THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION 131 



sufficiently to make it possible for him to aim at higher ideals 

 and endeavour to formulate virtue by starting to control such 

 of his sins as evolution no longer requires, so the master of 

 ceremonies now introduces religion upon the world's stage. 



But do not forget that of himself man could do nothing to 

 evolve honour, love, sympathy, mercy or justice, for these are 

 female attributes of God, any more than he could have a child 

 without the assistance of woman. In the same way woman 

 is to come to his aid with her redeemers and open his eyes 

 to see, if not to understand, revelation, by her special realm, 

 " the world of religion." Thought and Knowledge, Mind and 

 Soul are male, so he can evolve the Spirit of the Holy Ghost, 

 when God the Holy Ghost will, in the ages of science we have 

 since A.D. 1800 begun to evolve, descend into his mind and 

 create in him the soul of wisdom and understanding, in just 

 the same manner as we have watched him develop the Spirit 

 of God the Father in the evolution of Mind and Knowledge by 

 Imagination without any special miracle or intervention on the 

 part of God. This is not the case as regards the female 

 attributes, which were only cases of variation, not of heredity, 

 on the part of man ; but during the eighth, ninth and tenth 

 days evolution will enable some of her qualities to become 

 hereditary in her male offspring after the birth of three re- 

 deemers, who, during these three days, will be born without 

 the assistance of man ; so we find God now performs this 

 miracle to permit of religious perfection and enable mankind 

 to become possessed of honour, love, mercy and justice as 

 qualities of heredity, whereas previously they were only forms 

 of variation ; so we are from now onward to follow man's 

 evolution of virtue. 



Up to this point evolution has been devoted to the develop- 

 ment of Matter, Shape and Energy. My reader will com- 

 plain that I am taking him over stale ground ; but so great is 

 the tendency of the present age to place wealth and pleasure 

 before enterprise and skill, and to confound freedom with a 

 license to avoid the calls for duty and efficiency, that I cannot 

 help again bringing before his notice the fact that laziness is 

 far -and away the greatest of all crimes in the eyes of God and 

 Evolution. Let man become lazy, and in exact proportion as 

 he does, will he lose the power of advancing himself or his 

 children in the social scale, and in mental advancement. 



