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anism, and it is in nowise necessary to the work of social amelioration. Often it is a hindrance by diverting 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.^ This is another apologetic effort which is a fatal concession. In the record the miracles are plainly put forward to authenticate the person; if they are construed in the other way they are, in an age whose mores are penetrated by instinctive scorn of magic and miracles, a dead weight on the system. The apology therefore wins nobody, but interposes a repelling force. An apology is always a matter of policy, and it would be far better to drop miracles with witches, hell, personal devil, flood, tower of Babel, creation in six days, etc., in silence. The various attempts of the eigh- teenth century (Butler, Paley) to sustain religion or theology by analogies, design, etc., are entirely outside of our mores. The philosophical or logical methods no longer have any force on the minds of any class in our society. When a church is only a slightly integrated association for ethical discussion and united social effort, religion ceases to be, and when religion withdraws entirely into the domain of metaphysical speculation, it is of no account. In the middle of the nineteenth century those Protestants who wanted to maintain religion for itself, or as an end in itself, did what the situation called for; they made religion once more ritual and tried to revive the "Catho- lic faith" without the pope. That would be a revival, to a great extent, of mediaeval ecclesiasticism and mores. We are therefore witnesses of a struggle to stem the tide of the mores by concerted action and tactics in the interest of mediaeval religion. At the same time the mores of modern civilization
• Robbins, A Christian Apologetic.
