minor
social matters. If, therefore, either of them turns to some other creed,
the person so turning has, so to speak, broken the contract. The utmost
he or she can contend for is forbearance. If a woman embraces
catholicism, she may seek tolerance, but she has no right to exact
conformity. If the man becomes an unbeliever, he in like manner breaks
the bargain, and may be justly asked not to flaunt his misdemeanour.

My answer to this would turn upon the absolute inexpediency of such
silent bargains being assumed by public opinion. In the present state of
opinion, where the whole air is alive with the spirit of change, nobody
who takes his life or her life seriously, could allow an assumption
which means reduction of one of the most important parts of character,
the love of truth, to a nullity.]

[Footnote 24: The reader remembers how Wolmar, the atheistic husband of
Julie in Rousseau's _New Heloisa_, is distressed by the chagrin which
his unbelief inflicts on the piety of his wife. 'He told me that he had
been frequently tempted to make a feint of yielding to her arguments,
and to pretend, for the sake of calming her sentiments that he did not
really hold. But such baseness of soul is too far from him. Without for
a moment imposing on Julie, such dissimulation would only have been a
new torment to her. The good faith, the frankness, the union of heart,
that console for so many troubles, would have been eclipsed between
them. Was it by lessening his wife's esteem for him that he could
reassure her? Instead of using any disguise, he tells her sincerely what
he thinks, but he says it in so simple a tone, etc.--V. v. 126.]

[Footnote 25: The common reason alleged by freethinkers for having their
children brought up in the orthodox ways is that, if they were not so
brought up, they would be looked on as contaminating agents whom other
parents would take care to keep away from the companionship of their
children. This excuse may have had some force at another time. At the
present day, when belief is so weak, we doubt whether the young would be
excluded from the companionship of their equals in age, merely because
they had not been trained in some of the conventional shibboleths. Even
if it were so, there are certainly some ways of compensating for the
disadvantages of exclusion from orthodox circles.

I have heard of a more interesting reason; namely, that the historic
position of the young, relatively to the time in whi