much as his life is worth) to venture a suggestion that Christians are not "God's chosen people" in any exclusive sense. They forget or reject St. Peter's affirmation, "God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that revereth Him and worketh righteousness is accepted by Him." Who ever yet heard a sermon preached in any reputable “orthodox" Christian Church from this text-except it were to undervalue it and explain it away? What reputable "orthodox" Christian Preacher, Priest, Bishop, or Theological Professor can to-day be found who even dares to openly advocate the impartial study of Comparative Religion-all the Religions of the world gathered in one Parliament-with all their Sacred Books open side by side, and all their representative men accorded the equal courtesy of free and honest speech?

VIII.-DEGENERACY-CHRISTIANITY NO EXCEPTION.

So much as to the fact that the average Christian (like the average Jew, Mohammedan, or other bigoted Religionist of the world) strenuously asserts that his Religion is "an exception," both as to its Teachings, which are infallible, and as to its institutions, which are not subject to the law of Tendency to Revert. But let us pass from Christianity as one of the great religions of the world to Christianity as divided into numerous sects and schools. The average adherent of each one of these sects and schools makes this claim, as against all the others, that his sect or school is certainly "an exception." The average Roman Catholic affirms this. Protestantism may indeed revert-in fact, has already half reverted-to Heathenism. But Roman Catholicism revert the one and only true and infallible Church revert to Heathenism? Never!

The average Greek Catholic affirms the same of the "Most Holy, Blessed, and only Orthodox Church" to which he belongs, as against both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. The average Protestant affirms the same as against both Roman Catholicism and Greek Catholicism.

Those who call themselves Anglican Catholics, or Church of England Protestants, or Protestant Episcopal affirm that, without the "Apostolical Succession" and certain other essential characteristics which they claim to possess, there is no "true Church"; hence the average "Churchman" will have no "dealings" with any of the other Protestant "sects" -counting them all as degenerate and likely to degenerate more and more. The same they affirm (but with much less severity) of the Greek and the Roman Churches; while of their own "Catholic and Apostolic Church" they affirm such a degree of infallibility as renders it impossible for it ever to revert to its original Heathenism. On the other hand the average adherent of any one of the hundred or more Protestant sects affirms substantially the same of his own sect as against all the others. And finally, as we have already suggested, all average Christians, of all the Protestant sects as well as of the Greek Catholic and Roman Catholic, are united in this one respect (and in this one only) that they persistently believe all other religions of the world already so degenerate as to warrant their being called False Religions; and so rapidly degenerating that they are, all alike, certain of speedy collapse and utter decay; "but Christianity-never!”

Is then Christianity an exception to the otherwise universal law of degeneration or tendency to revert? Does this law find no application here? Is there no danger, need there be no anxiety here-though everywhere else there is alarming danger and cause for ceaseless anxiety? Let us glance at a few of a thousand facts of history which plainly show how futile and foolish is this claim that "Christianity is an exception."

To begin with:-1. Christianity's first and greatest apostles, the Twelve Disciples, reverted so quickly and degenerated so rapidly that one of them sold his Master for money; all the others deserted him and fled in his time of sorest extremity; while the chief one of them all, St. Peter, thrice lied and with profane curses and oaths, in the presence of Pilate, denied that he was even acquainted with the man

whom, a few days before, he had saluted as "Messiah the Son of the Living God." And many years later, this same St. Peter so reverted and degenerated again that "for fear of the Jews he dissembled" and played both the coward and the hypocrite in refusing to stand by his previously professed convictions of Christian toleration and charity.

2. The saintly St. Paul was so painfully conscious of this tendency to revert and degenerate that he testifies to "beating till it is black and blue" (a free translation) his body, in order to hold it in subjugation; and even in his old age he exclaims: "I exceedingly fear and tremble lest, after I have preached to others, I myself shall become a castaway.'

3. In the Book of Revelation, which closes the New Testament canon, we find it recorded that large portions of the Christian Church-indeed every one of its seven great geographical divisions to which the Apocalypse was addressed— had already reverted so far as to deserve severe reprimand for various heathenish corruptions and errors to which they had returned, while others had so rapidly degenerated as to become "Anti-Christ." And future Anti-Christs were foretold and pictured in most repellent and horrible forms.

