JO4 Contemporary Evolution. 



work than others, while at the same time they ap- 

 propriated a less portion of its fruit, would speedily be 

 popular; and a love for God might soon come to be 

 pardoned, when it was seen to be accompanied by an 

 earnest and self-sacrificing love for man. 



Sisters of Charity have met with respect even from 

 the roughest of French " Reds," and all hostility to them 

 would disappear when they ceased to be ideally connected 

 with a political system which kept democracy in check, 

 or sought so to keep it. 



It, seems, then, that no necessarily fatal result to 

 Christianity may be expected from the wildest political 

 changes ; but rather that an extreme advance of the 

 modern spirit may give rise to fresh Christian develop- 

 ments. But such disorders as are here spoken of, such 

 rapid and sudden destruction of the existing European 

 social fabric, are really in the highest degree unlikely. 

 It seems far more probable that a system of freedom on 

 the English and American models, more and more ap- 

 proximating to what has been called civicism that is, the 

 ideal of Mr. Herbert Spencer will be gradually, and in the 

 majority of cases peacefully attained, although with much 

 vexatious, though not violent, persecution from devotees 

 of paganism. (See note, p. 122.) Should such be the 

 real future, experience already shows us how disappointed 

 will be those who expect the destruction of Christianity 

 from political changes favourable to democracy. 



