Returning to the only contention really worth considering, let us assume that there has been moral progress in Christendom, and let us assume also that this has nothing to do with the advance of Humanitarianism in the present, or with pre-Christian (Buddhist, for instance) teaching in the past. Are we to conclude that this is a proof of the divine origin of Christianity? I must confess I fail to see how any improvement which there may be in the matter of coarse vice among the proletariat, of dishonesty among the commercial classes, of corruptness among the professional, and of sensuality among the leisured classes, can be any proof that Jesus, one of the world's reformers, was God Incarnate. Christian teaching embodies precepts of the greatest ethical value, borrowed, as we now know, from the doctrines of ancient moralists and religious teachers. Would it not indeed be strange if this teaching had done no good whatever--if the leaven had had no elevating influences at all, whereas the teachings of Confucius and Buddha have produced those admirable results which even Christians are at last prepared to admit? Dr. Warschauer explains in Anti-Nunquam, p. 72, that Agnostics are good men, "because, willingly or unwillingly, they have taken in Christian ideas through every pore." How, then, does he explain the virtues of the Japanese? Let us now leave generalisation, and investigate in some detail an important Christian argument which has the contention of Christianity's power for good as its source. It forms a striking illustration of the way fallacies may arise from a hard-and-fast adhesion to convictions that are justified rather by the heart than by history. § 2. Christianity Woman's Best Friend. [242] The majority of women still remain true believers. There appear to be numerous reasons, psychological and educational, for their attitude. Woman is more imaginative, more emotional, and more sensitive to external suggestion than man. As to her education, men, even those who have no religious belief whatever, prefer to keep her in ignorance of their views, partly under a vague notion that unbelief would undermine her virtue and lessen her amiability, and partly because they deem her religious influence an essential element in the upbringing of their children. In addition to all this, woman is taught by the Church that Christianity is her best friend. Prominent prelates of the Church proclaim that "the Gospel has given woman the position she holds to-day." [243] Nothing could very well be more contrary to fact. One can only suppose that these expounders of the truth are speaking according to the dictates of their hearts, and without having really studied the question, or else that they believe their cause is served by deliberately closing their eyes to inconvenient facts. The question is one of supreme importance, as it is chiefly women who are now the mainstay of the Faith.