,8 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION. 



of the progressive peoples of Western Europe. In 

 the judgment of every unofficial narrator, this latter 

 explanation best accords with the facts of history, 

 and with the natural causes which largely determine 

 success or failure. The most partisan advocates of 

 its supernatural, and therefore special, character 

 have to show reason why the fortunes of the Chris- 

 tian religion have varied like those of other great 

 religions, both older and younger than it; why, like 

 Buddhism, it has been ousted from the eountry in 

 which it rose; and why, in competition with Brah- 

 manism, as Sir Alfred Lyall testifies in his Asiatic 

 Studies (p. no), and with Mohammedanism in 

 Africa, it has less success than these in the mission 

 fields where it comes into rivalry with them. Riven 

 into wrangling sects from an early period of its his- 

 tory, it has, while exercising a beneficent influence 

 in turbulent and lawless ages, brought not " peace 

 on earth, but a sword." It has been the cause of un- 

 dying hate, of bloody wars, and of persecutions be- 

 tween parties and nations, whose animosity seems 

 the deeper when stirred by matters which are incapa- 

 ble of proof. As Montaigne says, " Nothing is so 

 firmly believed as that which is least known." To 

 bring the Christian religion, or, rather, its manifold 

 forms, from the purest spiritualistic to such degraded 

 type as exists, for example, in Abyssinia, within the 

 operation of the law which governs development, 

 and which, therefore, includes partial and local cor- 

 ruption; is to make its history as clear as it is pro- 



