IT is commonly said that the world is fast becoming pagan. And it must be admitted that the indications which can be cited as supporting this belief are not confined to Red Russia. Such indications, however, are apt to be exaggerated because they are patent, while the contrary proofs are apt to be overlooked because they are not so easily seen. Furthermore, the deepest interest in ethics or in theology is not always shown in ways that different people are disposed to expect; hence, it is not always correctly estimated or recognized. Moreover, concepts of God are changing; so, also, are concepts of religion; but these changes do not necessarily mean that people are becoming irreligious or pagan.
In 1928, Professor Charles A. Beard edited and issued a book entitled "Whither Mankind," containing sixteen articles by different authors who handled different parts of this subject. The article on "Religion" was written by the historian, Professor James Harvey Robinson, in the course of which he said (p. 268) : "The word religion represents something that practically all those who have turned their thoughts on the matter regard as an essential to social and individual welfare; as the great and only barrier against moral corruption and intolerable anarchy. Nevertheless they come to no agreement on what religion is, or even what things are religious." As regards religious tendencies, Professor Robinson found (pp. 272, 283) a "shrinking of the dominions of religion" — "an unmistakable tendency toward the secularization of human affairs. That is to say, less and less goes on under religious guise."
In 1930, Professor Beard issued a book entitled "Toward Civilization," containing fifteen articles by engineers and scientists on different phases of the mechanical or technological civilization of the present time. In the introduction (p. 1) he said, "As the concern of the churches about the other world declines in intensity, their activities, directed to the improvement of this, inevitably increase." At the end of this book (p. 305), in his summary of the preceding articles, Professor Beard spoke thus: "And what of religion? As a system of dogmas respecting the supernatural, these writers pass it by; they do not here pretend to penetrate its high mysteries. Where religion has anything to present in terms of human conduct and welfare, they are concerned with it."
