their appropriation of the spirit of Christ, that now most interests us, and that is fundamental to the stability and prosperity of the Church. The missionary movement is an educator in this realm as no other single movement can be, and in our calculation of its results and recension of its history these less visible but more deeply imbedded consequences of its progress should be emphasized, both for their value and because they more than make up for the financial deficiency that has caused lamentation throughout our Zion. Impressing higher truth upon the Church, and training ourselves into harmony with God's ideas and God's plans, the gifts of the people will increase until the treasuries of the Lord will be filled with the treasures of the hosts of God's elect people.

THE THEOLOGICAL TENSION.

It is a symptom of approaching soundness in theological belief that against the resistance of a hoary and cherished conservatism it is undergoing an analytic examination, with added tests of its character, tendency, value, and truthfulness corresponding to exact and accepted biblical teaching. Only partial results have, up to date, been proclaimed; but these, taken singly or together, justify the attempt to reconstruct the form of theology as it may have been found to be self-contradictory, or reduced to a theory of negations bordering on agnosticism, or framed in the interest of a sect, or based upon superficial acquaintance with the truth it professes to represent. The theological spirit is an inquiring, penetrating spirit, with a function as distinct and appropriate as the scientific or poetic spirit, and it should employ itself in the furtherance of an exactly literal embodiment of truth so far as human thought may be used to symbolize the cogitations of the divine mind. It is preposterous to allege that theology has attained a maximum expression, or that revealed truth has been unchangeably embalmed in any religious creed, or that extra effort at re-expression is useless if not impious. The fact is that modern theology, an acknowledged improvement over medieval thought, is little more than truth in silhouette-the merest shadow of the essence of that which constitutes the concreted will of God.

In this arraignment of theological forms we carefully distinguish them from the biblical revelations, the beauty, majesty, strength, and divinity of which are yet to appear in some final and perfect human representation. Criticism of theology must not be interpreted as a criticism of the Bible, as artistic judgment of Murillo's "Magdalen" must not be confounded with a moral judgment of the model penitent herself.

Within recent years it has come to light that the moral world has been largely governed less by pure truth than by the badly built theologies of men, against which rebellions not a few, both in the Church and outside, have occurred, and which will be more frequent until theology accounts for itself at the bar of reason and the judgment-seat of truth. It requires little proof to establish that the Miltonic theology, saturated with

mediæval conceptions and tinctured with the prevailing thought of the bard's own times, has suggested problems the Scriptures do not raise, and averred as divine teaching that which neither Moses nor the Master precipitated as truth. That animals became carnivorous because of Adam's transgression is scientifically repugnant, and without the support of any type of logic; yet Milton heralded it as an outcome of human sin, and some pulpits have echoed it as if it were based upon a divine warrant. We beg the theologian who sits at Milton's feet to arise and shake the dust from his brain, and find a teacher who is not a poet.

Our standing criticism, however, is of the theology of the Calvinistic type that explained in any way at all, apologized for by its friends and modified by its advocates-has shackled human inquiry, paralyzed human activity, and weighted the world with desperation and a sense of dismal fear. To the logical results of the doctrine of predestination, as formulated by the Westminster theologians, the world righteously demurs, condemning the spirit that prompts its utterance, and the faith that has no other reason for clinging to it than that it is an inheritance.

The doctrine itself is a reflection on the divine administration, not to say a violation of the canons of reason in the interpretation of truth, for truth is harmonious with itself. But other teachings abound in antinomies which other theologies espouse, but for which there is no justification other than human ignorance or the imbecility of the human faculties. The thinker must admit that some difficulties grow out of the relations of foreknowledge and responsibility, sin and eternal retribution for it, atonement and salvation; but he need not despair over these and other correlated truths, or pronounce them, as did Dr. Leonard W. Bacon, absolutely insoluble. The scape-goat of our failure correctly and rationally to interpret truth is said to be its insolubility; but in that event on what ground may faith in it be predicated? The intelligent mind revolts at the requirement of a superstitious or unreasonable faith, or a faith grounded in theological ipse dixitism. If divine truth, as revealed, were unintelligible and beyond all power of human expression, a faith without a grain of wisdom in it, and dark as midnight, might be required; but truth is knowable, explainable, rational in essence and form, easily apprehended, and requires faith in itself because it is rational and in harmony with pure intellective processes under the guidance and illumination of the Holy Spirit. Bacon's maxim, Sola spes est in vera inductione, applies here as well as to its original object. It is not less faith in, but greater knowledge of, the truth that the human mind should acquire and maintain. In insisting upon this phase of the religious life we are not unmindful of the dangers it involves; but it is better to free ourselves from the old bondage of superstitious faith, and begin to inquire why we believe, as well as to be sure that we believe.

