Although it has been said of human nature that the more it changes the more it is the same thing, it is yet true that at different epochs it is actuated by widely different ideas. The underlying passions are the same, but the forces evoking them vary so greatly that sometimes, as in considering the history of the Middle Ages, we seem to be concerned with beings from another planet. One of the most powerful of these forces is religion; and, though religion in the abstract is assumed to bring out all that is best in human nature, it has in the past only too frequently appealed to and stimulated its baser elements. The evil is due partly to erroneous religious teaching, but probably still more to the obstinate imperfection of the material on which religion has to work. The vast majority of human beings are even now incapable of appreciating and practising an absolutely pure religion, and probably no such religion has ever yet had a fair trial. Dogmatic systems there have been in abundance, but these are not to be identified with religion. It has been one of the most serious drawbacks to the claims of historic Christianity that, disregarding the spirit of its own moral precepts, it has treated religion as a mere system of belief and ceremonial observance, which has defeated the object it was intended to promote.
