It may be, however, that the old conception of a Christian church, as
the one place where all sorts and conditions of men came together to
dwell upon considerations interesting to all equally, is not adapted
to modern society, wherein one man differs from another in knowledge
even more than a king once differed from a peasant in rank. When all
were ignorant, a mass chanted in an unknown tongue, and a short
address warning against the only vices known to ignorant people,
sufficed for the whole community. But what form of service can be even
imagined, that could satisfy Bridget, who cannot read, and her
mistress, who comes to church cloyed with the dainties of half a dozen
literatures? Who could preach a sermon that would hold attentive the
man saturated with Buckle, Mill, Spencer, Thackeray, Emerson,
Humboldt, and Agassiz, and the man whose only literary recreation is
the dime novel? In the good old times, when terror was latent in every
soul, and the preacher had only to deliver a very simple message,
pointing out the one way to escape endless torture, a very ordinary
mortal could arrest and retain attention.
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