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Some of these social papers which are now collected together for the first time, have appeared before in various periodicals enjoying a simultaneous circulation in this country and the United States. Eleven of them were written for an American syndicate, which (for the purpose of copyright in Great Britain) sold them to a London weekly journal, wherein they were duly issued. “Pagan London,” however, which caused some little public discussion, was not included among those supplied to the American syndicated press, that article having been written specially for readers in this country as a protest against Archdeacon Sinclair’s sweeping condemnation of the lax morality and neglect of religion among the teeming millions that populate our great English metropolis,—a condemnation which I ventured, and still venture to think unfair, in the face of the open worldliness, and gross inattention to the spiritual needs of their congregations on the part of a very large majority of the clergy themselves. Certain people, whose brains must be of that peculiar density which is incapable of receiving even the impression of a shadow of common sense, have since accused me of attacking “all” the clergy. Such an accusation is unwarranted and unwarrantable, for no one appreciates more than I do the brave, patient, self-denying and silent work of the true ministers of the Gospel, who, seeking nothing for themselves, sacrifice all for their Master. But it is just these noble clergy whose high profession is degraded by the ever-increasing tribe of the false hypocrites of their order, such as those mentioned in “Unchristian Clerics,” all of whom have come within the radius of my own personal experience. I readily admit that I have little patience with humbug of any kind, and that “religious” humbug does always seem to me more like open blasphemy than what is commonly called by that name. I equally confess that I have no sympathy with any form of faith which needs continuous blatant public advertisement in the press of a so-called “Christian” country—nor do I believe in a Brass-band “revival” of what, if our religion is religion at all, should never need “reviving.” I have put forward these views plainly in “The Soul of the Nation,” which appears for the first time in the present volume.

I have only to add that I attach no other merit to such “opinions” as will be found in the following pages, than that they are honest, and that they are honestly expressed, without fear or favour. This is their only claim upon the attention of the public.

Stratford-on-Avon,

March, 1905.