, thus:--"History bears witness that the declension of religion
has ever been the decline of nations, because it has ever brought the
decay of their moral life; and people have achieved noble things only
when strongly animated by religious faith." All this is very poor
stuff indeed to come from a learned professor. What nation has declined
because of a relapse from religious belief? Surely not Assyria, Egypt,
Greece, or Carthage? In the case of Rome, the decline of the empire was
coincident with the rise of Christianity and the decline of Paganism;
but the Roman Empire fell abroad mainly from political, and not from
religious causes, as every student of history well knows. Christianity,
that is the religion of the Bible, has been dying for nearly three
centuries; and during that period, instead of witnessing a general
degradation of mankind we have witnessed a marvellous elevation. The
civilisation of to-day, compared with that which existed before Secular
Science began her great battle with a tyrannous and obscurantist Church,
is as a summer morn to a star-lit winter night.

Again, it is not true that men have achieved noble things only when
strongly animated by religious faith; unless by "religious faith" be
meant some vital idea or fervent enthusiasm. The three hundred Spartans
who met certain death at Thermopylae died for a religious idea, but not
for a theological idea, which is a very different thing. They perished
to preserve the integrity of the state to which they belonged. The
greatest Athenians were certainly not religious in Professor Flint's
sense of the word, and the grand old Roman patriots had scarcely a
scintillation of such a religious faith as he speaks of. Their religion
was simply patriotism, but it was quite as operant and effective as
Christian piety has ever been. Was it religious faith or patriotism
which banded Frenchmen together in defiance of all Europe, and made
them march to death as a bridegroom hastens to his bride? And in our
own history have not our greatest achievers of noble things been very
indifferent to theological dogmas? Nay, in all ages, have not the
noblest laborers for human welfare been impelled by an urgent enthusiasm
of humanity rather than by any supernatural faith? Professor Flint may
rest assured that even though all "the old faiths ruin and rend," the
human heart will still burn, and virtue and beauty still gladden the
earth, although divorced from the creeds which held