In the absence of all other distraction, men thought it out in all the bearings which their limited intellectual horizon permitted.

If calculated in any way to appeal to them it soon struck root, and became a part of their very nature, a matter for which, if occasion were, they were prepared to sacrifice goods, liberty, and even life itself.

In the present day a new idea is comparatively slow in taking root.

Amid the myriad distractions of modern life, perpetually chasing one another, there is no time for any one thought, however wide-reaching in its bearings, to take a firm hold.

In order that it should do so in the _modern mind_, it must be again and again borne in upon this not always too receptive intellectual substance.