that has been misinterpreted, misapplied, overlaid with human vagaries, and prostituted to evil ends.1 The natural religious development of man has not been in the direction of truer vision and higher attainment, but rather towards lower views and baser practices. How sharp is the contrast between religions of human and those of divine origin! Christianity comes as a supreme gift from God, full of truth, energy, and unfailing capacity, to change the current of religious life in the direction of regeneration and progressive advancement towards a perfect individual and social development. Both before and after the Incarnation, whether in its preparatory stages or in its New Testament consummation, it is a contribution of spiritual and moral power introduced into the individual experience of man, and so into the general progress of society, in the form of a fresh, vivifying, and energizing religious environment, under the influence of which God and man coöperate in a movement towards perfection. The secret of the noblest social destiny is in Christianity, and the sooner the world recognizes it the better.

Christianity God's best gift to human society.

Paul's diagnosis of heathenism still true.

There is no escaping the conviction that the judgment of Paul as to the religious value and moral standing of classical paganism is as true to-day in substance and spirit concerning modern ethnic faiths as it was of contemporary antichristian creeds in his age. There has been perhaps a kaleidoscopic transposition of philosophic principles, a rehabilitation and relabelling of external ceremonialism, and some readjustment of immorality to its modern environment; but the evidences of lineal descent and spiritual heredity are unmistakable. The "vain imaginations" are still to the front, the "foolish heart [or understanding]" is still "darkened," the professedly "wise " are none the less "fools," the "creature" is still honored rather than the "Creator," the "things that are not fitting" are still in their place of prominence, and they are admired and defended by the heathen apologists of to-day with the same strenuous zeal and stout-hearted complacency as of old. But the victory of Christianity, although it may seem to come slowly and "not with observation," is as assured now as it was then.

We have thus passed in review the prominent, in fact the only possible, rival forces which can be brought into comparison with Christianity as possessing any supposed capacity for effecting social changes of

1 Cf. "The Religions of the Orient," an address by the Rev. Jacob Chamberlain, M.D., D.D.

The watchword of mis

and for society.

a helpful and elevating nature. We have seen good reason to regard them as in themselves hollow and ineffective. Some of them are useful, indeed even valuable, as instruments and adsions is Christianity, juncts of Christianity; but without its coöperation, both for the individual and uninfluenced by its pervading spirit, they are doomed to failure. Education, material civilization, State legislation, patriotism, and ethnic religions are not in themselves gifted with the power of social regeneration. Each in its own way fails at vital and crucial points. There is manifest need of a nobler and higher ministry to society from some authoritative and inspiring source, and that this ministry is provided and freely offered in Christianity is a cheering fact to which we shall in the next lecture give more special attention.

LITERATURE AND AUTHORITIES FOR LECTURE III

To avoid repetition, many volumes mentioned in the other lists are not included in this, although they would properly find a place in the literature of Lecture III. The reader is therefore requested to consult the other bibliographies as in some instances supplementary to the one given below.