4. The reversions and degenerations of the second, third, fourth, and every succeeding Christian century-increasing and deepening as the centuries came and went are too numerous, too sad, and too well known for us here to recount. Coming down to the eve of the twentieth century, let us glance at the condition and tendencies of Christianity as we find it to-day.

5. After nearly nineteen hundred years of zealous efforts at self-propagation, "making disciples," not always with the method of Jesus, by "preaching the Gospel to every creature," but, as well, by proselyting, bribing, driving, compelling-resorting to sword and rack and dungeon, to anathema and scorn and contempt, to proffers of wealth and position and honor, to promises of heaven and threats of hell hereafter-after all these many centuries of such zealous efforts at self-propagation, by methods of mingled good and ill, what has Christianity accomplished so amazingly different

from what other great religions have accomplished, as to entitle it to reprobate them all as "false religions," while it alone is so infallibly true as to be "an exception an exception" to otherwise universally prevailing laws? Putting aside the past, what are the actual conditions and tendencies of Christianity at the close of this nineteenth century?

Roughly stated, according to statistics, three fourths of mankind are still zealous adherents of the 66 pagan or false" religions. One fourth of mankind are nominally Christians. Of this one fourth of mankind who are nominally Christians, three fourths are zealous adherents of Roman and of Greek Catholicism. So, one fourth of mankind are nominally Christians; and one fourth of the nominal Christians are nominal Protestants. Of these nominal Protestants three fourths are not professed Christians. So, of nominal Protestants only one fourth are professed Christians. Of these professed Protestant Christians—such an insignificant fraction of mankind-it is not for us to judge how many there are to whom the Divine Master-in his now invisible but ever-present personality-is saying, as he said to the pious formalists and ritualists of old, "Ye hypocrites, how can ye escape the condemnation of Hades?" and again: " I never knew you: depart from me ye that work iniquity." Professed Christians are by no means the same thing as genuine Christians, whether Protestant, Roman Catholic, or Greek Catholic. Most Protestants think that there are very few, if any at all, of genuine Christians outside of the Protestant Churches. The Roman and Greek Catholics not only so judge with reference to each other, but join heartily to return the compliment-with redoubled emphasis to all the Protestant sects. Though there is doubtless a great deal of truth in the counter-charges, it would be better for all sides to observe the injunction of the Divine Master-" Judge not."

6. With these rough estimates and these counter-charges as to genuineness before us, disheartening as it is, we are still more disheartened by learning from recent statements of the "great Evangelist" of orthodox Protestantism, publicly made at revival meetings in the city of New York, that

40,000,000 of souls in Christendom (more likely to be 100,000,000) are to-day unreached by any form of Christianity, to say nothing of the three fourths of mankind who are still pagans! Moreover, he assures us that "last year in two Protestant denominations alone, 3000 churches report no accessions." From other sources we learn that, in the United States of America, all the churches and chapels and mission halls taken together do not provide sittings for one third of our population. Of these sittings for about one third of our population, on an average, fully one half remain unoccupied on every Sunday, except on some such special occasions as Christmas and Easter Day, when the decorations and music are to be especially fine. These sittings for about one third of our population, not more than half of which, on an average, are occupied, are-as any observer in any part of our country must have often noticed-occupied by at least six girls and women to one man, with rarely a young man or a child to be seen. The men, as a rule (and large numbers of women also), especially those of the more scholarly, refined, and moral classes, are practically not influenced, and seemingly will never be, by what is known as Orthodox Christianity. What is true of the United States of America, in the above regards, is substantially true of all Protestant communities everywhere; and, largely true, also in all the more civilized and intelligent communities of Roman and Greek Catholicism. To these general statements is added another from unprejudiced and authoritative sources with reference to the arrested growth of what are known as Foreign Missions. What these Missions have accomplished to date, so far as statistics of converts are concerned, may be inferred from a glance at Asia alone. Three fifths of the entire population of the earth-more than 700,000,000 of souls-inhabit Asia; and all these, to-day as firmly as ever, adhere to the Buddhistic, Confucian, and Mohammedan Religions-except about a half million of Protestant, and ten millions of Roman and Greek Catholic Christians. After so many years and so much money spent in zealous propagandism, only about a half-million out of more than seven