But lately there had been commenced a new journal, which was giving intense pain, and covering with shame a large section of the British people. Its registered title was _Saints’ Society_, and the motto under the title, chosen in confessed irony, was, “See how these Christians love one another.” It existed for the express purpose of blackening the character and showing up the weaknesses of all sections of the Church, and was full of personalities of the vilest kinds. It would have done less harm if it had been boycotted by respectable or even Christian people, but too many women and some men bought the paper, and gloated over it in semi-secret circles, because of what it told of individuals whom they knew. The adults who did this could not perhaps be greatly harmed by it, since, already, the process of deterioration must have gone so far with their own characters that a little more made almost no perceptible difference; but it was the young people in their families who suffered most, and who, by hundreds throughout the land, were declaring gleefully or angrily, according to their temperament, that religion was a sham and a fraud, which they declined altogether to uphold by any adhesion of theirs. But the paper was chiefly supported by those who openly hated anything bearing the Christian name. Certain individuals in some sections of the Church had roused considerable antagonism by harassing, with piecemeal legislation, the supporters of existing evils. They had not the energy and perseverance, perhaps they had not the power, to destroy the wrongs of which they complained—that would require a revolution—but they had made it disagreeable for a good many people who coined money by, and were otherwise interested in, the perpetuation of these wrongs, and this had created a great amount of angry feeling. _The Saints’ Society Journal_ was the outcome of revenge. But in one respect the journal was serviceable. It threw a vivid light upon the standard of excellence which the world expects in Christian people, and many readers turned away from its columns with uneasy consciences. Even _The Saints’ Society_ had a generous word for real goodness, but for those who professed to be religious and yet were not good it had no mercy. It devoted a whole page to paragraphs referring to incidents in which professors fell below their ideal. The following are illustrations from a single number of the paper:—