remote now (in 1916) from the
thoughts of the educated few than he was prior to 1859," writes Sir
Harry. This statement is not true. Speculation about God, the meaning
of life, the social import of Christianity, was never more rife amongst
educated people. Here I must check myself: what does "educated" mean? To
be able to read and write, and say "Hear, hear" at public meetings? To
have a pretty idea of the positions of Huxley and Haeckel by which to
confound the poor old Bible? If by education we mean the exposition of
some special branch of the physical sciences, the statement may be true.
If we mean men and women with a general knowledge of life and letters,
with a social consciousness and humanitarian sympathies, it is
ridiculously wide of the truth. There is everywhere a hunger for a
satisfying explanation of life. There are restlessness and impatience
with dogma and creed, there is a growing indifference to the old
sectarian exclusiveness, but there is above all a new interest in God.
We need not go to Mr. Bernard Shaw or Mr. Wells for testimony to this
interest. They reflect the religious renaissance which is the essence of
the reconstruction for which men crave. The symptoms are accessible to
the observation of all. Neither priestly intolerance nor rationalistic
prejudice can suppress them.

In _The Bankruptcy of Religion_, Mr. Joseph McCabe develops the case
against religion with the skill of a trained controversialist. Like the
converted sinner in the ranks of the Salvation Army, Mr. McCabe carries
special weight to the lines of rationalists and ethicists. For he was
once a priest and lived in a monastery, and he left the priesthood and
the monastery convinced of the worthlessness of both. He is, therefore,
_persona gratissima_ at the High Court of Reason. "The era of religious
influence closes in bankruptcy," he informs us. He has no patience with
attempts at religious reconstruction; he asks us to shake ourselves free
of the vanishing dream of heaven and to leave the barren tracts of
religion. He exhorts us to abandon the "last illusions of the childhood
of the race":

Linger no longer in the "reconstruction" of fables which once
beguiled the Arabs of the desert and the Syrian slaves of
Corinth, but set your hearts and minds to the making of a new
earth! Sweep these ancient legends out of your schools and
colleges, your army and navy, your code of law, your legislative
houses, and s