Old article on Mission

Modern Though & Mission

By T.E. Slater

Bangalore A paper read before the Madras and Bangalore Missionary Conference

It cannot be denied that we are living in apparently revolutionary times; and that during recent years some great and start­ling changes have taken place in the theological world. New or neglected-truths have with unusual rapidity been brought to light. The allied studies-literary criticism and historical research; the studies of com­parative religion and comparative language, have been pursued with the greatest ardour, correcting and broadening our ideas of the Bible and Christianity. Physical science, by its marvellous conquests, has put men in possession of truths regarding the universe and its laws, which have modified to a considerable extent our conceptions of Nature, and with them our theological systems. Modern- spiritual philosophy, with its “inner light," its spiritual discernment of the heart, has relaxed the hand of autho­ritative dogma, and given a new voice to the Christian Gospel; while the rise of the modern democracy, with its new conscious­ness of the strength of the people, its reverence for all that is highest in man, has been enlarging our conception of redemption, and changing the complexion of much of our Church life. These movements, which we may characterize as those of critical science, comparative science, physical science, spiritual science, and social science, have been reflected in much of our national poetry, and in many great thinkers, preachers, and writers of modern times. Wordsworth and Tennyson, Browning Whittier, Coleridge, Neander, Thomas Erskine, McLeod Campbell, Ewing, Maurice, Robertson, T. H. Green, Stanley, Kingsley, Beecher, Bushnell, Baldwin Brown, not to mention a strong array of living teachers, represent one vast current of modern spiritual thought.

The consequence is that many old beliefs have been breathed upon by the "time spirit"; and their influence on the minds of the present generation is quietly passing away. Opinions, to question which half a century ago would have been branded as disloyalty to Christ, are to-day set aside as untenable by many Christian thinkers. People in the West have been breathing a new atmosphere during the last twenty or thirty years, and can no more hold as uncontested truth all that their fathers held before them than can the Hindus of the present day. Now, nothing whatever is to be gained, but much harm is done, by shutting our eyes to these facts. Surely we should discern the “signs of the times," and take an interest in what many of the best and most spiritual minds are thinking about and feeling after, as distinct from what are merely tendencies. Why should modern religious thought be inferior to medieval? Its scientific thought certainly is not.

(1) New Light on the Bible

Among other things, and foremost, we have to recognise the fact that the Bible lies within the field of this fresh light: that investigation must penetrate even the sacred domain of religion. And it seems to show a sad lack of faith to cry out against it, or to be fearful of the issue. It is still worse when a worldly policy would stifle inquiry; as in the case of the minister who refused to examine critical questions lest his opinions might have to undergo changes that would terminate his "usefulness" to his congregation; and of another who de­clined to attend to discussions of escha­tology lest it should constrain him to burn a part of the capital he had amassed in his stock of sermons!

Happily, the cry for reality is loud and deep; men must make clear to themselves what it is they believe, and why. It is a matter of vital interest to many who have not parted with evangelical Christianity to know how the new truth coheres with the old. And that I take to have been the sig­nificance of the Summer School of Theology that met at Oxford in 1892. It must have been a noble and an assuring sight to look on expert scholars and devout Christian men who, through the methods of modern study, had found a sure foundation for the facts of the old faith; who could freely assert the rights of historical criticism, and at the same time maintain a thoroughgoing faith in the supernatural. Ground for jealousy and alarm exists only when criticism is pursued with the express desire to eliminate the supernatural. There are critics and critics – rationalistic and rational; unscientific and scientific; destructive and constructive; atheistic and Christian.

We have heard a great deal of late years about the “higher criticism," which undertakes to inquire into the age and author­ship of the books of the Bible, and to pass judgment on the historical character of their contents. The fierce and hostile criticism to which the Scriptures have been subjected during the present century is but a reflection of the spirit of scepticism in regard to ancient history and writing in general; for the ancient his­tories of Greece and Rome, as well as of Israel, have been relegated to the region of myth. But the historical fabric which the “higher criticism" claimed to have destroyed is being reconstructed by the archaeologist and decipherer. The lands of the Bible have been explored, and the patient spade has rebuked, the hasty pen. The past has yielded up its dead. The discovery of the monuments of Egypt and Assyria and other Oriental lands has done for the Old Testament records what the discoveries of Dr. Schliemann did for the early traditions of Greece; has witnessed to the existence of writing in the ancient world, and to the substantial accuracy of the historical statements of the Bible.

