"NATURAL RELIGIONS 5 i 7 



schools were heard bidding against one another for adherents. This 

 condition of affairs was cleverly brought home to readers by " The 

 New Republic," Mr. Mallock's first work, appearing in 1878. To 

 minds distracted by the hubbub of opinion, and despairing of cer- 

 tainty elsewhere, the only sure refuge again appeared to lie in the 

 Church of Rome, and this, as the only alternative for the gospel of 

 Positivism, was offered in the book entitled " Is Life worth Living ? " 

 which was published in 1879. " The Romance of the Nineteenth Cen- 

 tury " appeared two years afterward. Such a temporary depression 

 of tone was a natural result of the conflict through which the age had 

 been passing. 



But other and more important results followed. It is unequivo- 

 cally recognized, by most writers of eminence, that Christianity can 

 no longer look to its supernatural elements for support nay, more, 

 that the excellence of some parts of its morality can not even receive 

 credence for their inferential elements ; at least they have to be defi- 

 nitely discarded as a necessary part of faith, if Christianity intends to 

 bid for the allegiance of the intellectual portion of mankind. It is 

 therefore ridiculously wide of the truth to boast, as the clerical mind 

 is inclined to do, that Christianity has weathered the storm, that she 

 will pass into the twentieth century unaltered in essentials. This is 

 fully recognized by the author of " Natural Religion." " The Church," 

 he writes, " has now entered upon that phase when minds of the 

 higher order are seldom found to receive its ancient dogmas with 

 complete conviction, when they do not altogether belong to it, even 

 when they most admire it, and most appreciate the service it has ren- 

 dered to mankind. It has reached this rather advanced stage of de- 

 cline, and has left quite behind it the first stage when individual dis- 

 believers were indeed numerous enough, but still minds disposed to 

 religion, even when they were minds of the highest order, were troubled 

 with no skepticism that they could not overcome." The fact is, that 

 the Church does not pretend to be the interpreter of human society, to 

 open to us the vista of the future, or to give us guidance upon matters 

 of contemporary importance. " We know," writes our author, " that 

 for the most part it is occupied with quite other topics. To most of 

 its utterances the world listens in half -contemptuous silence, feeling 

 that it is useless to controvert the propositions laid down, and that no 

 results would follow from admitting them. The propositions are 

 archaic ; they show that the Church once understood its function, 

 and discharged it efficiently." 



The natural result has been, that its authority has been quietly dis- 

 regarded by all branches of investigation. Before 1873 and 1874, hos- 

 tility to orthodox Christianity was more or less openly shown by the 

 chief writers of science, history, art, morals, etc., but since these years 

 this tone has been generally abandoned for one of supreme indiffer- 

 ence, or of perfect fairness. The tone of the " Fortnightly Review," 



