ITS DECLINE.

I.

HERE are excellent persons who cannot yet hear such a phrase as "the decline of Christianity"

without feeling scandalised. They wish it to be considered that it is a false, spurious Christianity which is disappearing, or has disappeared, but that there is a true Christianity which is advancing to take its place. Such may be assured that I do not believe the religion, virtues, and ideas which they label Christian are declining; in a further chapter are presented my reasons for thinking that such religion, virtues and ideas can not be justly described as Christianity in any sense; at present I speak only of Christianity as it is interpreted by the vast majority of its adherents. And this, I maintain, has already declined. Its name preserves popularity, but only because the real substance of its power-belief in its dogmas and sanctions-has passed away, and it has become by verbal fiction associated with the enlightened sentiment of the modern age.

By consensus of all great Christian sects, whether Roman, Eastern, or Protestant, the fundamental doctrines

of Christianity are-1, the Fall of Man; the corruption of his nature, whereby every person has incurred the penalty of eternal anguish; 2, the Vicarious Atonement of Christ; who by his sufferings and death satisfied the Divine Law, and opened a way of escape from the penalty and anguish to all who by faith accept the benefit of his sacrifice; 3, the deity of Christ; which alone could have made his atonement satisfactory in lieu of the whole human race; 4, the publication of this danger, and the plan of redemption, in an inspired revelation, authenticated by miracles; 5, the eternal blessedness of all who accept and believe this plan or scheme of salvation, and the everlasting torment of those who reject and disbelieve the same.

The various Christian sects may severally demand more than this, but, with unimportant and largely outvoted exceptions, they all hold these dogmas as essential to Christianity. And these dogmas, I affirm, have had their day and declined; and I affirm that only because I believe it can be proved.

Now, to what tribunal are we to look for the verdict upon any system of belief? So far as it is a philosophy we must look to the philosophers; so far as it is a cosmogony we must look to men of science; so far as it is a system of morality we must look to the daily life of mankind. If we seek to know whether the Gnostic philosophy has passed away we look among contemporary philosophers to find if it is held by any school or thinker if we inquire whether the Ptolemaic cosmogony survives, or the Mosaic, we look to see if any astronomer believes