First, you require material to work upon in a national moral sense, and here I have just said that the English have the advantage. The moral sense is (on the whole and in spite of many exceptions) very much stronger in England than in France. The English (except their men of the world) still retain in a great degree the healthy state of moral feeling which is capable of being really shocked and horror-stricken by turpitude and vice; the French lose this freshness of feeling very early in life, and look upon turpitude and vice very much as an English man of the world looks upon them, as a part of the nature of things too familiar to excite surprise. It does not follow that they themselves are base and vicious, but they know too much, and they know it too early, about the evil side of life.
Moral Influence of the Church of England.
Authority needed with the Young.
Value of Ecclesiastical Institutions.
Special Authority of the Clergy.
The English, too, have a great advantage in the possession of a national institution which exists far more for moral training than for anything else. The Church of England is much less of a theocracy than the Church of Rome, and much more of a moral influence over the ordinary laity. Its clergy are nearer to the laity than the Roman Catholic clergy are, and their influence is on the whole a more pervading and efficient influence. The great difficulty about the moral training of the young is that it can only be done well and efficiently by authority. Ecclesiastical institutions invest the teacher with this authority far better than any others. The clerical teacher, with the Church behind him, is free from the perplexing task of reasoning about morals; he has only to require obedience. His very costume separates him from all laymen, and gives a weight and seriousness to his teaching that they cannot impart to theirs. For this reason almost all parents, until recent years, have been anxious to place their children under the authority of priests, and have often done so when they themselves had no belief in theological doctrines. They did not seek the theocratic power, but the moral power that was connected with it.
The Difficulty of Clerical Education.
Effect of it on Unbelievers.
Truthfulness especially a Social Virtue.
Unbelievers numerous in France.