52 
Sixty or seventy years ago there was little public profession 
of unbelief, — indeed, the state of the law made such public 
profession hazardous ; but society was honeycombed, never- 
theless, with an infidelity not the less deadly because it was 
contemptuously cold, an infidelity which was to all faith or 
religious earnestness as a malaria, which seldom showed any 
respect for morals — often, on the contrary, making a boast 
of immorality — and which habitually employed language, 
whatever might be the occasion, of the grossest irreverence 
and profanity. Can it for a moment be supposed that there 
was more Christian faith in proportion, that there was really 
less unbelief, in this country then than now ? Let the Parlia- 
ment of this land during the first twenty years of the present 
century, with the advantage, if it were indeed an advantage, of 
its being as yet unreformed, be compared with the Parliament 
of the last twenty years, and then let it be judged whether 
the power of Christianity is less to-day, or its prospects less 
hopeful, than sixty years ago. 
Sixty years ago more anti-Chi’istian energy in proportion 
among the educated classes went into vice and fashionable 
frivolity than now; to-day our social anti-Christ develops 
more energy in the direction of critical infidelity ; of intel- 
lectual rebellion against the “ truth as it is in Jesus.” The 
advance of Christianity during the last two generations is 
marked — maybe said to be registered — by the moral superiority 
of the avowed unbelief of to-day to the covert infidelity of 
the early years of this century. Scepticism and agnosticism 
can of themselves as little inspire morality, can as little teach 
nobleness or holy love, can as little sustain beneficence and 
self-sacrifice, whether in right and authority as a principle, 
or in force and fervour as a passion, as the tide-washed sands 
of the seashore could bring forth the growths and fruits and 
flowering beauty of Eden. It is a marvellous evidence of the 
power and authority of Christianity, of the victory which it 
has wrung from its foes in the realm of morals, of its indisputable 
ascendency over whatever is highest and best in human 
nature, that anti-Christianity to-day so far does homage to 
the Christian faith as to assume its ethical code and to imitate 
its morality. The power, the inspiration, tho example of 
Christianity have thus availed so far as almost to “ create a 
soul under the ribs of death.” 
Or, to go back still half a century farther, can any one 
imagine that there was more in proportion of Christian faith 
or of Christian life in this country in the last century than 
there is now ? Wo have only to refer to Bishop Berkeley’s 
“ Minute Philosopher,” to look again at Bishop Butler’s great 
