ABSTRACT
THE Victorian era was essentially a religious age. Whether it was also more spiritual than earlier or succeeding ages is by no means so clear, though charges of hypocrisy and pharisaism are not now assumed so automatically as in the days of the Lytton Strachey reaction. The present chapter is not concerned with theological controversy, nor with ecclesiastical organization and history, but rather with some aspects of the influence of religion upon the daily lives and hopes and social attitudes of the people-in particular, how far it motivated social activities which had some adult educational intent. It is necessary to estimate to what extent the social content of religious thought and organization provided currents and divisions which rein forced or cut across other economic, political, and intellectual aspirations. The motives for social action (including adult education) are seldom single-minded, and in the early and middecades of the Victorian era religious allegiances coloured most social issues, either directly or in more subtle ways.