Thus the destructive work of the higher critics, disfigured as it has been by a spirit of arrogance and scepticism, has not been barren of results. It has elucidated points that had previously been neglected, and has caused the text of the Old Testament to be minutely examined in a way that cannot but be helpful to the cause of truth; just as, the New Testament, given back to us from more than this; it has given place to the work of a very different school, which is broad and open. and not narrow and dogmatic. The spirit of rational, scientific criticism is, above all things, a spirit of reverence. It accepts a Divine revelation, given gradually, and culminating in the Incarnation. Its method is constructive, not destructive. From this we have nothing to fear. The faith "once for all delivered unto the saints" is our most precious legacy and nothing is more worthy of being earnestly contended for. Only what is unworthy of belief will be shaken and destroyed. Let the position be reverent and inquiring; open to the light; welcoming fresh knowledge; ready to shift its ground should good reasons appear; humble, flexible, progressive; and the cause of truth must gain.

It is this desire for honesty and truth in theological as in scientific matters which lies at the bottom of that very general desire in creed-holding churches for a re­statement of Bible doctrine - a revision of venerable “Confessions," such as may correspond to the facts of Christian history and of man's spiritual nature - which is one of the most notable features of our time. For it is alike the prerogative and the instinct of Christian intelligence thus to revise and revitalise its beliefs in the light of new knowledge and new tests; so did the leaders of the Protestant, Puritan, Methodist, Oxford, and Evangelical move­ments. The out breaking of the indwelling “Word" in men must speak or sing in new and quickening strains. Medieval concep­tions that have so long crushed the life of the Church are giving place to a broader, freer, kindlier faith; and the fresh current of liberal theology is renewing the spirit and power of many communities. The expansive movement of the modern Church really starts from a "renascent theology”; the new practice is the result of a fresh grasp of the old faith. While the move­ment is in process, restlessness and discon­tent there will inevitably be; but it is the uneasiness and impatience of the early spring as it breaks loose from the chill spell of winter, and hastens to greet the glory of summer.

For the greater part of the Middle Ages the Bible was subjected to no inquiry at all; but directly the great event called Protest­antism came, and light began to shine in the darkness, the inquiry was assured. Strange as it may seem, the terrible process known as the" higher criticism " originated with Martin Luther, who first ventured to treat the Bible - much in the way George Fox treated it - in "a natural, simple, truthful way;" and so with his quiet candour unhesitatingly rejected from the Canon the Epistle of James and the Book of Revelation as of "no theological import­ance." But Luther was a bold exception.

The Reformers and Puritans, as a body seeking for some infallible authority to set over against the disputed authority of Rome, not unnaturally fell back on the more Jewish acceptance of the holy oracles. These, they held, were infallibly inspired from cover to cover. And the Church has suffered, mentally and morally, ever since. An infallible standard is a sure temptation to a mechanical faith. In­fallibility always paralyses.

Now the higher criticism has done good service in "delivering from rabbinism," or enslavement to the letter of a holy book mis­interpreted and idolised, in making the real Bible to supersede an unreal. We now understand better what the Bible is.

Renan, in his autobiography, tells us that he was brought up to believe that Chris­tianity was bound up with the infallibility of Scripture; so that when he found that there were statements in the Bible irrecon­cilable with fact, he had no choice but to abandon Christianity, for he knew of no middle position between accepting the whole and rejecting the whole. If he had been taught differently, he would probably have remained a Christian. Such is the history of scepticism in many minds. The Bible is "infallible as a guide to Christ­ - infallible in its substance though not in its form, as a whole, though not in each particular part, in the spirit though not always in the letter." The truth lies in the drift, in the totality of meaning. Literal and mechanical accuracy in minute details was evidently not aimed at, and has not been attained.

