WORLDLINESS OF THE MAJORITY.

The first common mistake to get rid of is that mankind consists
of a great mass of religious people and a few eccentric atheists.
It consists of a huge mass of worldly people, and a small
percentage of persons deeply interested in religion and concerned
about their own souls and other peoples'; and this section
consists mostly of those who are passionately affirming the
established religion and those who are passionately attacking it,
the genuine philosophers being very few. Thus you never have a
nation of millions of Wesleys and one Tom Paine. You have a
million Mr. Worldly Wisemans, one Wesley, with his small
congregation, and one Tom Paine, with his smaller congregation.
The passionately religious are a people apart; and if they were
not hopelessly outnumbered by the worldly, they would turn the
world upside down, as St. Paul was reproached, quite justly, for
wanting to do. Few people can number among their personal
acquaintances a single atheist or a single Plymouth Brother.
Unless a religious turn in ourselves has led us to seek the
little Societies to which these rare birds belong, we pass our
lives among people who, whatever creeds they may repeat, and in
whatever temples they may avouch their respectability and wear
their Sunday clothes, have robust consciences, and hunger and
thirst, not for righteousness, but for rich feeding and comfort
and social position and attractive mates and ease and pleasure
and respect and consideration: in short, for love and money. To
these people one morality is as good as another provided they are
used to it and can put up with its restrictions without