, indeed, they may often sneer at it; but outward
signs in such matters are very deceiving. Much of the bitter and
arrogant certitude to be found about us in the expression of unbelief,
is really like the bitterness of a woman against her lover, which has
not been the cause of her resolving to leave him, but which has been
caused by his having left her. In estimating what is really the state of
feeling about us, we must not look only at the surface. We must remember
that deep feeling often expresses itself by contradicting itself; also
that it often exists where it is not expressed at all, or where it
betrays rather than expresses itself; and, further, that during the
hours of common intercourse, it tends, for the time being, to disappear.
People cannot be always exclaiming in drawing-rooms that they have lost
their Lord; and the fact may be temporarily forgotten because they have
lost their portmanteau. All serious reflections are like reflections in
water--a pebble will disturb them, and make a dull pond sparkle. But the
sparkle dies, and the reflection comes again. And there are many about
us, though they never confess their pain, and perhaps themselves hardly
like to acknowledge it, whose hearts are aching for the religion that
they can no longer believe in. Their lonely hours, between the intervals
of gaiety, are passed with barren and sombre thoughts; and a cry rises
to their lips but never passes them.

Amongst such a class it is somehow startling to find the most unlikely