dvanced. In a few years the Christians will become humane
and sensible enough to deny the dogma that fills the endless years
with pain.

* * * * *

The world is getting better. We are gradually growing honest, and men
everywhere, even in the pulpit, are acknowledging they do not know all
about things. There was little hope for the race so long as an
individual was disgraced if he did not pretend to believe a thing at
which his reason revolted. We are simplifying life--simplifying truth.
The man who serves his fellowmen best is he who simplifies. The learned
man used to be the one who muddled things, who scrambled thought, who
took reason away, and instead, thrust upon us faith, with a threat of
punishment if we did not accept it, and an offer of reward if we did.

We have now discovered that the so-called learned man had no authority,
either for his threat of punishment or his offer of reward. Hypocrisy
will not now pass current, and sincerity, frozen stiff with fright, is
no longer legal tender for truth. In the frank acknowledgment of
ignorance there is much promise. The man who does not know, and is not
afraid to say so, is in the line of evolution. But for the head that is
packed with falsehood and the heart that is faint with fear, there is no
hope. That head must be unloaded of its lumber, and the heart given
courage before the march of progress can begin.

Now, let us be frank, and let us be honest, just for a few moments. Let
us acknowledge that this revolution in thought that has occurred during
the last twenty-five years was brought about mainly by one individual.
The world was ripe for this man's utterance, otherwise he would not have
gotten the speaker's eye. A hundred years before we would have snuffed
him out in contumely and disgrace. But men listened to him and paid high
for the privilege. And those who hated this man and feared him most,
went, too, to listen, so as to answer him and thereby keep the planet
from swinging out of its orbit and sweeping on to destruction.

Wherever this man spoke, in towns and cities or country, for weeks the
air was heavy with the smoke of rhetoric, and reasons, soggy and solid,
and fuzzy logic and muddy proof were dragged like siege-guns to the
defense.

They dared the man to come back and fight it out. The clouds were
charged with challenges, and the prophecy was made and made again that
never in the same place could this ma