ries they use. Custom, fashion, the charm of old associations,
the cravings of their own moral or spiritual nature, a desire to
support a useful system of moral training, to set a good example to
their children, their household, or their neighbours, keep them in their
old place when the beliefs which they profess with their lips have in a
great measure ebbed away. I do not undertake to blame or to judge them.
Individual conscience and character and particular circumstances have,
in these matters, a decisive voice. But there are times when the
difference between professed belief and real belief is too great for
endurance, and when insincerity and half-belief affect seriously the
moral character of a nation. 'The deepest, nay, the only theme of the
world's history, to which all others are subordinate,' said Goethe, 'is
the conflict of faith and unbelief. The epochs in which faith, in
whatever form it may be, prevails, are the marked epochs in human
history, full of heart-stirring memories and of substantial gains for
all after times. The epochs in which unbelief, in whatever form it may
be, prevails, even when for the moment they put on the semblance of
glory and success, inevitably sink into insignificance in the eyes of
posterity, which will not waste its thoughts on things barren and
unfruitful.'

Many of my readers have probably felt the force of such considerations
and the moral problems which they suggest, and there have been perhaps
moments when they have asked themselves the question of the poet--

Tell me, my soul, what is thy creed?
Is it a faith or only a need?

They will reflect, however, that a need, if it be universally felt when
human nature is in its highest and purest state, furnishes some basis
of belief, and also that no man can venture to assign limits to the
transformations which religion may undergo without losing its essence or
its power. Even in the field of morals these have been very great,
though universal custom makes us insensible to the extent to which we
have diverged from a literal observance of Evangelical precepts. We
should hardly write over the Savings Bank, 'Take no thought for the
morrow, for the morrow will take thought for itself,' or over the Bank
of England, 'Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth,' 'How
hardly shall a rich man enter into the Kingdom of God,' or over the
Foreign Office, or the Law Court, or the prison, 'Resist not evil,' 'He
that smiteth t