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 whether a system of superiorities and inferiorities is vital to the religious life and whether, if all men were equally sanctified, the religious life would cease.

You understand that this is but a figure of speech. The layman will not argue with you in this fashion; he will stay away from your church on Sunday and avoid your society during the week. If empty pews mean anything, he is resolved to escape your benefits, but for old time's sake he prefers not to quarrel with the minister. With religion he still has no quarrel, but the Church seems to him actually irreligious—well-organized, yes, well-meaning and well-behaved, even indefatigable in distributing warm clothes and wholesome food to the needy, yet also in spite of her gifts increasingly remote, strangely indisposed or incompetent to share or impart the religious spirit. No wonder that, since it is