We are familiar with the complexity and difficulty presented by several of the narra­tives of the Old Testament - the different accounts given, for example, of the Crea­tion, of the Flood, of the Exodus, of the Ten Commandments. These difficulties vanish if we accept one of the proved results of Biblical criticism, which has made a most valuable contribution to our knowledge of the Bible. I refer to the composite character of the Pentateuch and other parts; that we have several historical documents of different ages combined, whose materials have been drawn from diverse sources. If we separate, for example, what are called the Elohistic or Priestly and the Jehovistic or Prophetic sec­tions in the Book of Genesis, the story of the Flood becomes clear and intelligible. And so with other apparently inconsistent accounts. Such an hypothesis may, of course, affect the authorship of certain books, and the old belief that Moses wrote the Pentateuch in its present form may have to be given up; but it is certain that most fruitful consequences for a right in­terpretation of the Old Testament follow from such a discovery. Early Hebrew his­tory is very much like other history, and must be interpreted in the same way. Old Testament traditions have grown and varied as they have done elsewhere. And the actual facts which lie at the basis of these traditions must be ascertained by applying the principle of historical inquiry to the component materials sup­plied to us.

Of course the voice of scholarship is not unanimous on many points, and not until it is we may well take up a position of conservative caution; but we cannot shut our eyes to what is going on, and we must value truth above the most cherished convictions. And one of the most valuable results of Biblical criticism has at any rate been not merely a deliverance from a blind, slavish idolatry of the mere letter of Scripture, but that indifference to the Bible has become impossible. There has been a remarkable growth of Bible study in recent years. The old Book has more readers than ever; while "Helps" to the study of the Bible are sold by the million.

Comparative Religion.

(2) Another study that has been zealously and devotedly pursued, and that has affected theological and missionary thought, is that of Comparative Religion. It is through the medium of comparison that modern knowledge chiefly grows; and if theology is to become a modern science, we must widen the sphere of religious thought. This view of religion is thoroughly Pauline, besides being in harmony with the best ages of Christendom. We are indeed but recovering a noble standpoint long lost by the Christian world. And what has the study taught us? That we must not limit the idea of religion to any special time or place or creed: that no religion is wholly bad, that none has a monopoly of the truth. We have been taught to discover points of agreement in different forms of faith; and to attach a new significance to the deep and beautiful words of John: Christ, "The true Light which lighteth every man coming into the world.” and to Christ's own words: "I am the Light of the world." We need not now place the Christian Scriptures in sharp antagonism to other sacred books, seeing that truth is a unity, and that our Gospels have an affinity and relationship not only to the Hebrew, but to other non-Christian writings - Christianity being the complement and correction of pre-Christian faiths.

The study of comparative religion is already aiding missionary work, especially in a land like India. The unique position hitherto given to our Scriptures has produced the impression that Christianity is a local religion connected with the Hebrew Shastras, but having no affinity with those of other races. I believe this impression partly explains the slow progress of Indian missions. But the interest of the people will be awakened as they come to see that in Christ and Christianity their own highest truths are transfigured and fulfilled. I was delighted to see advertised lately a little book by an Indian native missionary entitled "Christ in the Vedas," which attempts to show how the true doc­trines of incarnation and sacrifice were shadowed forth in those ancient times. This is a fruitful line of thought too little pursued by our Indian Christians, and one of India's greatest needs is a sanctified native Christian scholarship that will think out these subjects for itself; interpret India's past to the present age, and not continue to simply echo the shibboleths of Western missionaries.

Must it not also afford the very highest motive and stimulus to missionary toil - ­fire our ardour and confirm our faith - to know that God has "never left Himself without witness"; that the scope of the Divine purpose is ampler than we dreamed; that wherever we go we find that God has been before us in the power and the teaching of His all-pervading Spirit; that we do not bring Christ and the heathen together for the first time; but that the religious lights of pagan lands have been unconscious emanations from the " Word of God," the spiritual revealer of God and of truth from the beginning? Without such an assurance missionary work would have no meaning, and would be a hopeless task. And does it not throw light on the dark, perplexing question of the salvation of the heathen in pre-Christian times? That question has never been properly faced and many Christian teachers would find themselves at a loss for a satisfactory answer. But when we realize that the historical period of Christ’s life and effort was but of an eternal feeling of the Divine heart; that the spiritual Christ was in the world He made, as its Teacher and Redeemer, prior to His incarnation, the one way of salvation for all ages and races is not difficult to see.

Science and the Bible.

