Читать книгу Practicable Socialism, New Series онлайн

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1. They are using their powers of thought. There is a distinct disposition to think about unseen things. The Press which circulates most widely has found copy in what it calls Mr. Campbell’s “New Theology”. The “Clarion” newspaper has published week after week letters and articles which deal with the meaning of God. There is increasing unrest under conditions which crib and cabin the mind; men and women are becoming conscious of more things in heaven and earth than they can see and feel and eat. They have a sense that the modern world has become really larger than the old world, and they resent the teaching which commits them to one position or calling. They have, too, become critical, so that, using their minds, they measure the professions of church-goers. Mr. Haw has collected in his book, “Christianity and the Working Classes,” many workmen’s opinions on this subject. Witness after witness shows that he has been thinking, comparing things heard and things professed with things done. It is not just indifference or self-indulgence which alienates the people from church or chapel or mission; it is the insincerity or inconsistency which they themselves have learnt to detect. Huxley said long ago that the greatest gift of science to the modern world was not to be found in the discoveries which had increased its power and its comfort, so much as in the habit of more scientific thinking which it had made common.

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