nce the world has been comparatively
at peace cannot be denied; while of the distress which still calls for
an increase of Christian effort, not the whole is due to default on the
part of the wealthier classes. Idleness, vice, intemperance,
improvident marriage, play their part. Let us not be led away upon a
false issue.

There is nothing for it but truth.

I.

MAN, AND HIS DESTINY.

Time has passed since I first sought access to the columns of _The
Sun_, ranging myself with the nine thousand who in an English journal
had craved for religious light. The movement which caused that craving
has gone on. The Churches show their sense of it. Even in that of
Rome there is a growth of "Modernism," as it is called by the Pope,
who, having lost his mediaeval preservatives of unity, strives to quell
Modernism by denunciation. Anglicanism resorts to a grand pageant of
uniformity, beneath which, however, lurk Anglo-Catholicism,
Evangelicism, and Liberalism, by no means uniform in faith. The
Protestant Churches proper, their spirit being more emotional, feel the
doctrinal movement less. But they are not unmoved, as they show by
relaxation of tests and inclination to informal if not formal union, as
well as by increasing the aesthetic and social attractions of their
cult. Wild theosophic sects are born and die. But marked is the
increase of scepticism, avowed and unavowed. It advances probably
everywhere in the track of physical science. We are confronted with
the vital question what the world would be without religion, without
trust in Providence, without hope or fear of a hereafter. Social order
is threatened. Classes which have hitherto acquiesced in their lot,
believing that it was a divine ordinance and that there would be
redress and recompense in a future state, are now demanding that
conditions shall be levelled here. The nations quake with fear of
change. The leaders of humanity, some think, may even find it
necessary to make up by an increase of the powers of government for the
lost influence of religion.

Belief in the Bible as inspired and God's revelation of himself to man
seems hardly to linger in well-informed and open minds. Criticism,
history, and science have conspired to put an end to it. The
authorship of the greater part, including the most important books, is
unknown. The morality of the Old Testament differs from that of the
New, and though in advance of the world generally in