PREFACE.

WHOEVER has had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the
mental condition of the intelligent classes in Europe and
America, must have perceived that there is a great and
rapidly-increasing departure from the public religious faith, and
that, while among the more frank this divergence is not
concealed, there is a far more extensive and far more dangerous
secession, private and unacknowledged.

So wide-spread and so powerful is this secession, that it can
neither be treated with contempt nor with punishment. It cannot
be extinguished by derision, by vituperation, or by force. The
time is rapidly approaching when it will give rise to serious
political results.

Ecclesiastical spirit no longer inspires the policy of the world.
Military fervor in behalf of faith has disappeared. Its only
souvenirs are the marble effigies of crusading knights, reposing
in the silent crypts of churches on their tombs.

That a crisis is impending is shown by the attitude of the great
powers toward the papacy. The papacy represents the ideas and
aspirations of two-thirds of the population of Europe. It insists
on a political supremacy in accordance with its claims to a
divine origin and mission, and a restoration of the mediaeval
order of things, loudly declaring that it will accept no
reconciliation with modern civilization.

The antagonism we thus witness between Religion and Science is