and humility were soon forgotten.  With lamentable rapidity, the elaborate structure of ecclesiastical Christianity, following stereotyped lines of human superstition and deeply coloured by Alexandrian philosophy, displaced the sublime morality of Jesus.  Doctrinal controversy, which commenced amongst the very Apostles, has ever since divided the unity of the Christian body.  The perverted ingenuity of successive generations of churchmen has filled the world with theological quibbles, which have naturally enough culminated of late in doctrines of Immaculate Conception and Papal Infallibility.

It is sometimes affirmed, however, that those who proclaim such conclusions not only wantonly destroy the dearest hopes of humanity, but remove the only solid basis of morality; and it is alleged that, before existing belief is disturbed, the iconoclast is bound to provide a substitute for the shattered idol.  To this we may reply that speech or silence does not alter the reality of things.  The recognition of Truth cannot be made dependent on consequences, or be trammelled by considerations of spurious expediency.  Its declaration in a serious and suitable manner to those who are capable of judging can never be premature.  Its suppression cannot be effectual, and is only a humiliating compromise with conscious imposture.  In so far as morality is concerned, belief in a system of future rewards and punishments, although of an intensely degraded character, may, to a certain extent, have promoted observance of the letter of the law in darker ages and even in our own; but it may, we think, be shown that education and civilisation have done infinitely more to enforce its spirit.  How far Christianity has promoted education and civilisation, we shall not here venture adequately to discuss.  We may emphatically assert, however, that whatever beneficial effect Christianity has produced has been due, not to its supernatural dogmas, but to its simple morality.  Dogmatic Theology, on the contrary, has retarded education and impeded science.  Wherever it has been dominant, civilisation has stood still.  Science has been judged and suppressed by the light of a text or a chapter of Genesis.  Almost every great advance which has been made towards enlightenment has been achieved in spite of the protest or the anathema of the Church.  Submissive ignorance, absolute or comparative, has been tacitly fostered as the most desirable condition of the popular mind.  “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven,” has been the favourite text of Doctors of Divinity with a stock of incredible dogmas difficult of assimilation by the virile mind.  Even now, the friction of theological resistance is a constant waste of intellectual power.  The early enunciation of so pure a system of morality, and one so intelligible to the simple as well as profound to the wise, was of great value to the world; but, experience being once systematised