132 THE STONES OF VENICE IV. INFIDELITY

taste; and Paganism again became, in effect, the religion of Europe. That is to say, the civilised world is at this moment, collectively, just as Pagan as it was in the second century;* a small body of believers being now, as they were then, representative of the Church of Christ in the midst of the faithless: but there is just this difference, and this very fatal one, between the second and nineteenth centuries, that the Pagans are nominally and fashionably Christians, and that there is every conceivable variety and shade of belief between the two; so that not only is it most difficult theoretically to mark the point where hesitating trust and failing practice change into definite infidelity, but it has become a point of politeness not to inquire too deeply into our neighbour’s religious opinions; and, so that no one be offended by violent breach of external forms, to waive any close examination into the tenets of faith.

The fact is, we distrust each other and ourselves so much, that we dare not press this matter; we know that if, on any occasion of general intercourse, we turn to our next neighbour, and put to him some searching or testing question, we shall, in nine cases out of ten, discover him to be only a Christian in his own way, and as far as he thinks proper, and that he doubts of many things which we ourselves do not believe strongly enough to hear doubted without danger. What is in reality cowardice and faithlessness, we call charity; and consider it the part of benevolence sometimes to forgive men’s evil practice for the sake of their accurate faith, and sometimes to forgive their confessed heresy for the sake of their admirable practice. And under this shelter of charity, humility, and faintheartedness, the world, unquestioned by others or by itself, mingles with and overwhelms the small

* I wish it were! But the worship of Bacteria and Holuthurić had not been instituted when this was written. [1881.]¹

¹ [It was at about the time of this note that the science of the microscopic vegetable organisms called bacteria had become a separate study under the name of bacteriology. Holothurić (or strictly, holothuria, the word being a Latinised plural of the Greek (oloqonrion), are a division of Echinoderms, “sea-cucumbers.”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]