speaks with authority; it tries to persuade, and to do this it has to aim at popularity. It wants to attract attention like newspapers, books, the theater, the lecture-platform, and it has to have recourse, like them, to sensational methods. If it cannot command authority, it must try to recommend itself by the power of reason. The current fashion is social endeavor, especially under the forms of charity; thus are set the lines along which the churches and denominations vie with each other for the approval of the public. A church, therefore, turns into a congeries of institutions for various forms of social amelioration, and the pulpit exercises consist in discussions of public topics, especially social topics, "from an ethical standpoint"; that is, by the application of the ethical, or quasi-ethical, notions which are at present current in our mores. What is that but a remodeling of the ecclesiastical institutions which we have inherited, according to the notions, standards, and faiths which are in the mores of our time? Religion, properly speaking, simply falls away. It is not as strong a motive as humanitarianism, and it is in nowise necessary to the work of social amelioration; often it is a hindrance, as when it diverts energy and capital from social work to ecclesiastical expenditures. When theologians declare that they accept the evolution philosophy because, however the world came to be, God was behind it, this is a fatal concession for religion or theology. When religion withdraws into this position, it has abandoned the whole field of human interest. It may be safe from attack, but it is also powerless and a matter of indifference. Theologians also say now that the miracles of Christ are proved by the character of Christ, not his character by the miracles.[1] This is another apologetic effort which
- ↑ Robbins: A Christian Apologetic.
