8o THE THRESHOLD OF EVOLUTION 



the gifts of knowledge, science, religion, government and in- 

 vention without abuse. But during this second week, the 

 Epoch of Hope, we are to review how the powers of God the 

 Mother, Love, Comprehension and Invention, as they create 

 their results of Honour, Justice and Mercy, which are during 

 this Epoch to soften, mollify and polish down the hard and 

 cruel struggle for life which the powers of God the Father, 

 SPIRIT (which creates fear), POWER (which is predomi- 

 nance of will, which creates war, strife and cruelty), and 

 THOUGHT (which produces knowledge). These were the 

 powers or forces which predominated during the Epoch of 

 Faith so as to evolve physical perfection, and which make up 

 what Professor Darwin aptly named the " Struggle for Life," 

 so in like manner we may call this second week of creation 

 the " struggle for Love," and the future Epoch which the 

 world is about to enter upon the " struggle for Wisdom/' 

 during which the powers of God the Holy Ghost are to be 

 predominant, namely, Mind, Wisdom and Understanding, 

 which are to make up the Epoch of Charity or age of Use 

 without Abuse. 



The object of this " struggle for Love " is to evolve an age 

 of ideals and ambitions which are contained in the following 

 Trinity Religion, Government and Science. That is why 

 this Epoch of Hope is doomed to be the age of robbery, murder 

 and war, in just the same way as the Epoch of Faith was the 

 age of creation, life, starvation and extermination. 



But I will here interpose to remark that the reader ought 

 to realise what place the great evolution of this epoch, that of 

 Religion, holds in relation to the other evolutions that go to 

 make up the creation of mind which is the work of this Epoch 

 of Hope, in the same manner as the creation of body was the 

 work of the Epoch of Faith, and the creation of the Soul of 

 Wisdom will be the work of the third week or Epoch of 

 Charity. Now, Religion holds the same place in the course 

 of nature as our schoolboy days represent as compared with 

 the development of our individual lives, for just as our school- 

 boy period lays the foundation for our more advanced wisdom 

 of manhood which we are to evolve by contact with the world, 

 so in like manner the object of all religions is to inculcate the 

 principle of virtuous ambitions, not to create the virtues. This 

 latter must be done in later life by worldly knowledge and ex 



