In this net of unsolvable contradictions, generation after generation has seen its ideal of belief obscured. Gradually each new generation has learned not to take its new ideal seriously. As to the cowardly or braggart concessions to the idiocies of fashion, and the follies by which people are ruined in order to live according to their position, among other psychological grounds for man's lack of steadiness must be placed, as its ultimate cause, the following: The child, along with religion, has breathed in the conviction that opinions are one thing, actions another. This experience goes through the whole of life, even in the case of those who have lost the conviction that the Christian religion is absolute. The free-thinker is married, has his children baptised, and allows them to be confirmed, without considering whether he is forced to it by his own wish, or the wish of doing like other people. The republican sings the royal hymn, sends loyal salutations by telegraph, accepts decorations,--but I must break off, otherwise I should have to enumerate all the small acts of insincerity to one's self, of which the daily life of most people consists, and which are defended under the name of non-essentials; I could never get to the end. This is not the way the Christian martyrs thought who might have freed themselves from death by casting a few grains of incense on the emperor's altar. Two grains of incense,--what an unimportant matter, thinks the modern man, and with quiet conscience he daily sacrifices to many gods in whom he does not believe. How illogical Protestantism is too, and yet for so long it possessed a spiritually educative power, while its dualism was unsuspected, while one with full sincerity gave to holiday and work day its due share. But now that a new Protestantism is come to life within the fold of Protestantism, this method of speaking in two voices is deeply demoralising. Piece by piece has been torn down that system of teaching which the Catholic church built up, so wonderfully adapted to the psychological needs of the majority of people. It formed its fundamental creeds, just as they still remain, on the deepest experiences of mankind. But Protestantism is ever looking back from the results of its own handiwork.