At the end of the nineteenth century, there were comparable levels
of religiosity in Britain and the United States. The British
lived in a culture in which the assumptions of Protestant
Christianity were taken for granted. Few people believed
strongly, but everyone believed a little. Throughout the
population there was a somewhat vague general acceptance of
central Christian beliefs, a strong respect for sacred things, a
liking for church-based rituals to mark the turning points in
life (and particularly its ending), a moral code of helping others
that was rooted in Christian ethics, and a liking for and ability
to sing hymns, both of which had been learned in Sunday School.
Even football crowds sang “Abide with Me” or “Bread of Heaven”;
today they sing songs full of thoughtless blasphemies,
obscenities, and thought-out sexual and racial abuse to upset
their opponents. Regular attendance at Sunday School was a
standard part of most people’s youth, and it was the place where
standards of respectability were inculcated. Britain’s was a society
with a remarkably low and falling incidence of violent and
acquisitive crime, illegitimacy, and addiction to opiates. Public
drunkenness was a problem, but it was gradually ceasing to be so;
by the 1920s it had all but disappeared.

This is the world Britain has lost. The first turning point was
the First World War. Before that war there was already a degree
of uneasiness about the strength of religion in Britain; after
the war it was clearly in decline.