44 Contemporary Evolution. 



ism, as the corruption of morals gradually increases, 

 through the temporarily decreasing influence of Christi- 

 anity upon the outer surface of society. 



Already we hear openly advocated the murder of the 

 unborn, the sick, the suffering, and the old, as well as 

 self-murder. Free love has not only its advocates, 

 but its avowed votaries, and a hatred of marriage and 

 the family is one of the sentiments common to those 

 political enthusiasts who claim for themselves, par excel- 

 lence, the title of "advanced." 



When such views come to be mastered and accepted 

 by many of those who adopt the religious system here 

 sketched, they will doubtless powerfully reinforce, but 

 also strongly affect the religious system itself possibly 

 even its ritualistic expression. Thus the revived pagan- 

 ism of the future may be as calculated to startle the 

 rationalist of to-day fully as much as the revived 

 paganism of to-day would have startled a reformer of 

 the time of Luther. 



It remains to consider the effect on Christianity of 

 the further development of the great movement we now 

 witness, and to endeavour to predict the result of the 

 renewed conflict between such a modified Christianity 

 and a so revived paganism. 



