vided only that he hopes to beget a
child."

What effect has Christianity had upon our moral life, upon crime,
drug-addiction, sexual immorality, prostitution, and perversion? These
blights upon our moral character existed long before Christianity, and
after Christianity. But what effectual check has Christianity
contributed?

The agitation concerning increased crime after the recent world conflict
has brought this subject to the fore, and aroused a great deal of
discussion and consideration of this problem. In its relation to
religion, we have but one undeniable fact to bring before the thinking
public. An examination of the statistics of penal institutions reveals
that practically all criminals are religious. _Absolutely and
proportionately smaller numbers of criminals are freethinkers._ Although
church members nowhere constitute even half the population outside the
prisons, they constitute from eighty to ninety-five per cent of the
population inside the prison. This can be verified by reference to any
census of any penal institution. As strangely as this may strike a great
many readers, just so strange did it appear at one time to the multitude
that the earth was round. (It is 500 years since the earth was proven to
be round, yet there is a large colony of Christians near Chicago
officially maintaining that the earth is as flat and four-cornered as
the Bible states.) Neither Christianity nor any religious creed has
proved an effectual check on civil crime.

The prostitute has been hounded and abused by ecclesiastics since
Biblical times, yet, it is only true to say that the religionist is not
vitally interested in prostitution. Outwardly, he may pour forth a
verbal barrage of condemnation, but if he believes he can save her
immortal soul, ahunting he goes. He does not attempt to ameliorate the
social welfare of this poor, degraded individual, as he thinks; her
pitiful condition in the "everlasting present" on this earth interests
him not at all, although it is this existence about which he raves, his
only interest is in redeeming her soul not her body. If when the
religionist tells the prostitute that only those who believe in Christ
as God, in His Virgin Birth, and in His Resurrection in the Body, will
go to heaven, and she agrees and repents--all is well; the religionist
has saved a soul, and the prostitute goes about her business of
spreading hideous venereal disease to others whose souls are saved by
believin