I have no hesitation in saying that it is the condition of by far
the largest proportion of our nation. It is the true enemy of souls.
I do not believe that any large proportion of Englishmen are actual
disbelievers, who reject Christianity as unworthy of credence, or
attach themselves to any of the innumerable varieties of deistical
and pantheistical schools. I am not saying at present whether it
would be a more or less hopeful state if it were so, but only that
it is not so, and that a complacent taking for granted of religious
truth, a torpor of soul, an entire carelessness about God and
Christ, and the whole mighty scheme of the Gospel, is the
characteristic of many in all classes of English society. We have it
here in our churches and chapels as the first foe we have to fight
with. Disbelief slays its thousands, and dissipation its tens of
thousands, but this sleek, well-to-do carelessness, its millions. As
some one says, it is as if an opium sky had rained down soporifics.