MODERN EVOLUTION. 2 $? 



fice, as mere acts toward supernatural beings, may 

 be consonant with any number of lapses in conduct. 

 Morality, on the other hand, looks earthward, and 

 is prompted to action solely by what is due from a 

 man to his fellow-men, or from his fellow-men to 

 him. Its foundation therefore is not in supernatural 

 beliefs, but in social instincts. All sin is thus resolved 

 into an anti-social act: a wrong done by man to 

 man. 



This is not merely readjustment; it is revolution. 

 For it is the rejection of theology with its appeals 

 to human obligation to deity, and to man's hopes of 

 future reward or fears of future punishment; and it 

 is the acceptance of wholly secular motives as in- 

 centives to right action. Those motives, having 

 their foundation in the physical, mental, and moral 

 results of our deeds, rest on a stable basis. No 

 longer interlaced with the unstable theological, they 

 neither abide nor perish with it. And one redeem- 

 ing feature of our time is that the churches are be- 

 ginning to see this, and to be effected by it. John 

 Morley caustically remarks that " the efforts of the 

 heterodox have taught them to be better Christians 

 than they were a hundred years ago." Certain ex- 

 tremists excepted, they are keeping dogma in the 

 background, and are laying stress on the socialism 

 which it is contended was at the heart of the teach- 

 ing of Jesus. Wisely, if not very consistently, they 

 are seeking alliance with the liberal movements 

 whose aim is the " abolition of privilege." The lib- 



