No doubt this form of
religion produced a simpler kind of faith, and a profounder reverence;
but I do not think that they were very beautiful qualities when so
produced, because they seem to me very alien from the simplicity of the
religion of Christ. The difficulty in which popular religion finds
itself, nowadays, is that in a Protestant Church like our own, neither
priest nor people believe in the old mechanical theories of religion,
and yet the people are not yet capable of being moved by purer
conceptions of it. A priest can no longer threaten his congregation
sincerely with the penalties of hell for neglecting the observances of
the Church; on the other hand, the conception of religion as a
refining, solemnising attitude of soul, bringing tranquillity and
harmony into life, is too subtle an idea to have a very general hold
upon unimaginative persons. Thus the beauty of these exquisite and
stately little sanctuaries, enriched by long associations and touched
with a delicate grace by the gentle hand of time, has something
infinitely pathetic about it. The theory that brought them into
existence has lost its hold, while the spirit that could animate them
and give them a living message has not yet entered them; the refined
grace, the sweet solemnity of these simple buildings, has no voice for
the plain, sensible villager; it cannot be interpreted to him.
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