(3) Coming now to modern scientific discoveries, culminating in the doctrine of evolution, we find that they have given many a shock to our popular theological ideas. But is there really anything to startle or alarm? “Whoever is afraid of science cannot believe in God." Because Charles Kingsley was not only a Chartist but an Evolutionist, he was reckoned by some" as bad as bad could be." And it was many years before a Christian teacher ventured to utter the dreaded word Evolu­tion save with bated breath. Now, how­ever, the idea has invaded almost every domain of thought; and we are becoming familiar with the notion that "a continu­ous progressive change according to certain laws" covers not only society, but religion, applies not only to society but to the Bible. Of course it is not atheistic evolution, by chance medley - a process utterly incredible-but Christian evolution, with a designing intelligence behind it, that so many thoughtful minds are studying - a theory of life per­fectly consistent with the supremacy of God and with the freedom of man, and, indeed, opening to us, in its ascending types, a new and wonderful vision of the Divine way in the creation and ruling of the world. If we accept the theory, we have undoubtedly to re-read the third as we have had to re-read the first chapter of the Book of Genesis; to find “an ideal portrait of man in his spiritual and Divine relations - a revelation of the meaning of life and of the principle of moral development to the full understanding of which he is meant to grow." Darwin, like Galileo and New­ton, will cause men to re-read their Bibles, but they will be none the worse for that. Dr. John Owen said that Newton's dis­coveries were" against evident testimonies of Scriptures; they were against traditional interpretations of Scripture, many of which it is the province of science and historical criticism, under the Providence of God, to correct and remove.

Good and honoured men there have been who thought that the truth of revelation stood or fell with the account of the creation given in Genesis, as commonly and literally understood. But it is now generally admitted by Christian scholars that all attempted reconciliations between Genesis and geology are as hopeless as they have been endless; that, as the late Professor Elmslie said, if the order of sequence in creation was meant to be chronological or historical, then either geology or Genesis was all wrong; that it was a mistake to treat that part of Scrip­ture as in any degree a physical record of creation. It was not geology; it was theology. What it gives is not a creed, but a God-the glorious personality and character of the great Creator, the design of the writer being to reveal and enforce religious truth. As such, this ancient chapter has accomplished a moral and religious revolution in overturning superstition and paganism, dualism, poly­theism, and atheism. And it means more, not less, than it did a generation ago, before the light of science was brought to bear upon it. It is now better understood and more honestly believed in that it has ever been before.

So with the Old Testament as a whole. The theory of a gradual growth, of a pro­gressive development in revelation, from dawn to perfect day, of a process of composi­tion and “canonisation "carried on under human limitations, instead of a sudden and complete illumination or a continual miraculous intervention, has been full of light, and has done immense service. The assaults of Ingersoll and other sceptics on the so-called “Mistakes of Moses," and on the imperfect morality of the Old Testament, might never have been made if the Church had formulated a doctrine of revelation accounting for these mistakes and immoralities, on a principle which satisfies the thinking man. The Old Testa­ment history is a faithful record of a race being trained to know God and to love righteousness, and it shows us the steps in their progress.

The aim of scientific theology is thus con­structive. True theology must be a growth. Without change and growth life cannot be. Where there is life there is progress. There is no worse enemy to a living Church than a propositional theology enforced by tradi­tional authority. There is nothing vital to add to such a system. “The living organ­ism grows; the dead crystal increases;" and the latter state has, alas! been truer of theology than the former. Scientific theo­logy, on the other hand, seeks to clear Divine truths from those accretions of human error that have stopped its own growth, and too often proved stumbling­ blocks in our brother's way. And what it is doing for the Old Testament it is doing also for the New-freeing the Gospel of Christ from scholastic and metaphysical conceptions really foreign to its essence; from traditional admixtures which hinder its acceptance by fair-minded and earnest men. It is often grievous to find how, not merely in the lower class of free thought journals, but by writers of culture like the late Cotter Morison, the spirit and aims of Christianity are completely misunderstood. I lately read a book, "Problems of the Future," by S. Laing, which I know has converted to agnosticism some inquiring Hindu minds, in which repulsive Cal­vinistic conceptions and views of the literal infallibility of the Bible are set forth as Christianity. The Christian is represented as afraid of light, and capable of swallowing any absurdities; as a selfish creature whose one object is to save his soul, that salvation consisting in escaping future punishment. The Church is surely responsible for such misrepresentation, in so far as it has allowed faith in Christ to become identified in the popular mind with faith in Scripture or faith in a certain theory of the Atonement and in a number of propositions regarding Christ, and without accepting which, a man cannot be a true Christian, thus making faith need­lessly difficult and to many minds repel­lent. What Christ required was that men should accept Him as the Lord and Ruler of their life and follow Him; and we have no right to ask more.

