usion that the assumption is
equally groundless now. Since the days of Butler or of Swift, the
progress of Christianity has not ceased: its developments of thought
and {12} life have been among the most remarkable in its whole career.
The exultation over its decay in the twentieth century may possibly be
found as premature and as vain as the exultation over its decay in the
eighteenth century, or in any of the centuries which have gone before.

III

The most popular impeachments of Christianity are mainly these.

It is a mass of false and superstitious beliefs long exploded. It is
the opponent of progress and inquiry, the discoveries of science having
been made in direct defiance of its teaching and its influence.

It is the champion of oppression and tyranny. It aims at keeping the
poor in ignorance and destitution. It prostrates itself before the
rich and seeks the patronage of the great.

It so insists on people being absorbed in {13} the thought of heaven
that it practically precludes them from doing any good on earth.

It is a system of selfishness, inculcating the dogma that no one need
care for anything except the salvation of his own soul.[11]

It is the foster-mother of all the evil and misery by which society is
distressed. Dishonesty, cruelty, slavery, war, persecution, avarice,
drunkenness, vice, would seem to be its natural fruits.

'How calm and sweet the victories of life,'

shrieked Shelley in one of his early poems.

'How terrorless the triumph of the grave ...
... but for thy aid
Religion! but for thee, prolific fiend,
Who peoplest earth with demons, hell with men,
And heaven with slaves!
Thou taintest all thou look'st upon!'[12]

What shall we say to these accusations? Christians have been credulous
and superstitious, have argued and acted as if only in {14} the
abnormal and exceptional could the Divine Presence be found, as if God
were a hard Taskmaster and capricious Tyrant. They have resisted
progress and inquiry, blindly refusing to see the light which was
streaming upon them. They have unquestionably been guilty of miserable
pride towards inferiors in wealth or in station, and guilty of
miserable sycophancy towards the rich and the powerful. Christians
have too frequently neglected the material well-being of the community,
have suffered disgraceful outward conditions to remain without protest,
have not striven to shed abroad happiness and brightness in squal