rst of all I would say this, which must be obvious to many, however
much they deplore it: Christianity must change or must perish. That is
the law of life--that things must adapt themselves or perish.
Christianity has deferred the change very long, she has deferred it
until her churches are half empty, until women are her chief
supporters, and until both the learned part of the community on one
side, and the poorest class on the other, both in town and country, are
largely alienated from her. Let us try and trace the reason for this.
It is apparent in all sects, and comes, therefore, from some deep
common cause.

People are alienated because they frankly do not believe the facts as
presented to them to be true. Their reason and their sense of justice
are equally offended. One can see no justice in a vicarious sacrifice,
nor in the God who could be placated by such means. Above all, many
cannot understand such expressions as the "redemption from sin,"
"cleansed by the blood of the Lamb," and so forth. So long as there
was any question of the fall of man there was at least some sort of
explanation of such phrases; but when it became certain that man had
never fallen--when with ever fuller knowledge we could trace our
ancestral course down through the cave-man and the drift-man, back to
that shadowy and far-off time when the man-like ape slowly evolved into
the apelike man--looking back on all this vast succession of life, we
knew that it had always been rising from step to step. Never was there
any evidence of a fall. But if there were no fall, then what became of
the atonement, of the redemption, of original sin, of a large part of
Christian mystical philosophy? Even if it were as reasonable in itself
as it is actually unreasonable, it would still be quite divorced from
the facts.

Again, too much seemed to be made of Christ's death. It is no uncommon
thing to die for an idea. Every religion has equally had its martyrs.
Men die continually for their convictions. Thousands of our lads are
doing it at this instant in France. Therefore the death of Christ,
beautiful as it is in the Gospel narrative, has seemed to assume an
undue importance, as though it were an isolated phenomenon for a man to
die in pursuit of a reform. In my opinion, far too much stress has
been laid upon Christ's death, and far too little upon His life. That
was where the true grandeur and the true lesson lay. It was a life
which even in