74 
humanity’s one hope and consolation, and would despoil the 
human soul of the essential prerogative of humanity, of that 
moral character and power which constitutes man’s proper 
definition and being. 
German Communism, Russian Communism, are just now 
showing us the nature of the fruit which cannot but grow 
from the root of Atheistic or Pantheistic unbelief. Such 
results as we see at this moment cannot be without their 
effect on the English mind. They will strengthen the national 
reverence for the religion of God as revealed in Christ 
Jesus our Lord. 
Christianity, therefore, I conclude, is by no means losing 
its hold of England nor of the world. Less protected by 
legal defences than formerly, it possesses far more intrinsic 
strength and energy. It has taken a much larger and stronger 
hold than at any former period of the great body of the 
people, including the best-educated classes. It has a life and 
energy, a zeal and enthusiasm altogether unprecedented. 
In Parliament it counts far more illustrious and devoted 
adherents than in any former ago. It maintains an array 
of philanthropic enterprises, it inspires and maintains an 
amount of practical beneficence such as the world had never 
seen. All this is done in the face of an active infidel 
propagandism which is no longer fettered as in former 
times, but is free to do its worst. Let no one, then, fear 
for Christianity. Nearly 150 years ago, Butler, in the ad- 
vertisenent to his “ Analogy,” said : “ It is come, I know 
not how, to be taken for granted by many persons, that 
Christianity is not so much as a subject of inquiry, but 
that it is now at length discovered to be fictitious.” Ac- 
cordingly, he goes on to say that those reputed to be 
“ people of discernment,” treated it as a subject only fit to 
provoke “ mirth and ridicule.” And yet a few years later 
John Wesley was converted, and Methodism began its race. 
Butler’s faith and Butler’s arguments survive, while tho 
“ people of discernment,” and their supercilious unbelief with 
them, have passed into oblivion. Writing some years earlier 
than Butler, the accomplished Berkeley thus describes tho in- 
fidelity of his day. “ Moschon,” he says, <c hath proved that 
man and beast are really of the same nature ; consequently, a 
man need only indulge his senses and his appetites to be as 
happy as a brute. Gorgias hath gone farther, demonstrating 
man to be a piece of clock-work or a machine; and that 
thought or reason is the same thing as the impulse of one ball 
against another. Cimon hath made noble use of these dis- 
coveries, proving as clearly as any proposition in mathematics, 
