you. A new
religion must have time; its leaven must work amid the lump. You, my
dear boy, are convinced that the leaven is, though a new sort, a very
sound and sufficient yeast; let that be granted. I, unfortunately,
cannot believe anything of the kind. To me your method of solution
seems a deliberate insistence on the worldly in human nature, sure to
have the practical result of making men more and more savagely
materialist: I see no hope whatever that you will inspire the world
with enthusiasm for a noble civilisation by any theory based on
biological teaching. From my point of view, a man becomes noble _in
spite_ of the material laws which condition his life, never in
consequence of them. If you ask me how and why--I bow my head and keep
silence."

"Can you maintain," asked Dyce, respectfully, "that Christianity is
still a civilising power?"

"To all appearances," was the grave answer, "Christianity has
failed--utterly, absolutely, glaringly failed. At this moment, the
world, I am convinced, holds more potential barbarism than did the
Roman Empire under the Antonines. Wherever I look, I see a monstrous
contrast between the professions and the practice, between the assumed
and the actual aims, of so-called Christian peoples. Christianity has
failed to conquer the human heart."

"It must be very dreadful for you to be convinced of that."

"It is. But more dreadful would be a loss of belief in the Christian
spirit. By belief, I don't mean faith in its ultimate triumph; I am not
at all sure that I can look forward to _that_. No; but a persuasion
that the Sermon on the Mount is good--is the best. Once upon a time,
multitudes were in that sense Christian. Nowadays, does one man in a
thousand give his mind's allegiance (lips and life disregarded) to that
ideal of human thought and conduct? Take your newspaper writer, who
speaks to and for the million; he simply scorns every Christian
precept. How can he but scorn a thing so unpractical? Nay, I notice
that he is already throwing off the hypocrisy hitherto thought decent.
I read newspaper articles which sneer and scoff at those who venture to
remind the world that, after all, it nominally owes allegiance to a
Christian ideal. Our prophets begin openly to proclaim that
self-interest and the hardest materialism are our only safe guides. Now
and then such passages amaze, appal me--but I am getting used to them.
So I am to the same kind of declaration in everyday talk. Men