40 LIFE AND HABIT. 



their own platform, a faith as intense as that mani- 

 fested by the early Christians, how can they preach ? 

 A new superstition will come, but it is in the very 

 essence of things that its apostles should have no sus- 

 picion of its real nature ; that they should no more 

 recognise the common element between the new and the 

 old than the early Christians recognised it between 

 their faith and Paganism. If they did, they would be 

 paralysed. Others say that the new fabric may be seen 

 rising on every side, and that the coming religion is 

 science. Certainly its apostles preach it without mis- 

 giving, but it is not on that account less possible that 

 it may prove only to be the coming superstition 

 like Christianity, true to its true votaries, and, like 

 Christianity, false to those who follow it introspec- 

 tively. 



It may well be we shall find we have escaped from 

 one set of taskmasters to fall into the hands of others 

 far more ruthless. The tyranny of the Church is light 

 in comparison with that which future generations may 

 have to undergo at the hands of the doctrinaires. The 

 Church did uphold a grace of some sort as the summum 

 lonum, in comparison with which all so-called eartlily 

 knowledge knowledge, that is to say, which had not 

 passed through so many people as to have become 

 living and incarnate was unimportant. Do what we 

 may, we are still drawn to the unspoken teaching of her 

 less introspective ages with a force which no falsehood 

 could command. Her buildings, her music, her archi- 

 tecture, touch us as none other on the whole can do ; 

 when she speaks there are many of us who think that 



