“If the modern tone has thus affected even those who ye most opposed to it, what must not its effect be upon those who have, in part of their own free will, adopted it? And these form to-day a great mass of our educated public. A large number of these still call themselves Protestants; and were the matter to be treated lightly, they might afford countless studies for the humorist. The state to which they have reduced their religion is indeed a curious one. With a facile eclecticism that is based on no principle, and that changes from year to year, or more probably from mood to mood, they pick and choose their doctrines, saying: ‘I keep this and I reject this,’ in some such manner as the following: ‘Of course the Apostles’ Creed is true, and of course the Athanasian Creed is false. And then, after all, suppose neither is true, the meaning of the thing is the real heart of the matter.’ Such is the Protestant language of to-day. Nor is it the language of foolish or of ignorant people; it is the language of countless clever men who have much to do, and of countless clever women who have nothing to do.”
The author proceeds to test the actual value on a person’s life of such a faith as this—a faith that has nothing really fixed in it, and that varies with the mood of the holder. There come the great trials of life, when those who sorrow or those who suffer or are sorely tempted require all their fortitude, must trample on themselves and on their own feelings and natural instincts, or yield to despair and give way to wrong.
“A great sorrow comes, or a great temptation comes. At once the tone of to-day grows more pronounced, and a new set of arguments suggest themselves with singular readiness: ‘God is not good, or he would never have robbed me of so good a husband’; or, ‘God is not good, or he would never have let me marry such a bad one’; and then follows, as a corollary to these propositions, ‘God is nothing if not good, and therefore there is no God at all.’ Or the syllogism, especially in the feminine mind, takes not uncommonly some such form as this: ‘If there was a God he would put me into hell for being in love with so-and-so; but I am certain in my own mind that I do not deserve hell; therefore I am certain in my own mind that there can be no God to put me there.’”
The aptness and force with which Mr. Mallock brings the application of these vague speculations about religion and these loose principles of belief home to daily life is characteristic of the man. He is not content with wandering in the clouds. He brings everything down to solid earth, and tests and weighs it there. He does not ask, How will this appear to the philosopher? but How will this affect the lives of men and women? Religion is not for the philosophers only, but for every man born into this world. A recent trial in Brooklyn gives peculiar point to his remarks on this head. “In former times,” says Mr. Mallock, “when such thoughts occurred to men, the whole weight of the world’s opinion always was ready to condemn them as vain and wicked. But now the case is just reversed. However foolish may be the actual conduct of such reasoning, the opinion of the enlightened world is ready to corroborate the conclusion.”
He goes on to take another circle, “a probably far larger one.” This is made up of men who are in suspense altogether. “They see much to revere and to regret in Christianity, but they make no pretence of believing in its details. They do not even think them worth arguing against.” And, lastly, “there are the extreme destroyers, who would break altogether with the past; and who, though probably wishing to retain some of the emotions that were once directed to God and to heaven, would give them an entirely different object in the shape of humanity, and would never suffer them to wander from the earth’s surface.”
“Such are the various parties that the world of thought now shows to us,” says Mr. Mallock—a small body who cling heart and soul to the past; a small body that would utterly break with the past; and between them “a vast and varied crowd, tinged in various proportions with the colors of each extreme. And amongst them all there is a continual arguing, and anxiety, and perplexity.”
There is no denying the truth of this picture. Such is Christendom to-day, and what is to be the outcome of it all? The keen and truthful observer whom we are quoting thinks “it cannot be doubted that the modern tone is spreading,” and the tendency is therefore against faith. “To all except a small minority faith, in the old sense of the word, is growing a cold and shadowy thing.”
“The dogmas, the services, the ministers of the church are coming all of them to have a belated look for us. They seem out of place in the busy world around us. Ever and again we hear of a new Catholic miracle and the fame of some new pilgrimage. And the strange effect that these things have on us shows us how far our minds have travelled.
Do such things still exist? we ask in surprise and irritation, and we set them down as ‘the grimacings of a dead superstition’ galvanized into a ghastly imitation of life. And then from the modern miracles the mind goes back to the older ones, once held so sacred and so certain. And they, too, have undergone a change for us. Not only are Lourdes and Paray-le-Monial contemptible, but Calvary is disenchanted. There may have been a death there, but there was never a Sacrifice. Scales have fallen from our eyes. We see it all clearly. The creed we were brought up in is an earthly myth, not a heavenly revelation. We know exactly whence it came, and we see pretty certainly whither it is going. The signs of it still survive; but they signify nothing. They will soon be swept away, and will make place, we hope earnestly, for something better.”
Such is the modern tone, wonderfully well presented. Is it so universal as Mr. Mallock seems to think, or so deeply rooted in the minds and hearts of men? He himself is in doubt on this point, and proceeds to inquire with characteristic honesty and persistence. He takes up and classifies the various objections against Christianity that are popular to-day: the objections à priori, which are opposed to all religion, natural as well as revealed; and the objections à posteriori, which are opposed to revealed religion only. We must refer the reader to Mr. Mallock’s article for these objections, as space does not allow us to present them, nor is their presentation necessary to our immediate purpose. The conclusion at which he arrives is briefly this: “If Christianity relies for support on the external evidence of its truth, it can never again hope to convince men. These supports are seen to be utterly inadequate to the weight that is put upon them. They might possibly serve as props, but they crash and crumble instantly if they are used as pillars.”