334 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



feuds and conquests described in the Norse sagas yield reason for 

 believing in Thor and Odin. Add to which, that if these agree- 

 ments with Assyrian and Egyptian records tend to verify the 

 Hebrew religion, then, conversely, it might be held by Assyrian 

 and Egyptian priests, did any now exist, that such agreements, 

 verified their religions. Apart, however, from historic statements, 

 thus proved true, investigations, scientific and literary, have 

 served more and more to disprove, or to make doubtful, those 

 parts of the biblical narrative which constitute its Theology. It 

 needs but to contrast past confidence in them with present doubts 

 and disbeliefs, to see that statements of this class have not, like 

 those of Science, become gradually clearer and more certain, but 

 the reverse.* Nor is confidence increased when we ask whether 

 its guidance has been successful. After nearly two thousand 

 years of Christian teaching and discipline, how near are we to 

 that ideal life which Christian leading was to bring us to ? 

 What must we think of the sentiment implied in the saying of a 

 glorified prince, repeated by a popular emperor, lauding " blood 

 and iron a remedy which never fails." Among the peoples who 

 socially insist on duels, what advance do we see toward the prac- 

 tice of forgiving injuries ? Or, turning from private to public 

 transactions, what restraint do we find upon the passion of inter- 

 national revenge revenge by the great mass insisted upon as a 

 duty. How much moralization can we trace in the contrast be- 

 tween the practice of savages, whose maxim in their inter-tribal 

 feuds is " Life for life," and the practice of Christian nations, 

 who in their dealings with weak peoples take as their maxim 

 " For one life many lives." Toward the foretold state when 

 swords shall be beaten into plowshares, how much have we 

 progressed, now that there exist bigger armies than ever existed 

 before. And where are the indications of increased brotherly 

 love in the doings of Christian nations in Africa, where, like hun- 

 gry dogs round a carcass, they tear out piece after piece, pausing 

 only to snarl and snap at one another, f 



* Even while I write there comes to me, in The Academy, for April 2Vth, 1895, suffi- 

 cient illustration in the following remarks, made by a learned biblical critic, the Rev. Prof. 

 Cheyne : " There is, indeed, no reason, since the Tell-el-Amarna discoveries, to doubt that 

 religious myths of Babylonian origin found their way into Canaan long before the entrance 

 of the Israelites, and were adopted by the Israelitish conquerors ; but it may be reasonably 

 held, (1) that the creation-myth in that early age was less developed than that which lies 

 at the root of Gen. i. ; (2) that some of its elements had lost much of their life by the time 

 of Amos ; (3) that renewed intercourse with Assyria and Babylonia resulted in the revival 

 of the old myth, perhaps with new elements ; and (4) that religious teachers in Judah 

 adopted and adapted this and other myths." 



f If it be complained that while emphasizing failures in guidance I have ignored suc- 

 cesses, by omitting to name the good conduct in private life which has been fostered, I 



