[Illustration: The Hindu Trinity.] PART II. IS THE WORLD INDEBTED TO CHRISTIANITY? "But," says the believer, again, as a last resort, "Jesus, whether real or mythical, has certainly saved the world, and is its only hope." If this assertion can be supported with facts, then surely it would matter very little whether Jesus really lived and taught, or whether he is a mere picture. Although even then it would be more truthful to say we have no satisfactory evidence that such a teacher as Jesus ever lived, than to affirm dogmatically his existence, as it is now done. Whatever Jesus may have done for the world, he has certainly not freed us from the obligation of telling the truth. I call special attention to this point. Because Jesus has saved the world, granting for the moment that he has, is no reason why we should be indifferent to the truth. Nay, it would show that Jesus has not saved the world, if we can go on and speak of him as an actual existence, born of a virgin and risen from the dead, and in his name persecute one another--oppose the advance of science, deny freedom of thought, terrorize children and women with pictures of hell-fire and seek to establish a spiritual monopoly in the world, when the evidence in hand seems clearly to indicate that such a person never existed. We shall quote a chapter from Christian history to give our readers an idea of how much the religion of Jesus, when implicitly believed in, can do for the world. We have gone to the earliest centuries for our examples of the influence exerted by Christianity upon the ambitions and passions of human nature, because it is generally supposed that Christianity was then at its best. Let us, then, present a picture of the world, strictly speaking, of the Roman Empire, during the first four or five hundred years after its conversion to Christianity. We select this specific period, because Christianity was at this time fifteen hundred years nearer to its source, and was more virile and aggressive than it has ever been since. Shakespeare speaks of the uses of adversity; but the uses of prosperity are even greater. The proverb says that "adversity tries a man." While there is considerable truth in this, the fact is that prosperity is a much surer criterion of character. It is impossible to tell, for instance, what a man will do who has neither the power nor the opportunity to do anything. "Opportunity," says a French writer, "is the cleverest devil." Both our good and bad qualities wait upon opportunity to show themselves. It is quite easy to be virtuous when the opportunity to do evil is lacking. Behind the prison bars, every criminal is a penitent, but the credit belongs to the iron bars and not to the criminal. To be good when one cannot be bad, is an indifferent virtue.