Three Ideals. 121 



plainly discerned in the distant future a triumph of the 

 Church compared with which that of mediaeval Christen- 

 dom was but a transient adumbration. A triumph brought 

 about by moral means alone by the slow process of ex- 

 hortation, example, and individual conviction, after every 

 error has been freely propagated, every denial freely made, 

 and every rival system provided with a free field for its 

 display. A triumph infinitely more glorious than any 

 brought about by the sword, and fulfilling at last the old 

 pre-Christian prophecies of the kingdom of God upon 

 earth." 



Such, perhaps, might be the Churchman's reply as to 

 the position and prospects of Christianity, to those 

 who oppose to him the phenomena of the last six cen- 

 turies' change. Here it has been endeavoured dispassion- 

 ately to estimate what, at the very utmost, must be the 

 destructive effects on Christianity of the greatest amount 

 of anti-theocratic change which can possibly be antici- 

 pated, and the answer has been that there is no reason to 

 apprehend even its enfeeblement, still less its annihila- 

 tion. 



Nevertheless, we have yet but considered the political 

 aspect of the great modern anti-mediaeval movement. 

 The scientific and, most important of all, the philosophic 

 aspects of that movement remain to be considered. We 

 may conclude that the political changes will be harmless 



