I did not continue it, as thousands of my more liberal fellow-clergymen have done.  My religion ‘worked’ during the time, at least, I remained in my first parish.  I had no interest in reconciling, for instance, the doctrine of evolution with the argument for design.  Since I have been here in this city,” he added, simply, “my days have been filled with a continued perplexity—­when I was not too busy to think.  Yes, there was an unacknowledged element of fear in my attitude, though I comforted myself with the notion that opinions, philosophical and scientific, were in a state of flux.”

“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Engel, “I comprehend.  But, from the manner in which you spoke just now, I should have inferred that you have been reading modern philosophy—­that of the last twenty years.  Ah, you have something before you, Mr. Hodder.  You will thank God, with me, for that philosophy.  It has turned the tide, set the current running the other way.  Philosophy is no longer against religion, it is with it.  And if you were to ask me to name one of the greatest religious teachers of our age, I should answer, William James.  And there is Royce, of whom I spoke,—­one of our biggest men.  The dominant philosophies of our times have grown up since Arnold wrote his ‘Literature and Dogma,’ and they are in harmony with the quickening social spirit of the age, which is a religious spirit—­a Christian spirit, I call it.  Christianity is coming to its own.  These philosophies, which are not so far apart, are the flower of the thought of the centuries, of modern science, of that most extraordinary of discoveries, modern psychology.  And they are far from excluding religion, from denying the essential of Christ’s teachings.  On the other hand, they grant that the motive-power of the world is spiritual.

“And this,” continued Mr. Engel, “brings me to another aspect of authority.  I wonder if it has struck you?  In mediaeval times, when a bishop spoke ex cathedra, his authority, so far as it carried weight, came from two sources.  First, the supposed divine charter of the Church to save and damn.  That authority is being rapidly swept away.  Second, he spoke with all the weight of the then accepted science and philosophy.  But as soon as the new science began to lay hold on people’s minds, as —­for instance—­when Galileo discovered that the earth moved instead of the sun (and the pope made him take it back), that second authority began to crumble too.  In the nineteenth century science had grown so strong that the situation looked hopeless.  Religion had apparently irrevocably lost that warrant also, and thinking men not spiritually inclined, since they had to make a choice between science and religion, took science as being the more honest, the more certain.