In a thousand aspects,
now tragically, now comically, now with a funny affectation of divine
detachment, a countless host of witnesses tell their story of lives
fretting between dreams and limitations. Now one laughs, now one
weeps, now one reads with a blank astonishment at this huge and almost
unpremeditated record of how the growing human spirit, now warily, now
eagerly, now furiously, and always, as it seems, unsuccessfully, tried
to adapt itself to the maddening misfit of its patched and ancient
garments. And always in these books as one draws nearer to the heart
of the matter there comes a disconcerting evasion. It was the fantastic
convention of the time that a writer should not touch upon religion.
To do so was to rouse the jealous fury of the great multitude of
professional religious teachers. It was permitted to state the discord,
but it was forbidden to glance at any possible reconciliation. Religion
was the privilege of the pulpit....
It was not only from the novels that religion was omitted. It was
ignored by the newspapers; it was pedantically disregarded in the
discussion of business questions, it played a trivial and apologetic
part in public affairs. And this was done not out of contempt but
respect. The hold of the old religious organisations upon men's respect
was still enormous, so enormous that there seemed to be a quality of
irreverence in applying religion to the developments of every day.
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