it is something to get an
Archbishop to acknowledge them, His Grace also finds "from above, in the
regions of literature and art, efforts to degrade mankind by denying our
high original:" the high original being, we presume, a certain simple
pair called Adam and Eve, who damned themselves and nearly the whole
of their posterity by eating an apple six thousand years ago. The
degradation of a denial of this theory is hardly perceptible to
untheological eyes. Most candid minds would prefer to believe in Darwin
rather than in Moses even if the latter had, which he has not, a single
leg to stand on. For the theory of our Simian origin at least involves
progression in the past and perhaps salvation in the future of our
race, while the "high original" theory involved our retrogression and
perdition. His grace wonders how these persons can "confine their hopes
and aspirations to a life which is so irresistibly hastening to its
speedy conclusion." But surely he is aware that they do so for the very
simple reason that they know nothing of any other life to hope about
or aspire to. One bird in the hand is worth twenty in the bush when the
bush itself remains obstinately invisible, and if properly cooked is
worth all the dishes in the world filled only with expectations. His
grace likewise refers to the unequal distribution of worldly goods,
to the poverty and misery which exist "notwithstanding all attempts to
regenerate society by specious schemes of socialistic reorganisation."
It is, of course, very natural that an archbishop in the enjoyment of a
vast income should stigmatise these "specious schemes" for distributing
more equitably the good things of this world; but the words "blessed be
ye poor" go ill to the tune of fifteen thousand a year, and there is a
grim irony in the fact that palaces are tenanted by men who profess
to represent and preach the gospel of him who had not where to lay his
head. Modern Christianity has been called a civilised heathenism; with
no less justice it might be called an organised hypocrisy.

After a dolorous complaint as to the magazines "lying everywhere for the
use of our sons and daughters," in which the doctrines both of natural
and of revealed religion are assailed, the Archbishop proceeds to deal
with the first great form of infidelity, namely Agnosticism. With
a feeble attempt at wit he remarks that the name itself implies a
confession of ignorance, which he marvels to find unaccompanied by