ABSTRACT
Just as every age has its basic orthodoxies so also it has its doubts and difficulties, and the late Victorian period was no exception. The certainties of economic liberalism were challenged in the 1880s and 1890s by socialism and the rise of labour, to which we shall refer later. The challenge to evangelical religion was more formidable, for its doctrines were deeply embedded in much of the national life. The mood of doubt, as it has been called, which was well publicized by a succession of able writers, had its roots in the controversies of the preceding decades, and came to a head in the 1880s. It was perhaps inevitable that a religion as aggressive and dominant as evangelicalism should provoke a reaction; but the form which the revolt took was an intellectual rejection of Christian claims and not only a passive falling away.
