ves unable to fulfil the conditions of honest belief. That this
Christianity is doomed to fall is, to my mind, beyond a doubt; but its
fall will be neither sudden nor speedy. The Church, with all the aid
lent it by the secular arm, took many centuries to extirpate the open
practice of pagan idolatry within its own fold; and those who have
travelled in southern Europe will be aware that it has not extirpated
the essence of such idolatry even yet. _Mutato nomine_, it is probable
that there is as much sheer fetichism among the Roman populace now as
there was eighteen hundred years ago; and if Marcus Antonius could
descend from his horse and ascend the steps of the Ara Coeli church
about Twelfth Day, the only thing that need strike him would be the
extremely contemptible character of the modern idols as works of art.

Science will certainly neither ask for, nor receive, the aid of the
secular arm. It will trust to the much better and more powerful help
of that education in scientific truth and in the morals of assent,
which is rendered as indispensable, as it is inevitable, by the
permeation of practical life with the products and ideas of science.
But no one who considers the present state of even the most developed
countries can doubt that the scientific light that has come into the
world will have to shine in the midst of darkness for a long time. The
urban populations, driven into contact with science by trade and
manufacture, will more and more receive it, while the _pagani_ will
lag behind. Let us hope that no Julian may arise among them to head a
forlorn hope against the inevitable. Whatever happens, science may
bide her time in patience and in confidence.

But to return to my "Anonymous." I am afraid that if he represents any
great party in the Church, the spirit of justice and reasonableness
which animates the three bishops has as slender a chance of being
imitated, on a large scale, as their common sense and their courtesy.
For, not contented with misrepresenting science on its speculative
side, "Anonymous" attacks its morality.

For two whole years, investigations and conclusions which
would upset the theories of Darwin on the formation of coral
islands were actually suppressed, and that by the advice
even of those who accepted them, _for fear of upsetting the
faith and disturbing the judgment formed by the multitude
on the scientific character--the infallibility--of the great