It became more fashionable to be a materialist with Hobbes than a Christian with Milton, a blind old fool who took Genesis as history. Hell, overdone for the past twenty years, had lost its terrors for the possessing classes; heaven, for them, was here and now, in a society freed from social rebellion and moral inhibitions, under a court and King that gave the example and set the pace in lechery, gambling, and merriment.
