faith in the antediluvian world? Why could not Noah establish and
perpetuate his doctrines among his own descendants before he was
dead? Why was the Socratic philosophy unpopular? Why were the
Epicureans so fashionable? Why was Christianity itself most
eagerly embraced when its light was obscured by fables and
superstitions? Why did the Roman Empire perish, with all the aid
of a magnificent civilization; why did this civilization itself
retrograde; why did its art and literature decline? Why did the
grand triumphs of Protestantism stop in half a century after Luther
delivered his message? What made the mediaeval popes so powerful?
What gave such ascendency to the Jesuits? Why is the simple faith
of the primitive Christians so obnoxious to the wise, the mighty,
and the noble? What makes the most insidious heresies so
acceptable to the learned? Why is modern literature, when
fashionable and popular, so antichristian in its tone and spirit?
Why have not the doctrines of Luther held their own in Germany, and
those of Calvin in Geneva, and those of Cranmer in England, and
those of the Pilgrim Fathers in New England? Is it because, as men
become advanced in learning and culture, they are theologically
wiser than Moses and Abraham and Isaiah?

I do not cite the rapid decline of modern civilized society, in a
political or social view, in the most favored sections of
Christendom; I do not sing dirges over republican institutions; I
would not croak Jeremiads over the changes and developments of
mankind. I simply speak of the marvellous similarity which the
spread and triumph of Mohammedanism seem to bear to the spread and
triumph of what is corrupt and wicked in all institutions and
religions since the fall of man. Everywhere it is the frivolous,
the corrupt, the false, which seem to be most prevalent and most