180 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



are exceptions to this which are becoming more frequent ; personal 

 esteem is often sincerely felt even where co-operation is refused, and 

 co-operation is sometimes given in philanthropic schemes when refused 

 in spiritual work. The free discussion of religion in the reviews and 

 magazines and in private circles induces a still larger tolerance, so that 

 even agnostics and positivists are not treated as outcasts by the 

 most zealous of their Christian relations. 



We must add to this the new state of things created by the modi- 

 fication of the tests imposed upon the clergy, and their abolition both 

 in public life and at the universities. The clergy now profess only a 

 general adherence to the formularies of worship, while in all other 

 spheres tests are gone or doomed. This has tended to make religious 

 profession more sincere, and to separate religion from injustice. It 

 has also brought together those who would never have met. The 

 presence even of one like Mr. Bradlaugh in Parliament is a preserva- 

 tive against conventionalism and hypocrisy when matters moral and 

 religious are under debate. In the universities the fact that young 

 men who are preparing for the ministry of various denominations, 

 live together and share the same thoughts and associations, is preg- 

 nant with consequences to the future of church-life and of theology, 

 as is also the freedom of speech and practice and the altered tone of 

 religious instruction resulting from the presence of dissenters. 



4. Theology can not separate itself from public life. The demo- 

 cratic and social uprising of our day must influence it. "While a sys- 

 tem of privilege was dominant in the state, it was natural perhaps to 

 think of the few who were called, and to pass over the rest. The 

 idea of men having no claim upon God, and of his relation to them as 

 being either that of a vigorous upholder of law, or of one who only in 

 certain cases and on certain terms showed favor to transgressors, was 

 congenial to all to whom the chief political factors were the monarch 

 and the upper classes, and the maintenance of a law in the making of 

 which the mass of the subjects had had no hand. But the modern 

 conviction that all men have their rights, and that the government 

 exists for their sake, has communicated itself to theology. We can 

 not think of men simply as offenders who need pardon ; rather the fact 

 that they have been created seems to give them a claim on their Cre- 

 ator. The mission and self-sacrifice of Christ seem an answer to this 

 claim, and a promise of a better condition in this world as well as in 

 the world to come. Nor is this only for individuals. The democracy 

 moves in masses ; we can not be content with the blessing of individ- 

 uals as separate from their fellows, but must strive for the building up 

 of the masses in true relations and brotherly equality. 



Such appear to be the main conditions under which our theological 

 beliefs are destined in future to move. We have now to consider what 

 the movements of theology can be under these conditions. 



II. When the preacher whose words were quoted at the beginning 



