128 At the Darkest Hour. 



watching us from afar at this dark hour of our planet's 

 evolution, may they infuse patience and courage into our 

 hearts. We have need of them. 



To minds normal and unperverted, Natural Salvation 

 is the most natural thing in the world, the outcome of 

 life which would be expected. But it is a curious com- 

 mentary on the mental condition of people that the idea 

 of being saved from death by natural means often appears 

 to them strange and unnMural ! Not unfrequently as 

 something portentous and " wicked " I That higher life, 

 which can only be attained by the loftiest Qulture of the 

 human intellect, is feared to he impious! The fetters of 

 old creeds are still firmly riveted. A few, indeed, and 

 those of the best, recognize the truth ; but a majority still 

 cling to the fetish of ghost life, and incline to the belief 

 that humanity will run through a cycle of evolution, 

 decline toward the lower animal orders and, in the end, 

 perish from off the earth. They fail to see the signifi- 

 cance which attaches to the steady growth of the human 

 brain, a growth which separates and distinguishes man- 

 kind from all previous animal orders ; and they ignore or 

 depreciate the grand fact that scientific knowledge, ac- 

 cumulating from generation to generation, is changing 

 the entire course of lower nature in man. That lower 

 course of nature is still their criterion for the future. 



