e, as I suppose most thoughtful people are in these
times, that the process of breaking away from old beliefs is extremely
unpleasant; and I am much disposed to think that the encouragement, the
consolation, and the peace afforded to earnest believers in even the
worst forms of Christianity are of great practical advantage to them.
What deductions must be made from this gain on this score of the harm
done to the citizen by the ascetic other-worldliness of logical
Christianity; to the ruler, by the hatred, malice, and all
uncharitableness of sectarian bigotry; to the legislator, by the spirit
of exclusiveness and domination of those that count themselves pillars
of orthodoxy; to the philosopher, by the restraints on the freedom of
learning and teaching which every Church exercises, when it is strong
enough; to the conscientious soul, by the introspective hunting after
sins of the mint and cummin type, the fear of theological error, and the
overpowering terror of possible damnation, which have accompanied the
Churches like their shadow, I need not now consider; but they are
assuredly not small. If agnostics lose heavily on the one side, they
gain a good deal on the other. People who talk about the comforts of
belief appear to forget its discomforts; they ignore the fact that the
Christianity of the Churches is something more than faith in the ideal
personality of Jesus, which they create for themselves, _plus_ so much
as can be carried into practice, without disorganising civil society, of
the maxims of the Sermon on the Mount. Trip in morals or in doctrine
(especially in doctrine), without due repentance or retractation, or
fail to get properly baptized before you die, and a _plebiscite_ of the
Christians of Europe, if they were true to their creeds, would affirm
your everlasting damnation by an immense majority.

Preachers, orthodox and heterodox, din into our ears that the world
cannot get on without faith of some sort. There is a sense in which that
is as eminently as obviously true; there is another, in which, in my
judgment, it is as eminently as obviously false, and it seems to me that
the hortatory, or pulpit, mind is apt to oscillate between the false and
the true meanings, without being aware of the fact.

It is quite true that the ground of every one of our actions, and the
validity of all our reasonings, rest upon the great act of faith, which
leads us to take the experience of the past as a safe guide in our