English Secularism

o be in the right to

everybody else. An

a certain lapse o

d that one of those

premature, but whi

, has become the mo

inab

onse

ogy, which it neither ignores, assails, nor denies. Things Secular are as separate from the Church as land from the ocean. And what nobody seems to discern is that things Secular are in themselves qu

ment with the writer, and even disinclines him to examine what is put before him; yet some of these pages may be open to thi

es-for whose character and convictions he has great respect, and for some even affection-did he not perceive that few have

lled "self-thought," or "free thought," or "original thought"-the opposite of convention

ht has thr

ined. Conscious power thus acquired satisfies the pride of some; others limit its exercise from prudence. Interests, which would be

greatest is

he work of a day or year, but is so prolonged that clearing the way becomes as it were a profession, and is at length pursued as an end instead of a means. Disputation becom

Supplying to such persons Secular reasons for duty is Secularism, the range of which is illimitable. It begins where free thought usually ends, and constitutes a new form of constructiv

ian Scriptures possessing the mark of intrinsic truth, to which many could cheerfully conform in their lives. This rule compels all who can

, as might be done, a theory of Christianity solely from such doctrines as are represented in the elliptical preaching, practice, and social life of Christians of to-day, a very different estimate of the Christian system would have to be given from that with which the author deals in the subsequent chapters. In them Christianity is represented as Free-thought has found it, and as i