Excerpt from Short Studies on Great Subjects, Vol. 2 of 5 Religious men, it is sometimes said, express them selves in all moods and all tenses except the present indicative. They tell us of things that were done in ancient times. They tell us of things which will be hereafter, or which might or would have been under certain conditions. Of the actual outward dispensa tion under which we live at present, we hear very little. The facts of experience are not sufficiently in harmony with the theories of different religious bodies to allow any sect or set of believers to appeal to them with con fidence. The age of miracles is past. The world is supposed to go its own way, undisturbed by providen tial interferences, waiting for some final account to be taken with it hereafter; while the relations of the Creator with His creatures are confined to special and invisible processes by which individual souls are saved from perdition. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.