78 Evolution and Religion 



should be written in the heart, of a king who should 

 reign in righteousness, of a prince of peace, of one who 

 should rule by the power of truth, not by force, whose 

 kingdom should be universal and everlasting, and into 

 which all nations of the earth should flow. What the 

 prophets foresaw was not times or seasons, nor dates 

 nor names, not any minute particulars. But they saw 

 a future age, they lived out of their own time in another 

 time, which had not yet arrived. They left behind 

 them Jewish ceremonialism, and entered into a moral 

 and spiritual religion. They dropped Jewish narrow- 

 ness and called all mankind brethren. In this they 

 reach the highest form of foresight, which is not simply 

 to predict a coming event, but to Uve in the spirit of a 

 future time. Thus the prophets developed the Jewish 

 religion to its highest point. The simple, childlike 

 faith of Abraham became, in their higher vision, the 

 sight of a universal Father, and of an age in which all 

 men and nations should be united into one great moral 

 kingdom." 



Bearing on Man's Survival 



In this survey of the world's great religions we have 

 seen how in all of them the central idea of subordinating 

 self to the general, in greater or less degree, has been 

 constantly present. It therefore becomes necessary to 

 scrutinize more closely this idea in its bearing on man's 

 survival in the struggle for existence. How may it be 

 said to favor the survival of the family, of the tribe, of 



