When one speaks thus of the Church one is conscious of a confusion of thought in the use of the word.  The teaching of the formal documents of the Church is not here in question; what we necessarily mean is the effect that the existing membership of the Church is having upon contemporary life.  What we have especially in mind is the attitude of the clergy and the action of the congregation in the way of moral force.  What sort of a front is the church presenting to the world, what sort of moral influence is it exercising?

It seems to me perfectly evident that all along the line the conventions of contemporary society have been accepted in the place of the life-ideals of the Gospel of Jesus.  We have accepted plain departures from or compromises with Christian teaching as the recognised law of action.  This is due largely to the natural sloth of the human being and his disinclination to struggle for superior standards.  He feels safe and comfortable if he can succeed in losing himself in a crowd:  thus he escapes both trouble and criticism.  A violation of law may become so common that there is no public spirit to oppose it.  The same thing may happen in morals,—­violations of the Christian standard, if sufficiently widespread, command almost universal acquiesence.  What is actually uncovered in the process is the fact that the plain man has no morals of his own, but imitates the prevailing morality; and if fashion sets against some particular ruling of the Christian Religion he feels quite secure in following the fashion.  The vox dei in Holy Scripture and in Holy Church affect him not at all if he be conscious that he is on the side of the vox populi.

It is easy to illustrate this.  The non-Catholic Christian world has the Bible, and boasts of its adherence to it as the sole guide of life; but in the matter of divorced persons it utterly disregards its teachings.  By this acceptance of an unchristian attitude it has vastly weakened the fight for purity in the family relation which the Catholic Church, at least in the West, has always waged.  It deliberately divides the Christian forces of the community and to a large extent thereby nullifies their action.  The divisions of Christendom are terrible from every point of view; but there are certain questions on which a united mind might well be presented, and in relation to which an united mind would go far to control the attitude of society.  An united Christian sentiment against divorce would go far to reduce the evil.

On the other hand the progress of the movement to abolish the evils growing out of the use of alcohol has had its strength in the Protestant bodies.  On the whole (there were no doubt individual exceptions) the Churches of the Catholic tradition have been lukewarm in the matter.  It is quite evident that the reform could never have been carried through if left to them, and especially if left to the bishops and clergy of the Roman and Anglican Communions.  It is a plain case of failure to support a vast moral reform because of the pressure of opinion in the social circles in which they move, combined with a purely individualistic attitude toward a grave social question.