Time was when English judges could say, without apparent insincerity, that the Christian religion was part of the Law of the Land. That was how the judges put it; what they meant was that at least theoretical acquiescence in Christian principles was assumed in those for whom the Law was framed and administered. In fact, that England was ‘a Christian country.’

The beatitudes were always, and perhaps necessarily, outside the Law’s purview. But there used to be some attempt to enforce the Ten Commandments. To-day, the blasphemy laws, though never repealed, have long been a dead letter. And the London traffic may, it seems, be held up for a triumphal procession of any idol—whether it be the symbolical figure of ‘Big Business’ or the living person of Rudolph Valentino. But not, of course, for one of the True Incarnate God in His own Corporeal Presence. The offer of such a spectacle being, one must suppose, too blatantly like wearing one’s heart on one’s sleeve to accord with the ‘grand old English Public School tradition’ of ‘what’s done.’

A father used to be held responsible for his child’s welfare. And a child was presumed to be under parental control. Now-a-days the Law looks daily with greater favour on the interference of the ‘health visitor’ and the school teacher (non-sectarian). And magistrates listen gravely to stories of how Tommy, aged ten, is ‘beyond control’ and unbirched youngsters file off in the full tide of impudence to the industrial school.