Just now the Andover theology-particularly the supplemental dogma that vouches a second probation after death for infants, idiots, and the heathen who have not heard the Gospel-is embarrassing some minds; but this is a swing of the pendulum from the inevitable logic of the stubborn

.Calvinistic fathers, who could condemn infants and heathen to perdition with seeming pleasure, because in their limited judgment the truth favored such destiny. Out of this quagmire of false teaching the theologian will lift himself when he will think of the truth, not as his revolutionary mind has conceived it, but as it shall appear in essence to his real reason.

While truth is thus talked of, not as truth but as a problem, as contradicting itself, or as insoluble, the Rationalist comes forth to add confusion to the circle of thinkers by declaring that the sources of truth are unreliable, leaving the impression that truth itself is a lost force, whose trail only is seen in the alleged book of revelation. To theologians in general the Bible is the book of truth, a vantage-ground not to be surrendered; but the Rationalist disturbs faith, not in the truth, but in that which hitherto has been accepted as the record of moral ideas and of the highest attainable religious supernaturalism. He declares that Moses did not write the Pentateuch; Isaiah is not the author of more than one half the document that bears his name; Ezra edited a good portion of the sacred canon; and the prophets borrowed from one another, fitting their prophecies into harmony with one another; and he therefore demands a pause in our faith until these discrepancies that he raises are fully adjudicated. The Rationalist himself does not settle them; the believing theologian may not be able to do it; but he cannot ignore the attack thus made, which for the time compels silence on sect theologies and an absorbed interest in the rationalistic craze.

Not in all, but in some, of these struggles the Arminian thinker is interested, since whatever is truth concerns him; and as there is but one source of truth he, in common with all thinkers, is profoundly affected by the critical interrogations, demands, and modifications of Rationalism. As to sect theologies he may rest in peace, for the trend of theological thought is toward the best type of Arminianism; as to Rationalism, he must be alert to detect its sincerity or want of it; the results of its researches and the inferences founded upon them; the problematical aspect of its inquiries; and the fatal or final syllabus to which they lead. Granting that Arminianism is in no danger from any source, it must be confessed that some questions, aside from all denominational interest in them, need a larger elaboration and a more definite and systematic exposition than they have received to satisfy faith and reason. The doctrine of inspiration is burdened with too many theories, all of which but one should be expunged from faith; eschatology, unfolded in the Scriptures, is folded up in theology, and is preached with hesitations, uncertainties, and a crude and stammering jargon; theodicy is yet a conundrum, theologians solemnly playing with it and thinking themselves wise.

If we plead for greater theologians-thinkers who will hand us not platitudes, but truths-men who know as well as believe-messengers who dwell in light and drive away darkness-it is because of the dilemmas of the theologians, whose confusions imperil faith in the certainties of religion.

AMERICAN MORAL PROBLEMS.

