against Christianity, but they have perished, while the truth he assailed is filling the world with its influence. Celsus was likewise a heavy antagonist in polemics, but he failed to overthrow the religion he despised. Voltaire said it took twelve men to write up Christianity, but he would show the world that one man could write it down; but Voltaire owned his defeat, as most opposers do, when in the arms of death. Mr. Frothingham, an exponent of free thought, recently confessed that the so-called revealed religion upon which he had been making war was gaining, and that his free-thinking ideas were losing; hence, he abandoned further resistance of that the progress of which seemed inevitable. Thus the great leaders of heresies and heterodoxies have seen how futile has been their opposition to the orthodox type of religious thought, and with what tremendous strides the religion of the New Testament has gone forward in its work of general evangelization.

The same lesson is taught in the utter failure of certain heretical systems and organizations, such as Arianism, Socinianism, Unitarianism, and Universalism, to check the purpose, alter the direction, or impede the success of the religion represented by orthodoxy. They came forth with a spirited determination to overthrow the established faith; they were brave, reckless, defiant, even jubilant; but the Church brushed them aside as Alexander did a province, and, resting in the assurance that the gates of hell shall not prevail against her, she now has her eye upon all the future, and upon all the race as the object of her conquest. Hence, when a heretic writes of the "inevitable surrender of orthodoxy,” as one was pleased to do in the North American Review, he knew not what he was writing about; he knew nothing of the universal failure of heterodoxy and the providential triumph of orthodoxy.

If the testimony of history is worth any thing, it is to the effect that, whatever its incompleteness of form, ambiguity of utterance, or uncertainty of teaching, orthodoxy in essence is the divinely-chosen exponent of the divinely-begotten religion, and is so linked with the providential purpose respecting the world as to receive providential patronage, the sure guaranty of complete ultimate triumph over all error, heresy, and sin; and it is also to the effect that heterodoxy, however honestly espoused or vigorously maintained, has been without divine guidance and can anticipate nothing except extinction. Wise is he who, reading these lessons of history, heeds them to his salvation.

RATIONALISM IN PANTOMIME.*

A controversy on local issues, or social and political questions, may be conducted in the newspaper, or in literary clubs, or on festival occasions, and be disposed of in a fortnight, or even less time, and editors, re

*The critics resort to the daily and weekly press; we must abide a bi-monthly silence before speaking; but we assure our readers that our eyes and ears are open, and telescopes and microscopes are at hand for use, and they will hear from us if it takes all winter and summer.

porters, and interviewed men may share in its progress, and with a single utterance exhaust all their available knowledge or thinking on the subject; but a controversy on a great religious question that strikes at fundamental principles of belief and conduct, and affects the future of the Church, cannot be ended at a barbecue, or by a bonfire, or by postprandial eloquence, or by the temporary display of literary pyrotechnics prepared to order and exhibited with self-conceited hilarity and selfreported satisfaction. The current question in religious circles is the rationalistic march of the colleges, two of which, named in our indictment, after a fitful gasp seem to have already yielded the point, and by silence confess guilt. Yale is in the toils, struggling with tremendous energy to overthrow our accusation of rationalism, and is resorting to the last and, as we shall see, to some questionable means of defense. Professor Harper, spokesman of the rationalists," is now chief spokesman for the University, Professor Ladd having hid himself in the fogs, and is guarding his interests by agencies ab extra, as well as ab intra, and the institution with particular signs of interest in its future.

We understand that, seeing something had to be done to check the tide of sentiment against himself, the Professor took advantage of his position at Chautauqua in August to recover lost ground and reinstate himself as an orthodox writer in the affections of believers. It has been reported to us that a programme of defense was executed at Chautauqua, which placed him beyond further need of vindication, and that his opposers have been overwhelmed and extinguished. It is also well to state that a bird of passage whispered to us that we were annihilated at Chautauqua in one segment of its circle; but we might prove an alibi, for we were not there, and it was no difficult task to extinguish an opponent several hundred miles away. Not only a Hercules, but an infant, could accomplish as much under similar circumstances. But, metaphorically speaking, if we were there and suffered a repulse, we were like General Taylor in Mexico, who, when he was whipped, did not know it. Our helmet is without a bruise, and we have not discovered the loss of a hair from our eyelids. The Rev. Dr. Buttz, of Drew Theological Seminary, writing of that affair, well said, "The case is not thus easily disposed of. . . . In your work of maintaining the supreme authority of the word of God, you will have a grand opportunity and a hearty support."

