the faithless: but there is just this difference, and this very fatal
one, between the second and nineteenth centuries, that the Pagans are
nominally and fashionably Christians, and that there is every
conceivable variety and shade of belief between the two; so that not
only is it most difficult theoretically to mark the point where
hesitating trust and failing practice change into definite infidelity,
but it has become a point of politeness not to inquire too deeply into
our neighbor's religious opinions; and, so that no one be offended by
violent breach of external forms, to waive any close examination into
the tenets of faith. The fact is, we distrust each other and ourselves
so much, that we dare not press this matter; we know that if, on any
occasion of general intercourse, we turn to our next neighbor, and put
to him some searching or testing question, we shall, in nine cases out
of ten, discover him to be only a Christian in his own way, and as far
as he thinks proper, and that he doubts of many things which we
ourselves do not believe strongly enough to hear doubted without danger.
What is in reality cowardice and faithlessness, we call charity; and
consider it the part of benevolence sometimes to forgive men's evil
practice for the sake of their accurate faith, and sometimes to forgive
their confessed heresy for the sake of their admirable practice. And
under this shelter of charity, humility, and faintheartedness, the
world, unquestioned by others or by itself, mingles with and overwhelms
the small body of Christians, legislates for them, moralizes for them,
reasons for them; and, though itself of course greatly and beneficently
influenced by the association, and held much in check by its pretence to
Christianity, yet undermines, in nearly the same degree, the sincerity
and practical power of Christianity itself, until at last, in the very
institutions of which the administration may be considered as the
principal test of the genuineness of national religion, those devoted to
education, the Pagan system is completely triumphant; and the entire
body of the so-called Christian world has established a system of
instruction for its youth, wherein neither the history of Christ's
Church, nor the language of God's law, is considered a study of the
smallest importance; wherein, of all subjects of human inquiry, his own
religion is the one in which a youth's ignorance is most easily
forgiven;[26] and in which it is hel