ETHICS 309 



preciable to sense-perception, to which Rationah'sts and 

 Materialistic Monists would seem to reduce everything, 

 yet we may reasonably ask — knowing the past history of 

 Christianity — why will Duty become more virile than it 

 has been among Christians ? Duty to whom, we ask ? 

 Who or what is there that can command Duty, if there 

 be no God to whom obligations are due ? 



The Secularist would reply — Duty to one's fellow- 

 creatures : so does Christianity. 



History does not corroborate the author's conclusion. 

 A mentally strong and naturally virtuously disposed 

 person — such as the author may be — must not judge of 

 the masses of mankind by himself. He says : " The moral 

 ideal of Religion is Truth " : so is it with Christianity ; 

 which is based on Christ, who proved Himself to be the 

 Way and the Truth ; and we may adopt his words — 

 " On no other foundation than Truth can any lofty or 

 desirable system of ethics be raised " — no other name 

 under Heaven is there by which man can be saved. 



The author need not claim for Rationalism what his- 

 tory distinctly proves to have been due to the Spirit of 

 Christ. 



(9) It IS Christianity alone with which the main theme 

 of religious advance can be identified, as Mr. C. Loring 

 Brace has so admirably shown in his Gesta Christi. 



(10) That a man's happiness is in direct proportion to 

 his virtue is not a discovery of Rationalism ; but the 

 assurance of Jesus, who told His disciples that " their joy 

 should be full " ; though men — as He warned them — 

 might kill them thinking they were doing God service. 



This result of His ethics — the peace He left with us — 

 is a natural law and as such is to be traced to God as its 

 author, whose " peace passeth all understanding ". 



(11) If there is really nothing original or important in 



