ain, why? Because,
my friends, the human mind is inert, despite its seemingly tremendous
material activity. And its inertia is the result of its own
self-mesmerism, its own servile submission to beliefs which, as
Balfour has shown, have grown up under every kind of influence except
that of genuine evidence. Chief of these are the prevalent religious
beliefs, which we are asked to receive as divinely inspired."

Doctor Morton glanced at Reverend Moore and grinned. But that
gentleman sat stolid, with arms folded and a scowl upon his sharp
features.

"Religion," continued Hitt, "is that which binds us to the real. Alas!
what a farce mankind have made of it. And why? Because, in its mad
desire to make matter real and to extract all pleasures from it, the
human mind has tried to eliminate the soul."

"We have been having a bad spell of materialism, that's true,"
interposed Doctor Morton. "But we are progressing, I hope."

"Well," Hitt replied, "perhaps so. Yet almost in our own day France
put God out of her institutions; set up and crowned a prostitute as
the goddess of reason; and trailed the Bible through the streets of
Paris, tied to the tail of an ass! What followed? Spiritual
destitution. And in this country we have enthroned so-called physical
science, and, as Comte predicted, are about to conduct God to the
frontier and bow Him out with thanks for His provisional services.
With what result? As our droll philosopher, Hubbard, has said, 'Once
man was a spirit, now he is matter. Once he was a flame, now he is a
candlestick. Once he was a son of God, now he is a chemical formula.
Once he was an angel, now he is plain mud.'"

"But," exclaimed Reverend Moore, visibly nettled, "that is because of
his falling away from the Church--"

"My friend," said Hitt calmly, "he fell away from the Church because
he could not stagnate longer with her and be happy. Orthodox theology
has largely become mere sentimentalism. The average man has a horror
of being considered a namby-pamby, religiously weak, wishy-washy,
so-called Christian. It makes him ashamed of himself to stand up
in a congregation and sing 'My Jesus, I love Thee,' and 'In
mansions of glory and endless delight.' What does he know about
Jesus? And he is far more concerned about his little brick bungalow
and next month's rent than he is about celestial mansions. And I don't
blame him. No; he leaves religion to women, whom he regards as the
weaker sex. He turns to the