The Religious Situation

"What would the world be without religion? That is the dread question which seems now to be everywhere presenting itself. Would even the social fabric remain unshaken? Has not its stability partly depended on the general belief that the dispensation, with all its inequalities, was the ordinance of the Creator, and that for inequalities here there would be compensation hereafter? The belief may not in common minds have been very present; but it would seem to have had its influence. Apparently, it is now departing. In some places it seems to have fled. Scepticism, with social unrest, comes in its room. «The Religious Situation» is a Christian Apologetic article looking at the state of religious belief in the western world in the 20th century. Author Goldwin Smith notes the growing unbelief in the long held Christian doctrines and the replacement of this with a combination of scientific thought and mysticism.