Return to the Primitive Gospel.

(4) And this, happily, is what the Church is coming back to. The present develop­ment of Christianity, under the quickening influences of the Spirit and the consequent spiritual discernment of the heart, is plead­ing for a return to the primitive Gospel. The original interest of the Church was moral rather than intellectual. The original faith centred in the ever-living Christ. But Greek thought brought With it a meta­physical interest in dogmatic theology, and Roman ideas a great ecclesiastical organi­sation; and most of the Churches have hitherto rested on these as their bases of union and bonds of fellowship, deeming it “more important to define God's mysteries in councils than to get His righteousness done in the world." It was brought as a charge against the old evangelicalism that its doctrinal preaching of the truths of Christianity had become so unreal and ineffective as to be without influence on the life; that the ethical side of the Gospel was ignored; that the acceptance of the ransom and substitutionary theory of the Atone­ment, without any moral effort to realise its spirit, was "fatal to progress in the upper path of goodness." This explains the appearance of the Broad Church party; but its destructive work is done. It is a characteristic feature of the new orthodoxy that it emphasizes the moral element in Christianity; that “its test of inspiration is not, like the old, a flawless and infallible statement, but a moral illumination; its account of atonement not" a legal satisfac­tion but a moral reconciliation; its limit of probation not in a term of years but in the possibilities of moral discipline."

While insisting on the fundamental evangelical truths, some of the best spirits in the West are trying to enforce these truths in such a way as to make them real to the individual soul-a quickening in­fluence in the thought and conduct of men. Creed there must always be, though short, simple and portable; but creed translated into character and life. In a word, the Christian ideas are not to be presented in a system, but in a Life. The essence of modern religious thought is that it is Christo-centric; its theology radiates from the personality of Christ-the centre and light of the whole Bible. Christianity is not a “body of Divinity"; it is Christ ­the living, reigning Christ. The present age is rediscovering Christ; going back to the sources; getting behind the Christologies to the Jesus of the Gos­pels. He is becoming more and more available, and His religion more intelli­gible to the moral nature. We are to put ourselves in the place of the first disciples; follow the Master whithersoever He goeth; come into living personal contact with Him, till our mind and heart and life are possessed with His Spirit. Christ Himself is the beginning and the end, the first and last word of Christianity.

The Social Gospel.

(5) And, lastly, this moral interest is essentially social. The growth of the democracy, the social and political up­heaval of recent years, the changed conditions of industrial life, are seen to be silent forces by which God is help­ing His Church to understand the Bible and Christianity better. There has been a too wilful shutting of the eyes to the fact that a widespread indifference to religion exists among a large number of the more intelligent men of the working-classes, and this is largely due to the unreality and in­efficiency of Christian ministrations; to the ignoring till quite recently of the social question; to the conservative attitude of the Church as “the custodian rather than the almoner of truth and grace"; to the feeling that religious institutions are “proud monuments of a past glory rather than living witnesses of a present power”. What has been the relation of the Church to social economics? How many ministers of the-Gospel have influenced and guided the social movements of our time?

These are questions that no doubt affect the West more than the East; but they are fast assuming a significance among us also, and in our ministrations will have to find a place. India presents a splendid field for social Christianity. No land has suffered more from social woes; and we need to pre­sent Christ to the earnest reformers of India as the Pioneer of Progress, as the Solver of all social and political problems. We need a statement also for' Indian Christians on the subjects of marriage, money, debt, jewels, intemperance, litigation, and many other weaknesses affecting the purity and power of domestic life.

Christians in the West, at any rate, are waking up to see that the term" religion" has been much too limited in its meaning, and its sphere of operation far too con­fined. Many matters affecting social life and well-being-education, politics, trade, art, science, and philosophy-have been largely untouched by religion. A few years ago it was never imagined that the land question in England and Ireland, or the principles regulating capital and labour, had a religious side. Religion has been claimed as exclusively the pro­perty of certain orthodox systems, and having to do with ecclesiastical specula­tions and observances. And what has been the consequence? Many other efforts of the human spirit, such as science and art, have been forced into a position of indifference or hostility; and, what is worse, we have now to reckon with the sullen and dangerous socialists and secularists of the day. It is high time to restore Christ's large conception of salvation - the idea of a "kingdom" or social state of righteousness and joy on earth, as distinguished from the narrow notion of res­cuing a few souls here and there from final shipwreck; insuring a few lives from eter­nal perdition. It is high time to make manifest all the world over that Christianity is in living sympathy with all that concerns human welfare, a great moral and social lever for setting the world upon its feet; that " Christ's blood has been sprinkled upon all things"; and that the elevation of society, the redemption of the whole 'of the earthly life, are to be in­cluded in the "the saving plan”. Nothing affecting humanity can be alien to the Christian.

