It has only been with the advance of secular literature that the degrading assumption of St. Paul that marriage is to be regarded solely as a more or less legitimate outlet for lust has been discarded, and the act of love as applied to marriage has come to have any meaning. And in this modern day the conception of the relationship of the sex act to marriage is far from being on the high plane where it rightly belongs. Bertrand Russell comments, "Marriage in the orthodox Christian doctrine has two purposes: one, that recognized by St. Paul, the other, the procreation of children. The consequence has been to make sexual morality even more difficult than it was made by St. Paul. Not only is sexual intercourse only legitimate within marriage, but even between husband and wife it becomes a sin unless it is hoped that it will lead to pregnancy. The desire for legitimate offspring is, in fact, according to the Catholic Church, the only motive which can justify sexual intercourse. But this motive always justifies it, no matter what cruelty may accompany it. If the wife hates sexual intercourse, if she is likely to die of another pregnancy, if the child is likely to be diseased or insane, if there is not enough money to prevent the utmost extreme of misery, that does not prevent the man from being justified in insisting on his conjugal rights, provided only that he hopes to beget a child." What effect has Christianity had upon our moral life, upon crime, drug-addiction, sexual immorality, prostitution, and perversion? These blights upon our moral character existed long before Christianity, and after Christianity. But what effectual check has Christianity contributed? The agitation concerning increased crime after the recent world conflict has brought this subject to the fore, and aroused a great deal of discussion and consideration of this problem. In its relation to religion, we have but one undeniable fact to bring before the thinking public. An examination of the statistics of penal institutions reveals that practically all criminals are religious. _Absolutely and proportionately smaller numbers of criminals are freethinkers._ Although church members nowhere constitute even half the population outside the prisons, they constitute from eighty to ninety-five per cent of the population inside the prison. This can be verified by reference to any census of any penal institution. As strangely as this may strike a great many readers, just so strange did it appear at one time to the multitude that the earth was round. (It is 500 years since the earth was proven to be round, yet there is a large colony of Christians near Chicago officially maintaining that the earth is as flat and four-cornered as the Bible states.) Neither Christianity nor any religious creed has proved an effectual check on civil crime.