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ECLECTIC MAGAZINE OF FOREIGN LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
| New Series. |  | FEBRUARY, 1885. |  | Old Series complete |
| Vol. XLI., No. 2. | in 63 vols. |
A FAITHLESS WORLD.
BY FRANCES POWER COBBE.
A little somnolence seems to have overtaken religious controversyof late. We are either weary of it or have grown so tolerant of ourdifferences that we find it scarcely worth while to discuss them. Bydint of rubbing against each other in the pages of the Reviews, in theclubs, and at dinner parties, the sharp angles of our opinions havebeen smoothed down. Ideas remain in a fluid state in this temperateseason of sentiment, and do not, as in old days, crystallize intosects. We have become almost as conciliatory respecting our views asthe Chinese whom Huc describes as carrying courtesy so far as to praisethe religion of their neighbors and depreciate their own. “You, honoredsir,” they were wont to say, “are of the noble and lofty religion ofConfucius. I am of the poor and insignificant religion of Lao-tze.”Only now and then some fierce controversialist, hailing usually fromIndia or the colonies where London amenities seem not yet to havepenetrated, startles us by the desperate earnestness wherewith hedisproves what we had almost forgotten that anybody seriously believes.
As a result of the general “laissez croire” of our day, it has cometo pass that a question has been mooted which, to our fathers, wouldhave seemed preposterous: “Is it of any consequence what we believe,or whether we believe anything? Suppose that by-and-by we all arriveat the conclusion that Religion has been altogether a mistake, andrenounce with one accord the ideas of God and Heaven, having (as M.Comte assures us) outgrown the theological stage of human progress;what then? Will it make any serious difference to anybody?”[Pg 146]
Hitherto, thinkers of Mr. Bradlaugh’s type have sung pæans of welcomefor the expected golden years of Atheism, when “faiths and empires” will
Christians and Theists of all schools, on the other hand, havenaturally deprecated with horror and dread such a cataclysm of faithas sure to prove a veritable Ragnarok of universal ruin. In eithercase it has been taken for granted that the change from a world oflittle faith, like that in which we live, to a world wholly destituteof faith, would be immensely great and far-reaching; and that at thedownfall of religion not only would the thrones and temples of theearth, but every homestead in every land, be shaken to its foundation.It is certainly a step beyond any yet taken in the direction ofscepticis