1 66 HUXLEY 



he found his match in Huxley. The outlines of the 

 course of events following the death of Jesus, which 

 he gives in his essavs on the " Evolution of Theol- 

 ogy," show that he knew ecclesiastical history better 

 than many ecclesiastics themselves, for these too 

 often know it only in the idealised or partisan forms 

 presented by orthodox historians. No thoughtful 

 student of the past, with all its cross-currents and 

 complexities, will make the shameful story of religious 

 wars and persecutions an occasion of reproach against 

 the Churches of to-day. Humanity has a terrible in- 

 dictment against theology, but the charge cannot be 

 laid at the door of our contemporaries. Neverthe- 

 less, in the degree that the Church has not purged 

 herself of the old Adam of the anti-progressive 

 spirit, she stands condemned before the modern world, 

 and with no such plea as antiquity might offer. Her 

 condemnation is complete. Taking history no farther 

 back than the last century, it will be found that there 

 was not a movement, political, social, or intellectual, 

 having as its aim the bettering of the condition of the 

 people, which she did not oppose tooth and nail. She 

 lifted no voice against the barbaric criminal code 

 under which, well within the nineteenth century, two 

 hundred offences were punishable with death ; ! her 



1 Old Bailey. — William Keep, a lad of fourteen years of age, 

 was indicted for stealing a Bank of England note out of a letter 



