we have a most powerful commentary on the Sermon on the Mount.  By some critics who could express their views freely about “Les Miserables” while hesitating to impugn directly the authority of the New Testament, Monseigneur Bienvenu was unsparingly ridiculed as a man of impossible goodness, and as a milksop and fool withal.  But I think Victor Hugo understood the capabilities of human nature, and its real dignity, much better than these scoffers.  In a low stage of civilization Monseigneur Bienvenu would have had small chance of reaching middle life.  Christ himself, we remember, was crucified between two thieves.  It is none the less true that when once the degree of civilization is such as to allow this highest type of character, distinguished by its meekness and kindness, to take root and thrive, its methods are incomparable in their potency.  The Master knew full well that the time was not yet ripe,—­that he brought not peace, but a sword.  But he preached nevertheless that gospel of great joy which is by and by to be realized by toiling Humanity, and he announced ethical principles fit for the time that is coming.  The great originality of his teaching, and the feature that has chiefly given it power in the world, lay in the distinctness with which he conceived a state of society from which every vestige of strife, and the modes of behaviour adapted to ages of strife, shall be utterly and forever swept away.  Through misery that has seemed unendurable and turmoil that has seemed endless, men have thought on that gracious life and its sublime ideal, and have taken comfort in the sweetly solemn message of peace on earth and good will to men.

I believe that the promise with which I started has now been amply redeemed.  I believe it has been fully shown that so far from degrading Humanity, or putting it on a level with the animal world in general, the doctrine of evolution shows us distinctly for the first time how the creation and the perfecting of Man is the goal toward which Nature’s work has been tending from the first.  We can now see clearly that our new knowledge enlarges tenfold the significance of human life, and makes it seem more than ever the chief object of Divine care, the consummate fruition of that creative energy which is manifested throughout the knowable universe.

XVI.

The Question as to a Future Life.

Upon the question whether Humanity is, after all, to cast in its lot with the grass that withers and the beasts that perish, the whole foregoing argument has a bearing that is by no means remote or far-fetched.  It is not likely that we shall ever succeed in making the immortality of the soul a matter of scientific demonstration, for we lack the requisite data.  It must ever remain an affair of religion rather than of science.  In other words, it must remain one of that class of questions upon which I may not expect to convince my neighbour, while at the same time I