Evolution as Related to Religious Thought. 339 



religion. The earliest religions did not help man to right action, 

 but the reverse. Religion does not always make us better, but 

 sometimes worse. It is often dissociated from morality. The 

 religions of Zoroaster and Gautama were examples of moral, those 

 of Mahomet and Joe Smith of immoral religions. But Christianity 

 is not an evolution from anything before it: it is a revelation. The 

 Christian religion was not a development of the Jewish religion, 

 but a thing sul generis. It is as nearly as possible the direct oppo- 

 site of the Jewish religion. The Christian religion brings the soul 

 into organic union with God. This differentiates it from all other 

 religions. The Christian is united by a mysterious process with 

 the personal soul of God himself. If it could be established that 

 Christianity is an outcome of purely natural forces, Christianity 

 would pass away. 



Rev. D. W. Morehouse: — 



I cannot agree with the position taken by the last speaker. The 

 doctrine of organic evolution places religion on a firmer basis than 

 ever before, because it proves it to be a natural and universal re- 

 quirement of the human mind. According to the last speaker, 

 there was no true religion before Christianity. This compels an 

 unworthy conception of a Being who is assumed to exercise a 

 fatherly care for all his creatures. That there has been an evolu- 

 tion in religion is almost self-evident, and that Christianity is the 

 finest flower of this evolutionary process is almost equally self- 

 evident. Instead of doing away with Christianity, the demonstra- 

 tion of the truth of Evolution in all its bearings will cause a 

 further evolution in Christianity, placing religion on a still nobler 

 plane than it has heretofore occupied. 



Dr. Lewis G. Janes: — 



My own investigations have compelled me to a conclusion pre- 

 cisely opposite to Professor Allen's, as to the nature of the Chris- 

 tian religion. To me it appears one of the most admirable illustra- 

 tions of religious evolution. Its essential elements are not, indeed, 

 all inheritances from Judaism, but they grew naturally out of its 

 intellectual environment. No assumption of the supernatural is 

 necessary to account for the origin or development of Christianity. 

 While agreeing with nearly everything in Mr. Chadwick's admira- 

 ble essay, I cannot quite regard as valid his criticism of the doc- 

 trine of the Unknowable. Accepting Mr. Spencer's psychology, 

 his doctrine of "transfigured realism" naturally grows out of it. 

 We have, according to this conception, a world of phenomena 



