And Mr.
Stephen and his school exaggerate nothing in the way in which they represent the spectacle.

Protestantism, in fact, is at last becoming explicitly what it always was implicitly, not a supernatural religion which fulfils the natural, but a natural religion which denies the supernatural.
And what, as a natural religion, is its working power in the world?
Much of its earlier influence doubtless still survives; but that is a survival only of what is passing, and we must not judge it by that.

We must judge it by what it is growing into, not by what it is growing out of.

And judged in this way, its practical power--its moral, its teaching, its guiding power--is fast growing as weak and as uncertain as its theology.

As long as its traditional moral system is in accordance with what men, on other grounds, approve of, it may serve to express the general tendency impressively, and to invest it with the sanction of many reverend associations.