Professor Harper's plan of defense was pantomimic, in which others appear as his defenders; but they rashly expose the vulnerable points of his creed and policy, and bring us under obligation to them for their frankness and their contribution to our position in this controversy. A little later the professor himself speaks, but through a reporter, apparently showing great progress toward orthodoxy, and bringing us under obligation to him for his ready yielding to discipline. We shall, therefore, note, first, his defenders; and second, his personal self-defense.

Of the few who have spoken in his defense, either at Chautauqua or elsewhere, there is the explanation that they are either Higher Critics themselves, or bordering on theological destructionism, or are related to

him or to Yale by personal or local ties, which greatly militate against the value of their opinions, and are worth nothing as expositions of the critical attitude of the learned professor.

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Whether a part of the programme of defense or not, a Yale dinner, at which "forty men of Yale" were present, was munched on Wednesday evening, July 24, after which several speeches were made in eulogy of several things. "Dr. Harper," says the Chautauqua Assembly Herald, was exceedingly felicitous. He declared that Chautauqua was a branch of Yale," and finished "with an eloquent prophecy as to the future of Chautauqua as a bond of union between the universities of the land." As to the impression made by this dinner, and other Yale exhibitions at Chautauqua, the correspondent of the Pittsburg Commercial Gazette wrote that there was great dissatisfaction this year with the prominence assumed by Yale men, and that Harvard and other institutions were quite generally ignored. If this is correct, it proves that Yale was on the defensive, and monopolized the opportunities of the Assembly.

The chief defense of the Professor was made by Dr. Lyman Abbott, but whether in a public speech or in a free-and-easy talk with a reporter, we are not informed; but it is immaterial. The "defense" was soon published in the San Francisco Chronicle, which led an astute theologian of the coast to write us that the defender's language "unmistakably corroborates your strongest statements, affirming the rationalism of the Professors." This is true, and we may add that such a defense would ruin the orthodox standing of any man in whose behalf it would be made. Among other things, Dr. Abbott says of Professor Harper: "He was among the first to cut loose from the old system of treating the Bible as one book, thinking it unscholarly and not conducive to its highest and best use, and in insisting that it must be analyzed and investigated just as we should analyze and investigate any other piece of literature." Every scholar knows what this position involves, and that it cannot be maintained by one of orthodox instincts. It means that not only the Pentateuch, but also the entire Bible, must be decomposed into fragmentary records, containing traditions and memories, instead of inspired histories, prophecies, and deeds. The hitherto accepted fact of one book is to be superseded by the theory of many books, or a miscellaneous collection of documents, written without interdependence, and without a common divine end in view. This is the exact position of rationalism, and Professor Harper is said to adopt it. Speaking of the Old Testament, Dr. Abbott says that "Professor Harper and men like him have made it a human book." Exactly. What the infidel has always claimed is now established by the Higher Critic; namely, the Bible is a human book, though the moderate rationalist rarely goes so far in his work of reduction as to forget that it contains more than human elements. This is one of the great errors of the critics; they propose to treat the Pentateuch according to the canons of the Homeric ballads, and the Old Testament as they treat Livy and Herodotus. The Bible is a human book, without special claims, and entitled to no consideration on the ground that it is an inspired book.

This is the gist of Dr. Abbott's defense of Professor Harper, but it as positively attributes generic rationalism to him as any thing we have discovered or announced.

When the reactionary defense was secured, the reporter of the New York Tribune telegraphed his paper that it was generally approved by scholars present, "orthodox as well as unorthodox!" It seems, then, that the "unorthodox" were at Chautauqua, to echo the defense in behalf of Professor Harper, but it would be interesting to have a list of their names. Who were the “unorthodox" shouting for the Yale teacher? As for the orthodox, The Christian Advocate, reporting the occasion, stated that there were those among the Professor's pupils (who probably were ministers) that did not accept his views, so that there was at least a division among the orthodox. Dr. Galusha Anderson, of Granville, Ohio, was the only orthodox clergyman mentioned in the Tribune as supporting the defense; but as he said "a man's orthodoxy does not depend on what he thinks about the origin of the Pentateuch," and other rash things, he advertised himself as tinctured with the belief he wished to defend; and as Professor Harper is a Baptist, he thought it respectful to give him the right hand of fellowship in the time of his trouble. One of our bishops is reported as saying some pleasant things of Professor Harper, but we have seen nothing over his signature, and in his reported statement there is no allusion to Dr. Abbott's defense, so that the defenders of Professor Harper at Chautauqua, as named, are reduced to Dr. Abbott and Dr. Anderson. We are told, however, that the Professor is “felicitous," and believes himself vindicated! Such an attempt at vindication is a fiasco, and such a vindication is a confirmation of all that we have maintained.