The present age is offering a rare opportunity for rejoicing of these great beliefs. And, happily, there is in the “forward movement" in the West a broadening application of Christianity to life - the Christianising of social institutions, philanthropic enterprises, crusades against poverty, vices, cruelties, and oppressions such as no past age has witnessed. Christian brotherhood is the watch­word of the day, and Christ is becoming once again the "Good Samaritan," the "Great Physician." What are called, Institutional Churches "are springing up among the. Congregationalists of America ­churches that, recognising the duty of Christianity to the whole man, provide not only for preaching and worship, but for the administration of charity, and for the per­vading of the whole community with a healthy, Christian spirit. Instruction in socio­logy, led by Professor Tucker, of Andover, is given, to students in some of their theo­logical seminaries. When shall we have these things in India?

The Duty for Missionaries.

(6) And this brings me to that part of my subject which I must leave others to solve. What is our relation, as missionary teachers and workers, to these movements of modern, thought? We certainly hear very little about them, and probably some of us think very little about them. The old teachings and methods continue, and the difficulties do not grow less. Are we to ignore the new positions altogether, or to refrain from speaking about them? We may, of course, shut our ears and close our eyes to the doubts and inquiries of the day, but they will go on just the same. And it is becoming increasingly evident that we must be prepared either to answer clearly and convincingly questions con­cerning the Bible and related subjects, such as were not raised a few years ago, or to see many 1osing their hold of Christ and Christianity. Surely we are not at liberty thus to dispose of difficulties that are hin­dering the faith of many. We must sub­stitute certainty for doubt, and greatly simplify our creed. And the ascertained results of recent criticism and larger knowledge and sanctified thought will greatly help us. We cannot keep such results or any knowledge of the present day shut up in a box. Nor, if we could, ought we to desire it. All truth is God's truth, and the Church and the world will be gainers for knowing it. And it is far better that such subjects as we have been considering, allied as they are to, the most sacred things, should be learned from Christian teachers rather than from the columns of free thought journals. Should we not be all the better if we had received no false notions about the Bible in our childhood? We might have been spared many a shock to our religious faith if we had received a different kind of teaching. Let us not make the same mistake with others by giving them views of the Bible which they will have to unlearn in the future; let us try to save the young from the mental disturbances of later years.

If we accept any of the conclusions at which I have glanced, we must notice them; and if so, what shall we say about them in the family, in the Bible-class, in the theo­logical seminary, in the pulpit, to our native fellow-workers, to the people gener­ally? We should refer to them frankly and distinctly. Compromise, accommoda­tion, and suppression will not do. What is held should be held with intelligence and "without lurking doubt of its substantial truth." Let us refrain from teaching wrong notions about the Bible. Let us teach that it is inspired - as no other writings have been - ­the veritable Book of God, "able to make men wise unto salvation"; but let us not say that every word from cover to cover is from above; that all the books are equally inspired; that Ecclesiastes and Esther are on the same level as the Gospels; that Moses wrote every line of the Pentateuch, and David everyone of the Psalms; that Ezra and his colleagues, when they issued their revised code, did so with reverential regard to textual accuracy. Let us not convey the impression that the Bible must either be accepted as throughout infallible or not at all; that Christianity is bound up with the inerrancy of Scripture or with any theory of inspiration. If we do, we shall most certainly defeat our aim as teachers, and drive many to unbelief. Let us candidly admit difficulties and contradictions when they exist, and avoid forced explana­tions. They will often be due, as we have seen, to two versions of the same story, and the composite character of the text will be found to solve many problems. Let us not hesitate to say that fearless inquiry into the literary history of Scripture is going on, and that it need not be rationalistic, any more than clinging to traditional beliefs necessarily implies a religious spirit.

