can hardly merit such epithets as "unique" and "wonderful." Accordingly
it is becoming the fashion in clerical circles to avoid those old
Pagans, or else to damn them all in a sweeping condemnation. Some indeed
go to the length of declaring--or at least of insinuating--that all the
real truth and goodness there is in the world began with the Christian
era. This extreme is affected by the Evangelical school, and is carried
to its highest pitch of exaggeration by such shallow and reckless
preachers as the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes. Soon after the _Daily
Chronicle_ correspondence on "Is Christianity Played Out?" this reverend
gentleman, and most accomplished "perverter of the truth," screamed from
the platform of St. James's Hall that women and children were regarded
as slaves and nuisances before the time of Christ; which is either a
deliberate falsehood, or a gross misreading both of history and of human
nature. Mr. Hughes has since been gathering his energies for a bolder
effort in the same direction. He now publishes in the _Methodist Times_
his latest piece of recklessness or fatuity. It is a sermon on "The
Solidarity of Mankind," and is really an exhibition of the solidity of
Mr. Hughes's impudence. It required nothing but "face," as Corbett used
to call it, to utter such monstrous nonsense in a sermon; it would need
a great deal more courage than Mr. Hughes possesses to utter it on any
platform where he could be answered and exposed.

Mr. Hughes believes in our "common humanity," and he traces it from "the
grand old gardener" (Tennyson). "We are all descended from Adam," he
says, "and related to one another." Now this is not true, even according
to the Bible; for when Cain fled into the land of Nod he took a wife
there, which clearly implies the existence of other people than the
descendants of Adam. But this is not the worst. Fancy a man at this time
of day--a burnin' an' a shinin' light to a' this place--gravely standing
up and solemnly telling three thousand people, most of whom we suppose
have been to school, that the legendary Adam of the book of Genesis was
really the father of the whole human race!

This common humanity is claimed by Mr. Hughes as "a purely Christian
conception." Yet he foolishly admits that "the Positivists in our
own day have strongly insisted on this great crowning truth which we
Christians have neglected." Nay, he states that when Kossuth appealed in
England on behalf of Hungary, he spoke i