pedagogues might be at work with something to propose four years hence which will relieve the Church of an anxiety it ought not to bear, and our standard Catechism of a ban entirely unnecessary and injurious.

Great authors usually acquire their reputation from one of many books that they write. Mrs. H. B. Stowe, the writer of Uncle Tom's Cabin, added nothing to her fame by subsequent works; Sir Walter Scott never excelled Ivanhoe; Francis Bacon surpassed himself in Novum Organum; Plato reached the highest water-mark in the Republic; Victor Hugo crystallized in Les Misérables; Shakespeare's maximum is King Lear; Darwin's Descent of Man is his greatest work; Daniel Webster's peerless argument was that in the Stephen Girard will case; Carlyle's Sartor Resartus, the earliest, was his profoundest, book; Dean Stanley is at the top in History of the Jewish Church; Taine in English Literature; Janet in Final Causes; Bushnell in The Vicarious Sacrifice; Macaulay in his History of England; Owen Meredith in Lucille; General Lew Wallace in Ben-Hur, and Swedenborg in True Christian Religion. The inspired peumen are under the rule of limitation. Genesis is the preferred book of Moses; Isaiah's prophecies are superior to his biographies; the Epistle to the Romans is the masterpiece of Paul; John eclipses himself in his gospel; and the Sermon on the Mount is esteemed the richest and completest of the Master's ethical and religious accents. Why is this? Certainly not because of exhausted ability, or disuse of power, or lethargy of effort, for mind enlarges by achievement. If the explanation lies not in non-fecundity of mind, or fixed horizon of subject, or the hedge of the world, it must be found in a law of compensation that permits but the single enduring success to one life. Yet the last hypothesis is cloudy with pessimism.

The arraignment of the respective books of the Old Testament, in particular by Rationalists, has developed a surprising amount of scholarship both in the attack and the defense. In addition to their rejection of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, it is held by many critics that nearly all the so-called books are incomplete and fragmentary, and therefore unreliable except in general teaching. Eichhorn pronounces Haggai a fragment; Knobel believes that portions of the original of Micah were lost in the prophet's day; Bauer attributes the second part of Isaiah to a later editor; De Wette denies the authenticity of Daniel; Gesenius judges that Jonah was written before the exile, while Jahn postpones its composition to a post-exilian period; Job was written by Moses or Hezekiah; Ezra was made up by several prophets; Obadiah borrowed from Jeremiah, or Jeremiah from Obadiah; and the Book of Jasher (Josh. x, 13), supposed to contain an accurate chronicle of Jewish history, perished perhaps long before the canon closed. To some of the allegations there is a plausibility that is fascinating, as the fragmentary character of some of the documents; but this is not fatal to the teaching or design of the document. The four gospels are without doubt the fragments of com

plete biographies, written or unwritten, but this makes not against their authenticity, genuineness, or credibility. The Bible is to be judged, not by what it omits, but by what it contains; and, if it contain all needed truth, it is little matter in what form the truth appears, or whether its vehicle is old, broken, without polish, and insufficient for the strain of criticism, or beauteous, strong, radiant, and perfect. It is confessed that the Masoretic text from which the Old Testament has been translated is imperfect, and in the light of modern scholarship an improved interpretation is possible; but a new translation of the Hebrew, a re-arrangement of the order of the books, and an assignment to them of proper authorship so far as is known, as has been recently done by Professor Graetz, of Breslau, while necessary to overcome the cynicism of the Rationalist, will not result in the modification of any doctrine, the announcement of any new truth, the confirmation of any historic incident, or in the more than possible illumination of some obscurity upon which neither faith nor knowledge rests. The Rationalist has attacked but the form of truth; the truth remains.

