272 EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 



out whose previous existence idolatry itself would 

 be inexplicable. 



Indebted to God for all his being, man feels 

 his dependence on his Creator: "He has made us 

 and not we ourselves." Hence religion is co- 

 extensive with humanity. Its perversions by man 

 in the course of time are easily accounted for by 

 the depraved imagination which follows upon im- 

 purity and vice. All the evidence of history and 

 tradition, when carefully followed, will be found 

 gathering slowly together in a Primal Revelation. 

 Yet this was never all perverted. It was still 

 preserved in certain channels from Adam down 

 to Abraham; was amplified by later communica- 

 tions of God with man, in the days of the Old 

 Law; until in every detail, the great prophecy of 

 the promised Messiah had been given. The 

 very time and place of His coming were definitely 

 foretold and His virgin birth: "Behold a virgin 

 shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall 

 be called Emmanuel," i.e., "God with us." 5 So 

 through the barren deserts of an idolatrous 

 paganism the fructifying stream of Primitive 

 Revelation flowed, and widened out among the 

 chosen people, until the promise given to our first 

 parents was fulfilled in all its completeness in the 

 Great Mother with her Child, that was to crush 

 the serpent's head. Like an echo from that far- 

 off day sound the words of the "good news," as 



'Isaias, VII :i 4 . 