The second step in the defense is the appearance of the Professor himself, who reluctantly, (?) through a reporter, protests against being considered a sympathizer with any objectionable form of Higher Criticism. The interview" bears the ear-marks of having been prepared, both questions and answers, by the Professor himself; but it is of no consequence who proposed the questions, as he fathers the answers.

The "interview" is a curious compound of rhetorical denial and evasion, evincing a purpose on the part of the accused to misrepresent the issue, or to discuss merely its incidental features, leaving the main point untouched, and therefore undecided. We deem it, therefore, necessary to dissipate the darkness that, like a cuttle-fish, Professor Harper has gathered about himself in hopes of escape from a true warrant of arrest. By actual count the defense contains at least eight denials, direct and indirect, of the general charge of rationalistic proclivities; but a denial without proof is worth just what the weight of his position and authority as a scholar will give it, and upon this preponderating influence he seems to depend. He also applies to us in their varied connections such adjectival epithets as "woeful misconception of the facts," "absolutely untrue," "gross injustice," "absolutely unfair," "entirely untrue," "grotesquely inaccurate," forgetting that superlative denials, epithets,

misrepresentations, and evasions are the drift-wood of shallow controversialists, and indicate barrenness of resources for the purpose in hand. It were easy, if our charges were of the character he describes, and if the Old Testament Student were consistently orthodox, to crush us by lengthy quotations from its pages, which he has not done and which he cannot do. We challenge him to reproduce or point to articles, editorial or contributed, that have appeared in that periodical in the last two years that uphold by argument, facts from archæology, or the internal history of the Bible, the great fact of its supernatural origin and character. An occasional reference to the subject is not sufficient. It must be shown that the periodical has steadily advanced the orthodox view of the Scriptures against the rationalistic tendency of interpretation: but this cannot be done, because the student does not deal with that aspect of the case.

The most astounding statement, therefore, in the "interview," is that "the object of Wellhausen and his school is to disprove the supernatural element; ours is to prove it." Now, instead of Wellhausen, Kuenen, and their followers attempting to disprove the supernatural element in the Scriptures, it is well known that they accomplish their purpose chiefly by ignoring it, and the Old Testament Student in large measure has adopted this method of treatment of the biblical books. When Dr. Harper affirms that it is his purpose in that periodical to prove the supernatural element he is contradicted by his own definition of Higher Criticism, which confines his researches to the investigation of the human life of the Scriptures, and according to which limitation the Student has been conducted. His whole aim is, holding the supernatural in abeyance, to project the human elements into analysis and consideration. Dr. Abbott says that Dr. Harper has made the Bible a human book. It remains for him to show how an almost exclusive exaltation of the human life of the Bible contributes to an intelligent faith respecting its superhuman element. It will be difficult for him to quote any thing from that periodical showing the nexus between the natural or human and the supernatural or divine; and until he makes good his claims they must at least be held as debatable. In partial proof that the claim is unfounded we may report that letters received from former pupils of Professor Harper assure us that some of them have nearly lost faith in the Bible as a supernatural book because of the Old Testament Student, which they have diligently read. While the Professor was enjoying his vindication, and using the reporter as a speaking-trumpet, a "Layman" of New Haven appeared in the Tribune stating the following:

Unless Dr. Harper has been entirely misunderstood in his private teaching, he has plainly declared that the Christian student, after having found out just the language used by the authors of the various books of the Bible and the exact meaning of the language, must apply the final test of his own reason in determining what statements are true and what are to be rejected. And to the plain question of one of his students, "Do you mean to say that if my reason condemns any scriptural statement as untrue I must reject it?" his reply was: "Certainly; for what purpose was your reason given you?"

The student ended by saying: "I shall distrust my own reason and stand by the Scripture when I find what that really declares." And to this Dr. Harper