It has brought out with great clearness the contrast between the higher world and the world of sin, and has shown the need for a break with the evil in the world.
It has given to man a belief in freedom, and in the necessity for a complete change of heart.

It has proved a source of deliverance from the feeling, of guilt, and a comfort in suffering.

Indeed, considering all the facts, there seems to be no doubt that, of all the solutions offered, religion has been the most powerful factor in the history of mankind.
Its influence would continue for the present and future, were it not that doubt has been cast upon its very foundations, and had not circumstances arisen to take men's minds away from thoughts of a higher and invisible world, and to concentrate them to a greater extent than formerly upon the world of sense.

The progress of the natural sciences has done much to bring about the change.

Christianity made man the centre of the universe, for whom all things existed, but the sciences have insisted upon a broader view of the universe, and have deposed man from his throne, and given him a much humbler position.