The obvious answer is, that the more sincerely you believe a lie the more dangerous is your faith. The more trustfully you build upon a sandy foundation the sooner and greater will be the fall and ruin of the superstructure. The more implicitly you confide in a dishonest partner or agent the more successful will be his robbery. There is no safety in error and falsehood. The Westminster divines well said, “Truth is in order to righteousness.” There can be no true righteousness inherent in a system of superstition and falsehood. The failure of the Church to reach the masses and to establish a condition of public honesty superior to the ancient heathen morality shows that there must be some serious defect in its methods. But the crushing objection to theological agitation and free discussion is the common one that “it is unwise to unsettle and destroy the faith of the people in the dominant theology unless there is something better to offer them as a substitute.” There is something better. Truth is always better and safer than falsehood. In the discussions which are to follow an attempt will be made to show that there is a _natural religion_ which accords with enlightened reason, and which cannot fail to furnish a firm scientific foundation for _the highest morality_. The common saying, that “it is better to have a false religion than no religion,” contains two groundless assumptions—viz. that it is possible for a man to have _no_ religion, and that that which is false may be dignified with the name _religion_. It is about time that things should be called by their right names, and that superstition and falsehood should not be deemed necessary to public morality. For a religion (so called) of superstition and falsehood there must be a religion of _natural science_ that cannot be overthrown, and which cannot fail to make its way among men as knowledge shall increase and the principles of true religious philosophy shall be better understood. We should not be frightened at the cowardly cry of “destructive criticism.” We _must_ pull down before we can reconstruct. CONCLUSIONS.