Excerpt from The English Democracy Its Promises and Perils The Church of England, torn with intestine strife, like other owners of property, is the object of ungovern able greed, and the secular spirit of an ideal acknow ledging neither God nor master, is ceasing to hold in reverence a priesthood it no longer dreads. Neither reward nor punishment beyond the grave retains its ancient power to deter men from evil, and to impel them towards good citizenship. A new social morality has accompanied the intro duction of a new political economy. The socialism of Christ, which consisted in sharing with others, is re placed by attempts to legalise spoliation; and moral sanction is claimed for these efforts by spiritual leaders who, having lost control over the masses in the domain of theology, seek to recover influence over them in the dust and passion of party politics. Such are some of the conflicting currents through which English democracy is passing. Racial common sense; the lives and examples of men who still prefer character to notoriety the increasing influence of good women; the infusion of Jewish mind and thrift; and the gradual recovery of reasoned conviction that the main lessons of our English Bible are true, and cannot be ignored with impunity by men or nations, are among the more hopeful elements in the prospect now opening before us. 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.