Ethical 237 



allegiance, that a Christian goes to church to pro- 

 claim his loyalty and fealty, even as a soldier — no 

 matter how well he knows his drill — attends 

 parade. The men who say that they worship their 

 Maker under the blue dome of Heaven are styled 

 Hue domers ; but these gentlemen, T fancy, are not 

 likely to shatter their health by a too zealous and 

 protracted observance of their religious exercises. 

 Many are professed Agnostics ; but the Churches 

 of the West have more to fear from the men who 

 profess Christianity and do not practice it, who 

 send their wives and children to church, while they 

 remain at home, who talk glibly of duties and 

 liabilities which they themselves ignore, than from 

 the disciples of Huxley and Ingersoll, whose influ- 

 ence, like their teaching, is negative and passive. 



And yet, religion — which has been so happily 

 defined as a charter of happiness, not a bill of pains 

 and penalties — is not dead but only sleeping in 

 the souls of these men. The extraordinary sale of 

 Sheldon's book, " In His Steps," proves this. Accor- 

 dingly it would seem that Protestantism — for I 

 am not speaking of the Church of Kome — lacks 

 flexibility ; it does not adapt itself to the spiritual 

 needs of the breadwinner. 



But virile vigorous teaching can only come from 

 the mouths of virile vigorous men; and few of 

 these are unselfish enough to enter professions ill- 

 paid and ill-considered. The average American 

 father does not wish his son to be a schoolmaster 

 or a minister of the gospel ; for, in his opinion, 

 these gentlemen occupy a lower rather than a higher 

 plane than the banker and merchant. 



