There is morality without faith; kindliness and devotion with no “consciousness of a divine inheritance or of the sin by which it is lost.” Such is the testimony of Canon Barrett, from thirty years’ experience of every class in English society. The people of East London especially are better mannered, better dressed, more respectable, more sober than the people of a previous generation. But they have “less idealism,” “less superstition.” “Joy” is in consequence lacking. Life is more respectable, less vivid. The salt of life is somehow losing its savour. Whatever scale of value is represented by the outlook upon larger spiritual kingdoms is vanishing. And the scale is in consequence contracting, truncated. “The desertion of the churches and the somewhat undignified efforts of the churches to attract congregations are equally the outward signs of spiritual failing.” Here is the kernel of the whole matter. Ethical advance is accompanied (as it seems) by spiritual decline. It was the process which so perplexed Mr. Gladstone more than half a century ago. Growth of morality is coincident with decline in religion. Violent controversialists still endeavour to demonstrate the opposite, exhibiting murders, thefts, and adulteries accompanying the introduction of secular education or the disestablishment of a Church. On a large survey the facts do not bear such an interpretation. The work of civilisation steadily advances. The vision of a universe beyond or behind the material steadily fades. * * * * *