M. Lanessan's article on French religious indifference in the Siècle
of September 28th, summarised in the Times of Monday, is worth attentive study. The failure of the repeated attempts of clerical extremists in association with political reactionaries to shake the foundation of the Republican regime, or to pro- voke intolerant reprisals, has, in his opinion, produced political lassitude amongst the adherents of reaction and Ultra- monta.nism. Even the most fervent Roman Catholics are beginning to resent the lack of good sense and good general- ship shown by the Pope and the Bishops. Concurrently with the growth of this lassitude M. Lanessan notes the decay of religious feeling in various classes of society—due to the influ- ence of secular schools, the keenness of the struggle for existence, and the diffusion of scientific truths—which man i feats itself in the decline of church-going. These two causes— political lassitude and religious indifference—must, in the writer's view, considerably impair the moral authority
enjoyed by the Church in the past, and he arrives at the con- clusion that anything may happen in the domain of religion in France without causing the population to abando'n its indifference. M. Lanessan's analysis of the situation its *ell reasoned and acute; but we cannot share his philosophic exultation over the spread of religious indifferentism. The unholy alliance of priests and reactionvr:es has undoubtedly done much to bring this about ; but the fact that religion has thus been wounded in the house of its friends is no proof that France can dispense with it altogether.
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