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The people share this gift and have become critical. They criticize all professions, theological or political. They criticize the Bible, and the very children in the schools have become rationalists. They also construct, and there are few more interesting facts of the time than the strength of trades unions, co-operative and friendly societies, which they have organized. Even unskilled labour, ever since the great Dock strike, has shown its power to conceive methods of amelioration, and to combine for their execution. The first constituent of religion, the activity of thought, is thus present amid the non-church-going population.

2. This thought is, I think, directed towards a Higher-than-self; it, that is to say, goes towards goodness. I would suggest a few instances. Universal homage is paid to the character of Christ. He, because of His goodness, is exalted above all other reformers, and writers who are bitter against Christianity reverence His truth and good-will. Popular opinion respects a good man whatever be his creed or party; it may not always be instructed as to the contents of goodness, but at elections its votes incline to follow the lead of the one who seems good, and that is sometimes the neighbouring publican whose kindness and courtesy are experienced. In social and political thought the most significant and strongest mark is the ethical tendency. Few proposals have now a chance of a hearing if they do not appeal to a sense of justice. Right has won at any rate a verbal victory over might. In late revivals there has been much insistence on the need of better living, on temperance, on payment of debts and fulfilment of duty, and the reprints which publishers find it worth their while to publish are penny books of Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and other writers on morals.