x opportunitate_ as it must be deemed to have been
in the period of its establishment, very few were added to it.
Whereupon, as the author of "Ecce Homo" relates, not without a touch of
gentle irony, La Reveillere confided to Talleyrand[39] his
disappointment at his ill-success. "'His propaganda made no way,' he
said, 'What was he to do?' he asked. The ex-bishop politely condoled
with him, feared indeed it was a difficult task to found a new
religion--more difficult than could be imagined, so difficult that he
hardly knew what to advise! 'Still'--he went on, after a moment's
reflection--'there is one plan which you might at least try: I should
recommend you to be crucified, and to rise again the third day'" (p.
181). Is the author of "Ecce Homo" laughing in his sleeve at us? Surely
his keen perception must have suggested to him, as he wrote this
passage, "mutato nomine, deme." It may be confidently predicted
that, unless he is prepared to carry out Talleyrand's suggestion, the
Natural Religion which he exhibits "to meet the wants of a sceptical
age" will prove even a more melancholy failure than it proved when
originally introduced a century ago by La Reveillere-Lepeaux.

V.

Are we then thrown back on Pessimism--"the besetting difficulty of
Natural Religion" (p. 104), as the author of "Ecce Homo" confesses? Is
that after all the key to the enigma of life? And is the prospect before
the world that "universal darkness" which is to supervene, when, in the
noble verse of the great moral poet of the last century--the noblest he
ever wrote--

"Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires,
And unawares morality expires;
Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine,
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine."

I venture to think otherwise. And as with regard to the subject of which
I am writing, it may be said that "egotism is true modesty," I shall
venture to say why I think so, even at the risk of wearying by a
twice-told tale, for I shall have to go over well-worn ground, and I
must of necessity tread more or less in the footprints of others. The
reasons which satisfy me have satisfied, and do satisfy, intellects far
more subtle, acute, and penetrating than mine. All I can do is to state
them in the way in which they present themselves to my own mind. I shall
be genuine, if not original, although indeed I might here shelter myself
under a dictum--profoundly true it is--of Mr. Ruskin: "That virtue of
ori