er of a religion must deal, that already spoken of as
bearing on the primary object of religion itself, the quickening of
human evolution, with its corollary that all grades of evolving humanity
must be considered by Him. Men are at every stage of evolution, from the
most barbarous to the most developed; men are found of lofty
intelligence, but also of the most unevolved mentality; in one place
there is a highly developed and complex civilisation, in another a crude
and simple polity. Even within any given civilisation we find the most
varied types--the most ignorant and the most educated, the most
thoughtful and the most careless, the most spiritual and the most
brutal; yet each one of these types must be reached, and each must be
helped in the place where he is. If evolution be true, this difficulty
is inevitable, and must be faced and overcome by the divine Teacher,
else will His work be a failure. If man is evolving as all around him
is evolving, these differences of development, these varied grades of
intelligence, must be a characteristic of humanity everywhere, and must
be provided for in each of the religions of the world.

We are thus brought face to face with the position that we cannot have
one and the same religious teaching even for a single nation, still less
for a single civilisation, or for the whole world. If there be but one
teaching, a large number of those to whom it is addressed will entirely
escape its influence. If it be made suitable for those whose
intelligence is limited, whose morality is elementary, whose perceptions
are obtuse, so that it may help and train them, and thus enable them to
evolve, it will be a religion utterly unsuitable for those men, living
in the same nation, forming part of the same civilisation, who have keen
and delicate moral perceptions, bright and subtle intelligence, and
evolving spirituality. But if, on the other hand, this latter class is
to be helped, if intelligence is to be given a philosophy that it can
regard as admirable, if delicate moral perceptions are to be still
further refined, if the dawning spiritual nature is to be enabled to
develope into the perfect day, then the religion will be so spiritual,
so intellectual, and so moral, that when it is preached to the former
class it will not touch their minds or their hearts, it will be to them
a string of meaningless phrases, incapable of arousing their latent
intelligence, or of giving them any motive for cond