47 3 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



rnore evident and harmful ; it has ever been the dry-rot of re- 

 ligion, eating out all that was best and sweetest. He appears to 

 be quite favorably impressed with the way " the pagans were 

 chased into the bosom of the Church with blade and brand." 

 Surely he has read Lecky's History of European Morals, and 

 knows that this same Church, so zealous for the conversion of 

 pagans, had plenty of austere dignitaries whose children ran up 

 into the hundreds, until like Joseph's corn they left off number- 

 ing. Verily, she was a precious hypocrite, with her indulgences 

 in one hand and her dripping sword and fagot in the other, but 

 hardly a happy example of a "social elevator." It has been 

 generally admitted, at least by Protestants, that the moral and 

 religious pall which overhung Europe during the dark ages was 

 due to nothing so much as to the foul vapors given forth from 

 that pit of corruption and hypocrisy which is now offered us as 

 a " social elevator." 



But perhaps our friend has a squint toward Rome, and may 

 take exception to this scoring of the rnedieeval Church. Unfortu- 

 nately, however, the same criticism holds of the Protestant 

 Church of to-day, though of course to a far less degree. Hypoc- 

 risy is the cancer of every prosperous religion, and is to-day 

 eating out its heart. The so-called orthodox Church is losing its 

 hold on the masses, and why ? Because it pretends to believe 

 what it does not believe ; because it persists in averting its face 

 toward the twilight dimness of the past, instead of looking on- 

 ward and upward toward the morning light. 



But what is true of religion is universally true, that hypocrisy 

 is a curse. It is one of the foul blots on all progress, and there is 

 no health in it. The fact that it accompanies progress makes it 

 no more a social elevator than misery and sin, which also flour- 

 ish under progress. To every soul is presented this choice: 

 " Here, O soul, is thy mask of flesh ; behind it thou mayst 

 work what thou wilt without fear of detection ; behind it thou 

 mayst think pure thoughts and noble aspirations, or thou 

 mayst wallow in filth and plot murder and theft, and none 

 suspect thee if only thou be an expert hypocrite." What a sensa- 

 tion there would be if by a fiat of Omnipotence this earth-mask 

 might be stripped off now, in this year of grace 1891, and each 

 trembling soul be exposed naked to the light, even as it shall in 

 that great day ! What a hunting of holes and hiding of heads 

 some carried so very high ! What an expose of dark closets and 

 skeletons, and almost forgotten cesspools and underground ways ; 

 and what a dividing of sheep from goats when all the masks of hy- 

 pocrisy were torn away ! No more secret eating of sweet, stolen 

 fruit ; no more safe and secret hatings and backbitings and plot- 

 tings ; for wrong-doing and evil-speaking would rebound with the 



