The decline and fall of the British Empire - University of Oregon

of the British Empire 29
and in nothing so much as their
refusal to co-operate, as Christians,
against those evils which were
rapidly dragging their country along
the road to eternal shame and
degradation. Misunderstandings and
unkind suspicions flourished between
sect and sect ; and all this while
there were millions upon millions of
sad disillusioned folk, in lofty palace
and low hamlet, in mean slums and
in drab suburbs, crying unto their
God for some one to tell them how
to live. The supreme need of the
Churches was indeed a great intellectual
and religious awakening
which would have swept aside the
petty distinctions of rival creeds and
built for the future upon the basis of
a wider and more Christian patriot-
ism. But such an awakening never
came.* The churches continued to
^ Why did it not come in 1905 ?
C