"Still we have won a plot of ground--men's and women's hearts. To them Secularism has a message; to them it brings a rule of conduct; to them it gives a test of morality, and a guide through the difficulties of life. Our morality is tested only--be it noted--by utility in this life and in this world."** Mr. Foote was not less discerning and usefully explicit, saying: "Secularism is founded upon the distinction between the things of time and the things of eternity.... The good of others Secularism declares to be the law of morality; and although certain theologies secondarily teach the same doctrine, yet they differ from Secularism in founding it upon the supposed will of God, thus admitting the possibility of its being set aside in obedience to some other equally or more imperative divine injunction."*** * "Why Are We Secularists?" National Secular Society's Tracts--No. 8. By Charles Bradlaugh. ** "Secular Morality." National Secular Society's Tracts-- No. 3. By Annie Besant. *** Secularism and Its Misrepresentation, by G. W. Foote, who subsequently succeeded Mr. Bradlaugh as President of the National Secular Society. For several years the _National Reformer_ bore the subtitle of "Secular Advocate." We could not expect early concurrence with the policy of preferring ethical to theological questions of theism and unprovable immortality. We accepted the maxim of Sir Philip Sydney--namely, that "Reason cannot show itself more reasonable than to leave reasoning on things above reason." We are not in the land of the real yet, common sense is not half so romantic to the average man as the transcendental, and an atheistical advocacy got the preference with the impetuous. The Secularistic proposal to consult the instruction of an adversary proved less exciting than his destruction. The patience and resource it implies to work by reason alone are not to the taste of those to whom a kick is easier than a kindness, and less troublesome than explanation. Those who have the refutatory passion intense say you must clear the ground before you can build upon it. Granted; nevertheless, the signs of the times show that a good deal of ground has been cleared. The instinct of progress renders the minority, who reflect, more interested in the builder than the undertaker. What would be thought of a general who delayed occupying a country he had conquered until he had extirpated all the inhabitants in it? So, in the kingdom of error, he who will go on breaking images, without setting statues up in their place, will give superstition a long life. The savage man does not desert his idols because you call them ugly. It is only by slow degrees, and under the influence of better-carved gods, that his taste is changed and his worship improved. The reader will see that Secularism leaves the mystery of deity to the chartered imagination of man, and does not attempt