But it is not only over the Education Question that Science and Ecclesiasticism are[13] virtually at war, although the conflicting principles underlying this controversial difference are illustrated by that dispute. It is not only children who suffer bewilderment by being asked to reconcile irreconcilable elements in their education. Both Science and the Catholic Church profess to be searchers after and upholders of Truth, yet year by year a chasm between them widens as their fundamental differences in procedure become defined; and year by year the number of honest thinkers who cease to regard themselves as members of the Church, or as under her authority, increases. So long as Ecclesiasticism continues to maintain an attitude of resentment towards criticism of religious doctrine, so long must this exodus of intelligence from the Church induce a practical development of the Christian ideals outside ecclesiastical circles. It cannot be too vigorously affirmed that criticism of the pretensions of Ecclesiasticism is not necessarily an attack upon Christianity. Scientific research has never harmed or de[14]molished the truth in doctrine attributed to Christ. Indeed, the simplicity and beauty of His teaching (in so far as this can be ascertained from a careful study of the Gospels) never shines so convincingly, and never exerts greater influence for good upon mankind, than when, under rational criticism, it is freed in some measure from the accumulation of centuries of superstitious ideas too long supported by the approval of Ecclesiasticism. Science has no quarrel with Christianity as such. A Christian Church, cleansed from all that obscures and dishonours Truth—a Church devoted to the practical furtherance of the ideals contained in Christ's Gospel of Love—would always have the ready help and support of Science. It is not from the Gospel of Love that men turn away to-day, but from dogmas antagonistic to reason, substituted for that gospel and taught by the Church as Truth in the name of Christ. It is not out of a spirit of irreverence that men demand evidence of the truth of what the Church offers them[15] as Christian doctrine, but from an earnest desire to be faithful to that ideal of Truth which is surely the religious, as well as the secular, glory of life.