Here, too, religion is confessedly felt to be wearisome, it is out of place. It is superfluous to go about to prove this innate power over us of things of time and sense, to make us think and act. The reason is not merely that men are in want of leisure, and are sustained in a distressing continuance of exertion, by their duties towards those dependent on them. For a time they allow themselves to be idle. Because religion makes them melancholy, say they, and they wish to relax.
Religion is a labour, it is a weariness, a greater weariness than the doing nothing at all.
But this natural contrariety between man and his Maker is still more strikingly shown by the confession of men of the world who have given some thought to the subject, and have viewed society with somewhat of a philosophical spirit. Such men treat the demands of religion with disrespect and negligence, on the ground of their being unnatural. Here again it is enough for our purpose, that it is allowed by these persons that the love of religion is unnatural and inconsistent with the original condition of our minds. The same remark may be made upon the notions which secretly prevail in certain quarters at the present day, concerning the unsuitableness of Christianity to an enlightened age. In other words, the literature of the day is weary of Revealed Religion.