The reader cannot fail to observe the addition of another department to the Review, which we have been assured in advance is a great desideratum. "The Arena" affords space for brief scholarly discussion and criticism of live subjects by live men, or is a supplement of the larger department of contributions. He who can say something within the limit of two hundred words to the edification of the Church is invited to forward the mental product, subject to our rules for the admission of articles. The fac-simile signature of writers of published articles is also a noteworthy though minor feature, for the first time introduced into the Review. Other changes in arrangement will be recognized without mention. Our purpose is to provide a symposium for nearly every issue which will be adapted to all classes of readers. This is new to the Review. As the January number contains all the departmental and other changes contemplated by the editor he sends it forth with the hope that as it is considered by its patrons, both ministers and laymen, they will be able to approve its supervision and enjoy its contents. In general, the outside denominational press of the country have extended us a fraternal hand, unless we except a few "crude" and "big-worded" Calvinists, who should not complain of our attitude toward them, since, according to their supralapsarianism and other obsolete dogmas, we were foreordained from all eternity to say that we never had any faith in their doctrinal abominations. We are irenic in spirit, but we propose to defend the truth. With this in view, Arminian Protestantism is in accord with us, and beyond this we have no concern.

CURRENT DISCUSSIONS.

THE MISSIONARY MOVEMENT EDUCATIONAL.

THE net result of the missionary movement is usually expressed from year to year by the amount of money raised in its behalf, the number of conversions reported in foreign countries, and the maintenance of that general esprit de corps that, as a consequence, seems to animate the Church engaged in its prosecution. Along with an annual report is the noticeable tendency to shout when the statistics satisfy or exceed expectations, and to repine and confess a reactionary mood when they reveal a deficiency and imply a burdensome debt on the Missionary Society. This is the tangible or external aspect of the movement, which addresses itself to the average mind with some degree of interest, and which has great prominence in addresses, sermons, and every effort intended to excite enthusiasm, increase subscriptions, and meet apportionments, as the best means of accomplishing the end. Of this method criticism would be cruel in spirit and enervating in effect, for it is vital to success. History derives its importance somewhat from its catalogue of woes, dates, revolutions, reformations, the personal instruments and the producing agencies of its progress. All movements, when completed, may be reduced to statistics and the almanac; but the question is, are not causes and effects of more value than figures and finances? Human conditions, heathenism rife, barbarisms protruding into religions, ignorances fencing the race, crimes uprooting established order, infirmities honeycombing the refinements of civilization, and sins sinking mankind toward perdition, cannot well be tabulated, but the history of the race's slow evolution into progress is, as Mrs. Browning says,

"Coherent with statistical despairs."

Recently the "statistical despairs" have rung in our ears as the exact number of millions of our race to be rescued have been given, and the exact but insufficient means for their redemption have been laid before us.

In our study of the missionary movement it occurs to us that the gross result has not been announced, and that several invisible and yet potent, because permanent, achievements have been omitted. The movement owes much to the educational forces behind it, to the patient instruction of faithful ministers concerning its necessity, and to the spiritual sense of responsibility awakened in the Church by the enthusiasm of those who have been intrusted with its supervision; but holding up the movement rather as a cause than an effect, it has by its reflex influence educated the Church in the spirit of the movement itself, with all its underlying significance and relationship to the world. Instead, then, of considering the educational forces at work for the success of the movement, of which too much cannot be said, it is proper to study the movement

as educational in effect upon the life of the Church, which will open to us, not a realm of statistics, or of alternating successes and reverses based upon them, but a realm of quiet, leavening influence, without which the movement itself must finally cease to attract, or have power to command the support of the Church upon which it depends.

From the first, but in particular recently, the movement has reacted on the Church in educating it in Christ's conception of a spiritual kingdom, and its adaptation to this world. Such a kingdom, long ago foretold as coming; in spirit removed from the natural, yet so adjusted to human conditions as, when incorporated with them, to refine them and exercise a pleasing dominancy over them; a kingdom to the outside observer antagonistic to the world's order, but to the inside member sweetly in harmony with it; a kingdom with death to sin as its aim and the divine Son as the enthroned ruler; a kingdom of truth, righteousness, and peace, with the Holy Ghost as the unseen agent of its progress; a kingdom with the wind in the wings of its messengers, eyes in the wheels of their chariots, and for its guard and commander One with bow in hand sitting on the white horse of the Apocalypse, going forth to conquer; such a kingdom is the Lord's, a knowledge of whose glory shall fill the earth as the waters cover the sea. Along this line of thinking the Church has been guided, as its impulses to do something for the establishment of the divine rulership have evolved into the duties of sacrifice and heroic service for others. And this is necessary. It must grow up into the great thought of God, and open wide its arms to receive the descending plan before it will permanently co-operate with it. The divine thought, too high to be measured, too wide to be stated, eternal enough for angelic inquiry, is becoming a human thought, no longer foreign to us, but our own conception of the world and a life-fusing influence upon our activities and powers.

