150 THE THRESHOLD OF EVOLUTION 

 Pilate. Writes from Jerusalem to Rome forty years after 

 the birth of Christ that he has exterminated all revolutionary 

 sects and creeds except a small and insignificant band of 

 heretics called Christians. But as they are very few in num- 

 ber and mostly poor and without influence, and he does not 

 think it worth while for Rome to belittle her legions by 

 destroying so paltry and insignificant a lot of rebels. 



Yet this insignificant body of men were destined to build 

 upon the grand foundation of the government of Rome a reli- 

 gion so perfect that it will last till man has in the course of 

 thousands of years worked out his own salvation and destroyed 

 wars, selfishness and crime, and woman has conquered her 

 love of dress, jealousy and petty animosity. This was the 

 religion that brought about in the course of less than one 

 thousand years the entire revolution of the Roman Empire, 

 and so made the longest step yet made towards Immortality. 

 Till that is achieved Christianity will be the world's religion 

 in some form or another. It will only die when man at last 

 discovers and believes true revelation by tearing off the cloak 

 of the remnants of superstition and bigotry, upsets the idols 

 of religion and society which stand between him and the 

 truths of revelation, and so obscures his knowledge of right 

 and wrong, then at last he will obtain perfect wisdom, yet 

 which said superstitions, parables and fables 'taught him, 

 the existence of his maker even though they may have retarded 

 his being introduced into His presence ; yet without which he 

 would never have been able to see or believe the small amount 

 of the truths of revelation and evolution that religion has so 

 far been able to teach him, or that he has been wise enough 

 to understand. Hence it is well to be very careful to rever- 

 ence all God's forms of religions even if we cannot believe 

 all that they teach. Remember that they each and every one 

 contain some, if not all, the truths of God's revelation, and 

 most probably all that hitherto God has deemed it wise that 

 we should know. But the duties of the future will be to sort 

 and combine the truths of all religions. Remember they are 

 the battleships in which mankind has hitherto won his 

 greatest victories, and even when any form of religion shall at 

 last become obsolete or out of date, or unseaworthy, we must 

 still give it the honour due to a departed hero and cover it 

 with the flags of honour, veneration and respect. So even if 



