CHRISTIAN FAITH
49
and latterly, the conscientious objector; and they still think that they are concerned with religious problems.
Probably they are not consciously dishonest persons. They do not deliberately say to one another: "the only aspect in which religion will ever appeal to Englishmen is the moral aspect. To Englishmen, religion is morality; and by morality they understand an abstinence from even the weakest beer and from the lighter forms of the drama. And as to conscientious objectors; they are cranks; and good Englishmen have always loved cranks."
I don't think, I say, that our dignitaries put the case to each other in quite these terms; but the attitude of most of them comes to that. But their real error is this: not that they hold this or that
