The wish to believe is there; but the belief is as far off as ever.

There is a power in the air around us by which man's faith seems paralysed.

The intellect, we were thinking but now, had acquired a new vigour and a clearer vision; but the result of this growth is, with many, to have made it an incubus, and it lies upon all their deepest hopes and wishes _Like a weight Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life._ Such is the condition of mind that is now spreading rapidly, and which, sooner or later, we must look steadily in the face.

Nor is it confined to those who are its direct victims.

Those who still cling, and cling firmly, to belief are in an indirect way touched by it.