--It is with this view of religion, this feeling about it, that the evolutionists have to deal when they endeavor to free themselves from the charge of irreligion. This is a state of the case which some of them do not seem to appreciate at its full importance. They shirk it, or at least they slight it; but Mr. Savage, it must be admitted, meets it fairly and boldly. He takes the position that such a view of religion is unworthy of a reasonable creature, and he brushes it aside with little ceremony and with some dexterity. But his chief difficulty is with the conception which lies at the foundation of all religions--the idea of god. Granted a god, or gods, and religion follows as a matter of course; and conversely, no god, no religion. Therefore the evolutionists, those of them who feel, or who see the necessity of a religion, of whom Mr. Savage may be taken as a fair representative, go about to provide themselves and the rest of the universe with a god, and they do it in this fashion. It is shown to the satisfaction of the evolutionists, and also of very many who have no respect for their theory, that the Mosaic cosmogony--that is, the account in Genesis of the creation of the earth and its inhabitants, and all the visible universe--has never been proved, and is incapable of proof, and that it holds its place in popular belief solely because of its supposed connection with Christianity; that it is merely a tradition (from however high and venerable a source), and that it rests upon no knowledge or study of the facts which it professes to explain; that it is in no way connected with Christianity, which would stand on its own merits equally whether the world were six thousand or six million years old, and whether it and its inhabitants were made in six days or six aeons; that it--the Mosaic account of the origin of the world--explains nothing, but simply tells dogmatically that God made all and that God did so and so; that no intelligent person would think of resting satisfied with the Mosaic account, had it not come to be regarded as a requirement of religion to do so, but that this has become so fixed that the whole orthodox system is the natural and logical outgrowth of the Mosaic account of the beginning of things: "the prevailing belief about God, the nature and the fall of man, total depravity, the need and the schemes for supernatural redemption, the whole structure, creed, and ritual of the Church, the common belief about the nature and efficacy of prayer meetings, the whole system of popular revivals, limited salvation, and everlasting punishment"--all and each being built on the foundation of the Mosaic cosmogony. Therefore for the vast number of intelligent thoughtful people to whom the Mosaic account of the creation is no longer authoritative, although it may be mythically instructive, the foundation of their religion is gone. It is then assumed that religion must rest upon a veneration for the creative power or agent to which the