The English Church in the Eighteenth Century
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. The claim which the intellectual and religious life of England in the eighteenth century has upon our interest has been much more generally acknowledged of late years than was the case heretofore. There had been, for the most part, a disposition to pass it over somewhat slightly, as though the whole period were a prosaic and uninteresting one. Every generation is apt to depreciate the age which has so long preceded it as to have no direct bearing on present modes of life, but is yet not sufficiently distant as to have emerged into the full dignity of history. Besides, it cannot be denied that the records of the eighteenth century are, with two or three striking exceptions, not of a kind to stir the imagination. It was not a pictorial age; neither was it one of ardent feeling or energetic movement. Its special merits were not very obvious, and its prevailing faults had nothing dazzling in them, nothing that could be in any way called splendid; on the contrary, in its weaker points there was a distinctly ignoble element. The mainsprings of the religious, as well as of the political, life of the country were
"How did you learn to keep still? That is what troubles me,
for the sharp words fly out before I know what I'm about, and the
more I say the worse I get, till it's a pleasure to hurt people's
feelings and say dreadful things. Tell me how you do it, Marmee
dear."
"My good mother used to help me . . ."
"As you do us . . ." interrupted Jo, with a grateful kiss.
"But I lost her when I was a little older than you are, and
for years had to struggle on alone, for I was too proud to confess
my weakness to anyone else. I had a hard time, Jo, and shed a good
many bitter tears over my failures, for in spite of my efforts I
never seemed to get on. Then your father came, and I was so happy
that I found it easy to be good. But by-and-by, when I had four
little daughters round me and we were poor, then the old trouble
began again, for I am not patient by nature, and it tried me very
much to see my children wanting anything."
"Poor Mother! What helped you then?"
"Your father, Jo. He never loses patience, never doubts or
complains, but always hopes, and works and waits so cheerfully
that one is ashamed to do otherwise before him. He helped and
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. The claim which the intellectual and religious life of England in the eighteenth century has upon our interest has been much more generally acknowledged of late years than was the case heretofore. There had been, for the most part, a disposition to pass it over somewhat slightly, as though the whole period were a prosaic and uninteresting one. Every generation is apt to depreciate the age which has so long preceded it as to have no direct bearing on present modes of life, but is yet not sufficiently distant as to have emerged into the full dignity of history. Besides, it cannot be denied that the records of the eighteenth century are, with two or three striking exceptions, not of a kind to stir the imagination. It was not a pictorial age; neither was it one of ardent feeling or energetic movement. Its special merits were not very obvious, and its prevailing faults had nothing dazzling in them, nothing that could be in any way called splendid; on the contrary, in its weaker points there was a distinctly ignoble element. The mainsprings of the religious, as well as of the political, life of the country were