In these days of enlightenment and higher thought, the vestiges are everywhere seen of our fifteen centuries of misdirection. Almost every Christian life bears the impress of these cruel Hebrew traditions. The commander of a battleship in the war with Spain, after his slaughter of numbers of the enemy, assembles his men to give “thanks to the Lord,” and the next moment cautions them not to cheer because “the poor fellows are dying,” illustrates, that mingling of Jewish superstition with the teaching and example of the Master, to be observed everywhere in our present civilization. The inherent religious impulses of mankind--natural religion--some of which, finding no more congenial quarters, is attracted to the churches, regard war with feelings of greater repulsion than does orthodox theology, indoctrinated in the belief of its divine sanction, and consequently, the success of the American arms, so plainly due to natural causes, was celebrated by the churches in the usual ancient Hebraic method by “thanks to the Lord.” The supreme intolerance of Christianity which has wrought such havoc with mankind, is plainly due to the suggestions of Hebrew scripture, and it is only the natural religion within the churches, and that large portion outside of them, which is forcing Christianity into a purer worship, and destroying its superstitions. It demands for all things, holy as well as unholy, the right of critical examination, and it sees but little else in our Sacred Book worth preserving, outside the sermon on the mount, and its extensions. It is this natural religion of conscience, encouraging and encouraged by science and reason, which has wrested the control of civilization from ecclesiasticism. Its intellectual strength prevails at last over the intellectual strength of theology; but the unthinking of the multitude are many, and the battle commencing four centuries ago still lingers, theology backed by its weak numbers, its old weapons destroyed, and science by its strong men with searchlights.