A study of the kingdom is inseparable from a glance at the outlook, hidden in the perspective of revelation. Turning toward the future, the prophets are summoned into our presence with their scrolls, on which are written the destiny of nations, the great battle of Armageddon, the dawn of a millennium, and the sway of redemption until the sun expires and the heavens are no more. Malachi says, that "from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles;" an assurance that means triumph over the powers of evil and darkness. Perhaps the consummation is distant from this generation, but the sympathetic mind cannot but be absorbed with the final phase of things, and must be enlarged in its perceiving and comprehending faculties as it stretches toward the days of a covenant fulfilled in a world's redemption. It may be that ours is not the chief period of unfulfilled prophecy; but such a period is one of the certainties of the future, as the sequel of the great epic of redemption and as the final and greatest epoch of history, thrilling in its progress and marvelous as the end of the divine struggle. To be drawn into fellowship with the divine programme, and to know that we are coadjutors in its execution, has an inspiring and elevating effect upon a mind with affinities for things spiritual and eternal.

Refined, scriptural, enlarging, as is this process of thought, it is in closest sympathy with that more practical education that inspires the Church to immediate response to its duty, and is the foundation of the highest form of activity. The function of the Church is twofold: it has a duty to itself-a duty of discipline and development of its inner life; and a duty to the world-to enlighten it concerning the will of God, the provisions of salvation, and the necessity of repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not enough that it comprehend the nature of the kingdom of God and absorb its spirit into its own life; it must propagate it until the world is transformed into its beauty and likeness. It is not enough that it believe the prophets, for abstract faith may be powerless; it must concrete its faith in wholesome endeavor to fulfill it. Hence the organization of missionary societies as the expression of the knowledge and faith of the Church in the divine arrangement for the moral elevation of the world. Hence talent, money, genius, labor, and enthusiasm must be consecrated to the great purpose if it be accomplished. Hence methods, expedients, now this plan then that plan, if an advance against Satan is made; hence machinery of all kinds and men of all types working with zeal, devising liberal things, only so that they are in harmony with the immanent thought of God and in unity among themselves, that God's great arrangement may be finally an accomplished fact. In this every-day, systematic working of the idea, and in its value as a sovereign truth, the Church is being educated rapidly, efficiently; some disinclined to the process, but others enlarged by it, and all catching the notes of that music that, sung in heaven, will one day fill earth's atmosphere with its melody and gladness.

Perhaps our deficient religious education is more manifest in the exhibition of the intensive and causative motives that govern in Christian benevolence than in any other department of the Christian life. Happily, the missionary movement itself, propelled too frequently by the lower class of motives, is correcting the general error and amplifying duty based upon a knowledge of the truth that prompts it. It is natural that one not schooled in higher truth should be influenced by what he sees and hears; and that outward, or selfish, or temporary motives should govern him in doing when a knowledge of the true reason of conduct would be an inspiration to higher living and acting. Such motives as denominational pride, the printing of the donor's name in the Conference minutes, the gift of a missionary certificate, the rivalry among Conference pastors for pre-eminence, and stratagems employed to procure funds, may result in temporary success; but, if not discreditable, they are the symptoms of a deplorable ignorance of the highest factors in intelligent and religious doing, and should be supplanted by gospel principles, a knowledge of which is sufficient to lead to ordinary benevolence and all necessary sacrifice, even martyrdom itself. The returns of the latest missionary year of the Methodist Episcopal Church indicate an appalling deficiency in the sums given by the people for missionary purposes; a state of things that some interpret as a reaction in the Church touching the cause of