compel it to take its place among the general multitude of historic
faiths.

If Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah, the Deliverer, why is the
world still so full of sin and misery? The Redeemer has come, say
the Christians. Yes, we reply, but when will come the redemption?
Apostrophising Jesus in his lines "Before a Crucifix," Mr. Swinburne
reminds him that "the nineteenth wave of the ages rolls now usward
since thy birth began," and then inquires:--

"Hast thou fed full men's starved-out souls,
Or are there less oppressions done
In this wide world under the sun?"

Only a negative answer can be given. Christ has in no wise redeemed the
world. He was no god of power, but a weak fallible man like ourselves;
and his cry of despair on the cross might now be repeated with tenfold
force. The older myth of Prometheus is truer and more inspiring than the
myth of Christ. If there be gods, they have never yielded man aught of
their grace. All his possessions have been cunningly, patiently, and
valorously extorted from the powers that be, even as Prometheus filched
the fire from heaven. In that realm of mythology, whereto all religions
will eventually be consigned, Jesus will dwindle beneath Prometheus. One
is feminine, and typifies resigned submission to a supernatural will;
the other is masculine, and typifies that insurgent audacity of heart
and head, which has wrested a kingdom of science from the vast empire of
nescience, and strewed the world with the wrecks of theological power.

THE REIGN OF CHRIST.

(January, 1880.)

Christmas and Easter are fruitful in panegyrics on Jesus and the
religion which fraudulently bears his name. On these occasions, not only
the religious but even the secular newspapers give the rein to their
rhetoric and imagination, and indulge in much fervid eloquence on the
birth or the crucifixion of the Nazarene. Time-honored platitudes
are brought out from their resting-places and dexterously moved to a
well-known tune; and fallacies which have been refuted _ad nauseam_
are paraded afresh as though their logical purity were still beyond
suspicion. Papers that differ on all other occasions and on all other
subjects concur then, and "when they do agree their unanimity is
wonderful." While the more sober and orthodox discourse in tones
befitting their dignity and repute, the more profane riotously join in
the chorus; and not to be behind the rest, the notoriously misbelievin