No faith was ever wrecked in a day; it takes time to come to such a pass; it is by easy stages of infidelity, by a slow process of half-denials, a constant fostering of habits of ignorance, that one undermines, little by little, one’s spiritual constitution.  Taking advantage of this state of debility, the microbe of unbelief creeps in, eats its way to the soul and finally sucks out the very vitals of faith.  Nor is this growth of evil an unconscious one; and there lies the malice and guilt.  Ignorant pride, neglect of prayer and religious worship, disorders, etc., these are evils the culprit knows of and wills.  He cannot help feeling the ravages being wrought in his soul; he cannot help knowing that these are deadly perils to his treasure of faith.  He complacently allows them to run their course; and he wakes up one fine morning to find his faith gone, lost, dead—­and a chasm yawning between him and his God that only a miracle can bridge over.

We mentioned ignorance:  this it is that attacks the underpinning of faith, its rational basis, by which it is made intelligent and reasonable, without which there can be no faith.

Ignorance is, of course, a relative term; there are different degrees and different kinds.  An ignorant man is not an unlettered or uncultured one, but one who does not know what his religion means, what he believes or is supposed to believe, and has no reason to give for his belief.  He may know a great many other things, may be chock full of worldly learning, but if he ignores these matters that pertain to the soul, we shall label him an ignoramus for the elementary truths of human knowledge are, always have been, and always shall be, the solution of the problems of the why, the whence and the whither of life here below.  Great learning frequently goes hand in hand with dense ignorance.  The Sunday-school child knows better than the atheist philosopher the answer to these important questions.  There is more wisdom in the first page of the Catechism than in all the learned books of sceptics and infidels.

Knowledge, of course, a thorough knowledge of all theological science will not make faith, any more than wheels will make a cart.  But a certain knowledge is essential, and its absence is fatal to faith.  There are the simple ignorant who have forgotten their Catechism and leave the church before the instruction, for fear they might learn something; who never read anything pertaining to religion, who would be ashamed to be detected with a religious book or paper in their hands.  Then, there are the learned ignorant, such as our public schools turn out in great numbers each year; who, either are above mere religious knowledge-seeking and disdain all that smacks of church and faith; or, knowing little or nothing at all, imagine they possess a world of theological lore and know all that is knowable.  These latter are the more to be pitied, their ignorance doubling back upon itself, as it were.  When a man does not realize his own ignorance, his case is well nigh hopeless.