It is seldom that political elections in this country determine the fate of moral issues, or settle any of the great problems in which the Christian clement is devotedly interested. The immediate effect of the vote of the majority is felt in business circles, the halls of legislation, and the departments of government, while it justly energizes and directs the administration which it has elevated into authority. This limitation of effect is not because of the insincerity of the people, or their abandonment of higher ideas, but because of a partisan intensity that at the time seems necessary and is allowed to submerge all other interests, however vital, and at other times prominent in civil life. In one respect this political narrowness to one object is gratifying, since it proves that moral principles are not the subject of vote; they do not go up or down with majorities, but are inalienable in society, abiding in all ages. Parties are amenable to ethics; ethical principles are not amenable to parties, and in no sense within the grasp or under the dictation of the suffrages of men. The Decalogue is not the football of a caucus any more than the sun is the slave of artists. Independent of political action, because eternal in essence, moral principles may be interrupted and their influence for a time destroyed, or they may be assisted and extended in their authority by the decision of political parties. There are some problems that, prima facie ethical, are so related to political life as to imperil or improve it as parties foster and admit them into their legislation and standards of conduct. Of such are the Mormon question, the use of the Bible in the public schools, the hygienic value of the Sabbath, and all movements that forefend crime, licentiousness, ignorance, and general degradation.

It is, however, a strange fact, for which posterity will surely condemn this age, that political parties, whatever their private moral belief, are shy of distinct moral propositions when political triumphs are at stake, as if the former were incongruous at such a time, or inimical either to the methods pursued or the ends sought by the latter. Without undertaking

to point out the philosophy of this disinclination to moral results on the part of political managers, we deem it worthy of record that, studiously ignored by them, the great ethical ideas are ever before the American people, who will finally awake to the importance of their appropriation and assimilation in life. Elections or not, success or defeat, ignored or played with in hypocrisy, the moral issues are supreme before the people; and neither rain, nor frost, nor epidemit, nor parties, nor oaths, nor sin, nor death can rob them of pre-eminence. Up they come as the survivors of all political maneuvering, rising with every morning's sun, and brisk all the day long in their demand for a hearing and a trial. They knock at our doors, shout in our ears, promise their blessings, and threaten their curses, as a welcome or refusal is extended to them. Hence, we were not a little surprised that in his article in a recent number of Scribner's Magazine, on "Problems in American Politics," the Hon. Hugh McCulloch should lay great stress upon the tariff, ship-building, rights to landed 8-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. V.

property, and the evils of immigration, but have nothing to say of those integral moral problems that lie close to political welfare but which are essentially ethical in spirit and function. The greatest questions before the American people are not commercial, however important they may be, for such questions, tending to absorb the strength and substance, tend also to a materialization of the thought and life of the nation. Ships, tariff schedules ranging from silks to toys, and acreage are neither the sources of greatest prosperity nor the surest means of a nation's defense. The integrity of its citizenship; the education of the multitudes; the extinction of a class and sectional spirit; the virtue of the sexes; the reverence of the youth: the physical health of mothers and fathers; the moral purity of the conjugal relationship; the temperance and sabbatic love of the people, are the indispensable prerequisites of national strength, independence, growth, and security. A nation built upon a material foundation may perish; established in righteousness, the stars in their courses will fight for it, and Jehovah will bless it throughout all its generations. Such ends or social conditions as temperance, social purity, education, the reign of the Sabbath, and the authority of the Bible in civil life must in the minds of the people have precedence over the minor questions of navy, army, systems of trade, and development of internal resources. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."

Insisting upon the sovereignty of moral problems, it is not to suggest the restoration of the Puritanic regime, though Puritanism was the germ of American civilization, or to invite the enactment of "blue laws" for the regulation and surveillance of human conduct. Such is the statesmanship of the great men of the nation that, coupled with a prudential regard for all interests, and a due respect for all sentiments and teachings, wise laws on moral lines are now possible, and for these the demand is strong enough to be heard. The thunder of Sinai and the music of Calvary re-ccho in the nation's ears, and should melt and move the nation's heart. Should these moral problems appear in civil attire, and purely political questions disrobe of rags and put on the garments of righteousness, the hills would skip for joy, and the morning stars might be induced to sing over the work of the Lord in the earth. To this unity of the moral and political in civil life the American people are fast coming, and it is hoped that the near future will witness its consummation.

THE PREROGATIVES OF PHILOSOPHY.

The spirit of the age is scientific, philosophic, and religious-a complex influence in partial and almost unconscious co-operation for the execution of the historic ideal of humanity. Distinct in nature and different in method as are these front-line forces, they so often forget their boundaries and trespass upon those of their neighbors that it is not at all times easy to designate the one from the others, or give proper credit to them in