694 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



The religionist has striven ever to reach nearer and nearer 

 to this Power, to God as a sjaithetic progressive force for in- 

 tegration and increased satisfaction in life. The scientist has 

 analytically striven to do so in order that he might under- 

 stand, interpret, and correlate the varied exhibitions of that 

 force or power, in minutest as well as in widest extension. 



Christ's surpassing merit was that he proenvironally pic- 

 tured this Power as being one with him and all mankind, though 

 infinitely continuous beyond and above mankind in the uni- 

 verse. Science is slowly reaching the position that energy 

 alone connects man with such attributes. Christ taught that 

 this power or Godhead or source of highest good is funda- 

 mentally father-like, working toward the continued advance 

 and highest good of the race, each individual of which should 

 make this goal his aim. Science is beginning, in restricted 

 and often imperfect manner, to teach the same lesson under 

 the names of "eugenics," "social betterment," "ethical cul- 

 ture," etc. 



Christ, in the oriental intensity of his devotion to that pro- 

 environed ideal, and realizing that he surpassed other human 

 spirits in proenvironing or picturing such, spoke with an au- 

 thority and originality that many have entirely misjudged. 

 But the yearning intensity of his and of Paul's human sym- 

 pathy for man, the clear recognition that we are all links in 

 an upward chain of human life, the realization that not by 

 mere moral bearing and forbearing, but by a social love on 

 the part of each for all others, could the law of "struggle for 

 existence" be overcome, these are the fundamental principles 

 that have caused Christianity to spread; to deepen, to mold, 

 and to modify human life; to rise above all other religious sys- 

 tems; to be adopted by the progressive and dominant nations; 

 and that will assuredly — to the writer's thinking — cause it 

 to be the highest platform of the past on which more elevated 

 superstructures of moral and religious truth will rest for the 

 future. 



Reverently therefore, but yet fearlessly, the writer asserts 

 that the life of Christ, as that of a great religious guide and 



