Untitled - Rore Sanctifica

The Difficultin of Re-union.
Ill
u great hold upon the middle class, and among
the older members of the upper class ; but it
id so entirely bereft of zeal and talent among
the comparatively very few of the younger men
<
that still call themselves Evangelical/ that as
the older men die off it will scarcely be known
among the upper class, and in the middle
class be quite unable to hold its ground against
the only two spiritual powers that seem now to
have a career before them, Catholicism and
Scepticism. The collision must be between
these two, and Protestantism will be crumpled
up
in the encounter.
I do not mean bv what 1 have said to inu
tlmate that religious Protestantism in its most
bio-oted form is
r*>
not a million times better than
in its mildest ; but I have not the
scepticism
slightest fear of the result of our contest with
o
the latter ; numbers may perish in it, but the
Church will triumph in this England of ours,
whatever may be her fate for a time elsewhere.
We may look back upon the religious history of
E no-land for the last hundred years, and take
O *J
,
heart. The religious education of our country
has throughout that period been most remark
able. Our iirst call was to a more xpiritt ftl
life ; Wesley, and the early Evangelical
preachers, taught religion in its
spiritual
essence ; they knew nothing of the body, of the
Church that is,
its forms, and its teaching.