124 -^t the Darkest Hour. 



kind, thus bereft, would shrink in a premature involution 

 to its origins ; that the genus homo, shriven of this tenet, 

 would decline to some beastial Ape-type, some senescent, 

 frustrate Order of the Earth-born. 



But take heart, ye of little faith. It is but the natural 

 growth of knowledge. The coasts of our Race-life are 

 strewn with the wrecks of great Religions, the old hulks 

 of once mighty creeds, the jetsom of a thousand once 

 fondly cherished tenets which buoyed millions in life and 

 consoled them in death. They were, but they are not ; 

 and this is but one illusion more. Ra and Osiris, Baal 

 and Zeus, Og and Duiron; Tau and Brahm, Odin and 

 Thor ; and more remote in the vasty past, glimpses of a 

 hundred ancient cults, once very precious to man, now 

 but vanished superstitions. Once they rang all true to 

 the human mind, and gorgeous the pageant, sonorous the 

 ritual ; for a " superstition " is but a religion outgrown ; 

 and the great plains of the past are covered with their 

 white bones. The Ararats of philology are overstranded 

 with the quaint-carven timbers of these old arks of re- 

 ligious safety, arks which once carried the world's salva- 

 tion, but which now lie high and dry, deserted by man 

 and beast. For if priest and devotee could only think so, 

 that is the best thing about religions — they are left 

 behind when the crisis or era that had need of them is 

 past. 



There were darker aspects. It has been characteristic 



