The periodicals, in a measure, took the place as national leaders that the newspapers had before. The newspaper as a personal expression was passing away, as the great editors of Horace Greeley's generation died. The younger editors were making investments rather than journalistic tools out of their papers. Trade and advertisement used this vehicle to approach their customers. News collecting became more prompt and adequate, but the opinion of the papers dwindled. They bought their news from syndicates or associations, as they bought paper or ink. The counting-house was coming to outrank the editorial room in their management. Through the new literature the changing nature of American life was portrayed, and as the life reshaped itself under nationalizing influences theology lost much of its old narrowness. Among religious novels _Robert Elsmere_ was perhaps most widely read. The struggle between orthodoxy and the new criticism had got out of the control of the professional theologians and had permeated the laity. A revised version of the Old and New Testaments gave new basis for textual discussion. The influence of the scientific generalizations of Darwin and his school had reached the Church and forced upon it a rephrasing of its views. It was becoming less dangerous for men to admit their belief in scientific process. The orthodox churches lost nothing in popularity as the struggle advanced, and outside them new teachers proclaimed new religions as they had ever done in America. The greatest of the new religions was that of Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, in whose teachings may be found a religious parallel to the political revolt of the People's Party. Christian Science was a reaction from the "vertebrate Jehovah" of the Puritans to a more comfortable and responsive Deity. It was the outgrowth of a well-fed and prosperous society, presenting itself to the ordinary mind as "primarily a religion of healing." Intellectual, spiritual, economic, and political revolt were common in America in 1890, as they must have been after the industrial revolution of the last ten years. The whole nation was once more acting as a unit, for the South had outlived the worst results of war and reorganization and was again developing on independent lines. The immediate problem was the effect of the revolt upon political control. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE