Therefore, a touch of gloom, a wave of shadow, seems to overcloud the future here. What bad ingredients in the glory of England! What errors we may perpetrate, what delays we shall undergo, ere we feel our way to the desired end of recuperated family life and revivified personality!
But a further thought suggests itself. This racial evil has been on the increase for several generations, having grown with the growth, and strengthened with the strength, of the industrial revolution. What, then, is the fundamental reason why, for so long a time, our administrators sate inert in face of the progress of this malady? In the name of what principle did they abstain from grappling with it? That question cannot be put aside lightly. For, if the same cause be now operative and applicable, it might be calculated to tie our hands too.
The true answer goes down to the crucial subject of the relationship of religion and the State, and the proper functions of each.
Statesmen are those, doubtless, who, by business methods and practical expedients, seek to realise materially the ends and ideals of the governed. But that which ultimately provides the ends and ideals of any people, and thus regulates from outside the scope of statesmanship, without interfering in its methods and internal economy, is religion. Therefore, the State is, as it were, the adjutant, the bailiff of religion, the general
