cultivated classes. This he has effected by the inferential, as distinguished from the explicit, character of his teachings.”
While there is in the writings of George Eliot no direct attack upon the Christianity of to-day, no outright declaration of antipathy toward its teachings, such as would shock or hurt the feelings of any sincere believer, yet there runs through them all an undercurrent of liberal and inquiring thought, calculated to suggest and encourage inquiry. Perhaps she makes Felix Holt express her views in regard to this matter better than I could hope to, in his reply to Esther Lyon’s retaliatory queries, after he had taken her to task for the uselessness of her life :
“Why do you read this mawkish stuff on a Sunday, for example?” he said, snatching up ‘Rene,’ and running his eye over the pages.
“Why don’t you always go to Chapel, Mr. Holt, and read Howe's ‘Living Temple,” and join the church?”
