The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1869-01-24
The WORLD WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY.

While Catholic writers are constantly an
nouncing the failure of Professionalism, and
Protestant writers are constantly announcing
the failure of Catholicism, there is third
class of writers who philosopher or romanti-
CHE upon the broad, but usually yelled or i'm
plicit, assumption of the failure of the Chris
tan religion itself. 1t is not to be denied that
these last constitute a formidable school
In modern literature; a sort of profane or
pagan school whichis respectable and inhuen-
tial enough to have made it quite fashion
ariong the large and increasing circle of edu-
Gated people who are free, as they fancy, from
religious prejudices, to speak of Christianity
as decayed and effete beyond the possibility
of regeneration. But these apostles of reli-
gious decadence and their disciples signally
mistake, as we think, the signs of the times.
Those signs indicate crisis, indeed, in the
religious history of the civilized world An
eventful turning point, momentous transit
ton, are at hand doubtless. But candid
survey and study of the diagnosis of what
some regard as the last sickness of doomed
religion, will much more forcibly suggest the
expectation of a new evolution of Christianity,
than the belief in its imminent death.
The fact is that, let the so-called rational
lists reason as they may, it is impossible to
form a rational concept on of the absolute
and final decay of religion as developed in
Christianity. The highest manifestation of
the religious element in human nature, it
may appear in new and improved phases and
FINN tha ID &c
experience new conditions, tendencies and
aspirations but, conceivably, it can not
perish while civilization lives and human
progress lasts.
Meanwhile, there are those who, imagining
that the fall Of the whole fabric of the Chris
tan religion is near at hand, want to know
if the world would not gain by the loss for
they ask, what, after all, has Christianity
with its ideal of moral perfection, done for
the improvement of mankind? But let us ask,
In return-and the retort is perfectly logical
where is the ground for rational hypothesis
that the world would have been better off, or
as well as off in any particular, moral or phys
ical, without Christianity? 1t is profound
ly and sadly true that it has not ban
ished sin and misery from the earth.
But were there no sin and misery on the
earth before the Christian dispensation
was proclaimed? That it has not exalted
mankind, even Christian men and women as
common parlance has them, to the moral like |
ness ofthe Messianic lawgiver, is also most true.
But is this the fault of the precept or example |
which it commended to their contemplation |
If So then we must assume that it is criminal |
jurisprudence that makes criminality, and that
the true way to set about reforming the wick
ed and converting society into a perfect con-
dition in which all would live decently, hurt
nobody, and give every one his due, is to re-
peal laws of every kind and discard even the
names of justice, right and duty. But it is
plain that if human nature should continue to
abound, as now, with vices and imperfections,
his method of reform would be simply social
suicide and moral nihilism. And yet those
who assert the failure of Christianity because
mankind are still dreadfully far from approx
nation to its ideal, must also assert the fulfil
ty of all codes, human or divine, and the ex-
)ediency of abandoning every principle on
which society is organized and civilization and
Progress are maintained.