can be made are
on the one hand, in the name of the fatherhood of god, and on the other,
the conception of the Mother and the Child. And what are these but
appeals to the secular and social feelings of man in the name of
religion? It may be granted that Atheism in its appeals to mankind often
fails, but in this respect is it any worse off than religion? Why, one
of the standing complaints of religious preachers in all ages is that
their message falls so frequently on deaf ears. There is no more
certainty that the religious appeal will meet with success, than there
is that any other appeal will be successful. And there is the
unquestionable fact that morality has become stronger as the power of
religion has weakened. The higher qualities have asserted themselves
during a period of religious disintegration, and the student of morals
sees in this a promise of a further development in the future.

And to all prophecies as to the effects of Atheism on the morality of
the future there is the apt reply that they are prophecies and nothing
else. And in this respect it is dangerous for the Christian theist to
appeal to history. For while the consequences of Atheism can be no more
than a forecast, which may or may not be justified, the record of
Christianity is before the world. And we know that the period during
which the influence of Christian theism was strongest, was the period
when the intellectual life of civilised man was at its lowest, morality
at its weakest, and the general outlook most hopeless. Religious control
gave us heresy hunts, and Jew hunts, burnings for witchcraft, and magic
in the place of medicine. It gave us the Inquisition and the _auto da
fe_, the fires of Smithfield and the night of St. Bartholomew. It gave
us the war of sects and it helped powerfully to establish the sect of
war. It gave us life without happiness, and death cloaked with terror.
The Christian record is before us, and it is such that every Church
blames the others for its existence. Quite as certainly we cannot point
to a society that has been dominated by Freethinking ideas, but we can
point to their existence in all ages, and can show that all progress is
due to their presence. We can show that progressive ideas have
originated with the least, and have been opposed by the most religious
sections of society. What religion has done for the world we know; what
freethought will do we can only guess. But we are confident that as
honesty is