NATURAL TERSUS STJPEENATUEAL 61 



encouraged the notions we have seen. The fathers 

 taught that all men were under condemnation from 

 the moment of their birth, and that at death the 

 souls of unbaptized infants went straight to hell. 

 St. Augustine taught, and the Catholic church still 

 holds, that when water from the hands of a priest 

 falls upon the head of an unconscious infant, a mi- 

 raculous change is wrought in its spiritual nature, — 

 a change by which it becomes essentially a new and 

 a higher being ; and the church says, with charac- 

 teristic charity, of him who believes not this impos- 

 sible doctrine, " Let him be accursed ! " 



It is this type of mind which fostered alchemy, 

 astrology, sorcery, witchcraft, and demonology. The 

 air and the earth and the waters swarmed with spirits, 

 good and evil ; disease, pestilence, storms, fires, and 

 floods were the work of evil spirits ; the more kindly 

 motions of nature were the work of good spirits. 

 A decrepit old woman could turn herself into a wolf 

 and devour her neighbor's flocks. Meteors, eclipses, 

 and comets were portents sent directly from heaven 

 for the warning of mankind. 



How has all this been changed ! How completely 

 the mind of man now faces the other way, in every- 

 thing except in theology — faces toward a natural 

 explanation of all phenomena ! 



Let no hasty reader conclude that I am arguing 

 against the reality of religion ; I am only arguing 

 against the reality of magic and miracles; against 

 the conception of Christianity as a scheme for man's 

 salvation interpolated into human history, and in 



