not only their spiritual prospects in the after-life, but of possibly advancing their material prosperity in this, by thus displaying their piety and zeal in God’s service.  I cannot believe that the churches were designed with the intention of making the rustic inhabitants of the place holier, more virtuous, more refined—­except incidentally; they were built more in obedience to ecclesiastical tradition, in a time when rationalism had not begun to cast doubt on what I may call the Old Testament theory of the relation of God to men—­the theory of a wrathful power, vindictive, jealous of recognition, withholding blessings from the impious and heaping them upon the submissive.  As to those who worshipped there, I imagine that the awe and reverence they felt was based upon the same sort of view, and connected religious observance with the hope of prosperity and wealth, and the neglect of it with the fear of chastisement.  If misfortune fell upon the godly, they regarded it as the chastening of God inflicted upon the sons of His love; if it fell upon the ungodly, it was a punishment for sin; religion was a process by which one might avert the punishment of sin, induce the bestowal of favours, and in any case improve one’s future prospects of heaven.  No doubt this form of religion produced a simpler kind of faith, and a profounder reverence; but I do not think that they were very beautiful qualities when so produced, because they seem to me very alien from the simplicity of the religion of Christ.  The difficulty in which popular religion finds itself, nowadays, is that in a Protestant Church like our own, neither priest nor people believe in the old mechanical theories of religion, and yet the people are not yet capable of being moved by purer conceptions of it.  A priest can no longer threaten his congregation sincerely with the penalties of hell for neglecting the observances of the Church; on the other hand, the conception of religion as a refining, solemnising attitude of soul, bringing tranquillity and harmony into life, is too subtle an idea to have a very general hold upon unimaginative persons.  Thus the beauty of these exquisite and stately little sanctuaries, enriched by long associations and touched with a delicate grace by the gentle hand of time, has something infinitely pathetic about it.  The theory that brought them into existence has lost its hold, while the spirit that could animate them and give them a living message has not yet entered them; the refined grace, the sweet solemnity of these simple buildings, has no voice for the plain, sensible villager; it cannot be interpreted to him.  If all the inhabitants of a village were humble, simple, spiritually minded people, ascetic in life, with a strong sense of beauty and quality, then a village church might have a tranquil and inspiring influence.  But who that knows anything of village life can anticipate even in the remote future such a type of character prevailing?  Meanwhile the beautiful churches, with all the grace of antiquity and subtle beauty, must stand as survivals of a very different condition of life and belief; while we who love them can only hope that a more vital consciousness of religion may come back to the shrines from which somehow the significance seems to have ebbed away.  They are now too often mere monuments and memorials of the past.  Can one hope that they may become the inspiration and the sanctification of the present?