What has been the fate of the Pagan gods will be the fate of the Christian deity. Christianity, which supplanted the ancient faiths, will, in turn, be supplanted by other religions. On two continents already the cross has gone down before the crescent. The belief in Christ as a divine being is passing away. The creeds, as of old, affirm his divinity, but in the minds of his more enlightened followers the divine elements are disappearing. What was formerly believed to be supernatural is now known to be natural. What were once living verities are now dead formalities. Slowly and painfully, but surely and clearly, men are becoming convinced that there are no divine beings and no supernatural religions--that all the gods, including Christ, are myths, and all the religions, including Christianity, human productions. In the words of Jules Soury, "Time, which condenses nebulae, lights up suns, brings life and thought upon planets theretofore steeped in death, and gives back ephemeral worlds to dissolution and the fertile chaos of the everlasting universe--time knows nought of gods nor of the dim and fallacious hopes of ignorant mortals." With these sublime pictures--a retrospect and a prophecy--from the gallery of the great master, I close this long-drawn subject: "When India is supreme, Brahma sits upon the world's throne. When the sceptre passes to Egypt, Isis and Osiris receive the homage of mankind. Greece, with her fierce valor, sweeps to empire, and Zeus puts on the purple of authority. The earth trembles with the tread of Rome's intrepid sons, and Jove grasps with mailed hand the thunderbolts of Heaven. Rome falls, and Christians, from her territory, with the red sword of war, carve out the ruling nations of the world, and now Christ sits upon the old throne. Who will be his successor?" "I look again. The popes and priests are gone. The altars and the thrones have mingled with the dust. The aristocracy of land and cloud have perished from the earth and air. The gods are dead. A new religion sheds its glory on mankind.... And as I look Life lengthens, Joy deepens, Love intensifies, Fear dies--Liberty at last is God, and Heaven is here." End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Christ, by John Eleazer Remsburg