a
broader conception of justice, both the foundation and the roof whenever
a new principle is born or some great soul floods the world with light.

And so the world moves on, those nations in advance that possess the
climate to stimulate and the soil to support to the best advantage their
citizens--philosophers and scientists who grope towards perfection and
stumble on the way over real and imaginary obstacles, but still bring
each generation nearer the goal, and freer to brush aside the cobwebs
of superstition and ignorance, and to look fairly out on the light that
breaks in the East.

There is another feature of the subject that will bear looking at.
Christians are the last to give credit to other religions for the
development and advance of civilization in the countries possessing
them. What Christian will admit that it is the religion of the Chinese
that makes them the most orderly, law-abiding, mob-avoiding people on
the globe? Will any Christian admit that it is the inferior moral tone
of Christ and his teachings which enables the followers of Confucius
and Buddha to offer this superior showing? Is he prepared to say that
Mohammedanism is superior to Christianity because its followers outdo
the Christians in honesty?* Is it owing to the superior blessings of the
Mormon faith that its followers are more thrifty, and that paupers are
few or unknown among them?

* Travelers tell us that a native can leave an order
together with a bag of uncounted gold at the shop of a
dealer, and upon the return of the buyer his order will be
exactly filled, his gold properly and honestly divided, and
all where he had left them, even though the shop be open to
the street and unattended and unguarded.

Is it because their religion is superior to ours that the Lapp women
are better treated; that their comparative status is higher, and their
family life purer than with ourselves?*

* "Though Norway with Ladies." By W. Mattieu Williams.
F.R.A.S., F.C.S.

The claim that superiority of civilization is due to Christianity,
and that to it we owe the good things of the nations where it is the
prevailing religion, proves too much. _It will work just as well for
any other religion as for our own_. Its reach is too extended, its
conclusion too comprehensive for its purpose. Christianity could not be
made its sole terminus. It reminds one of the story of the brakeman who
was persuaded to go to churc