Shall we continue attempting to show that the story of creation in Genesis is to be read literally, and corres­ponds with the conclusions of modern geology, or distinctly admit that the Bible writers lived in an age when science was unknown; and that we have various accounts of creation and of the early stages of human history, current among Eastern nations, as they were pre­sented to the Hebrew mind, their inspirations, like the rest of Scripture, lying in the high ethical and spiritual truths they teach? Shall we continue to offer the ex­planation of the universe as furnished by orthodox theology, and teach that the world was created in six days, some six thousand years ago, &c.; that the old theory of special miraculous interpositions ac­counts for all phenomena; and not add, that to many minds, such as Bishop Temple's, a Christian theory of evolution "seems something more majestic"? Be­cause the genealogies in Genesis most distinctly limit the duration of man's existence on the earth to a few thousand years, shall we still maintain man's recent origin and fall, falsified though that has been by the discovery in all quarters of the globe of innumerable human implements and remains, belonging to remote geological ages? Or, in the interests of a theological system, shall we continue to contend for the universality of the deluge, and the preservation of pairs of all wild creatures in the ark, and treat the narrative of Eden or the story of Jonah as literal history, and not allow that we may reasonably and reverently conceive of the one as a moral allegory, setting forth a living fact of spiritual experience in rela­tion to temptation and sin, and the other as an "historico-parable of inestimable value in broadening the conceptions of men as to the mercy of God"? So with other narratives that surprise even children, such as the sun standing still at Gibeon, the miracles of Elisha in the Book of Kings, and the wonders of the Book of Daniel. Are we to be reckoned faithless if we confess that they may be poetical or legendary in their character, while inter­woven with genuine historical records? But far more important are the moral difficulties of the Old Testament. Shall we permit these to suggest to others false ideas of the character and providence of God, or adopt the only safe solution, and readily admit the defective moral standard - the mixture of good and evil in the men and women of those primitive ages?" Most certainly true and most evidently human:" all helping us to understand and trust better the working of the Divine Spirit in heathen lands as well as in the Christian Church at the present day, where we meet with so many imperfections, such feeble, glimmerings of the light that is from heaven. And in dealing with the New Testament and the many misconceptions of the Gospel shall we not hold that a man’s salvation does not and cannot depend on the view he takes of the Bible, still less on the theories which different Christians hold concerning it, nor on any particular view of the atonement, nor on belief on everlasting punishment, the question of future destiny being a mystery too vast to rest on the forces of an adjective or on any isolated text; but that the declaration of pardon through simple faith in Him who died, apart from all theories, is the perquisite keynote of preaching?

In short, shall we not simplify our mes­sage, impose fewer intellectual burdens, and try to make faith easier? To require at the outset the acceptance of creeds that took centuries to crystallise is only to bewilder; to start a convert in life with a full-blown theological system is the sure way to stunt his growth. All his days, instead of work­ing towards truth, he must needs work from it, and "a cheap theology often ends in a cheap life." Let us put life above dogma, the spirit above the letter. Let us rejoice to be - what in one word is the essence of modern religious thought - Christo-centric; and from there reach out to apprehend that wider conception of salvation - a Divine Economy that covers all the interests of social life. Let us deepen our faith in the never-ceasing presence and working of God's Spirit in the world in the past and in the present, believing that He may speak as truly and authoritatively to-day in the enlightened Christian consciousness as in the oracles of bygone ages.

But far be it from me to urge or even to suppose that all that I have ventured to bring forward should be accepted. Each one must judge in such matters for him­self. Probably some feel that they have no cause to trouble themselves about these subjects, or that the time for dealing~ with them here has not yet come. Others, again, would no doubt say that nothing has been advanced which has not already been accepted by them. However that may be, I cannot but think that the consideration of these questions has a special importance in a land where we are striving to present a new faith to a thoughtful and inquiring people. In this difficult but glorious work, have we not sometimes had to correct misconceptions that have been handed down, and that have impeded the cause of truth? And shall we make the work of our suc­cessors still more difficult by perpetuating certain errors, or by failing to recognise certain established facts?

At no period does the full-orbed charac­ter of truth appear. The Christianity of the Churches is always very far from being the Christianity of Christ; and the great need of every age, while sitting with docility at the feet of learning, is to repair to the old Gospel, to learn what the faith really was " which was once for all delivered unto the saints."

"Let knowledge grow from more to more,

But more of reverence in us dwell;

That mind and soul, according well,

May make one music as before,

But vaster”.