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."

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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

their conflict with the powers of darkness. Science is especially supercilious and iconoclastic, and without a trace of a natural or borrowed etiquette; philosophy, clothed in ermine and sitting with juridical temper on all the facts submitted to it, is presumptive only when driven out of its calmness by the shock of contact with theologic authority; while theology, robed in sackcloth, and weighted with heavy eyebrows, chants its requiem over error in mournful accents, or enlivens its Sinaitic and Gospel hymnals with outbursts of lightning or the more merciful pyrotechnics of grace. The specialty of science is fact; of philosophy, law; of theology, genesis of fact and law. He is a poor reader of the times who does not acknowledge the service of science in the realm of material forms. It registers facts thrown up by the spade from the crust of the earth; facts turned out by the scalpel as the human body is made to unroll its anatomy; facts dripping from the psychologist's pen as he inquires into the mind's machinery; facts heaped up by the biologist's hands as he fathoms all things for life; facts pointing to the Supreme Power as the sacant threads the avenues of being stretching out toward an infinite border-world. Whatever the motive of the scientist, whether pure love of knowledge, or a selfish acquaintance with the cosmos, or a silent agnosticism of soul, or a cherished alienation from accepted standards of truth, it must be conceded that his toil has been incessant and the reward abundant in the accumulation of material for the construction of universal science. Here his work should stop, but it is here that he turns the corner and commences a new line of investigation that properly belongs to another, and for which his preparation is suspiciously deficient. To this no objection would be made if he comprehended the seriousness of the task, or rose to the dignity of its requirement.

Philosophy is the advanced stage of the human intellect, regulating its work in the light of modern science and according to the canons of the soundest criticism. Its function is interpretation of what is, but the "is" must first be known to exist before it can even be investigated. Hence, science must precede philosophy, and philosophy must cccupy a higher position than science. This explains the slow evolution of philosophic thought from Plato to the present time. Science was a tramp, eking out an existence on philosophy, and both dressed in rags and fed on wind until both were ready to perish and were treated as outcasts. Within our day science, discovering her sovereign capacity to be first in service, is pioneering human thought in the direction of fact, and philosophy is following with tests, criterions, application of intellectual therapeutics, and proposes to institute a final exegesis of the material universe. Hence, a philosophic era is dawning because science has prepared the way.

Assuming the philosophic function, the scientist undertook to explain his facts by the facts themselves, whereas no speech comes from the dust, no fact is self-explanatory, but is implicit with antecedent influence. Finding himself without philosophic equipment, he abjured its necessity, and has berated all attempts to revive the philosophic function as distinct and individual. Happily, the world-fact was against the scientist him

self, and the only question he is now considering is, how to retreat from his advanced line without being discovered, and to resume his normal work with such enthusiasm as will atone for his absence from it.

The philosopher has rescued us from the embarrassment, and limited the scientific dominion to the sphere of facts. To-day, therefore, witnesses quite a march beyond the scientist. Darwin is in the rear. To-day is a-glow with ideas: a larger realm and brilliantly illuminated with terrestrial, if not celestial, gems of light. Every thing does not come to us from below: some things fall upon us from above. The change from facts to ideas has come quickly, sooner than was expected, and materialism has been exchanged for agnosticism; not exactly an equitable bargain, but a gain for the right side. Not a few have denied to philosophy a missionary prerogative, holding that its aim was too lofty to be realized, and that its method was abnormal and inutile. Suddenly, however, it has come to pass that the explanation of things is seen to constitute an inquiry, magnificent, colossal, and separate from the discovery of things, and the philosopher is empowered to orient the universe that the scientist has merely labeled as a fact.

In the blaze of the electric light of present-day philosophy, matter, spoken of by Cousin as more than a thing, stands forth not as a self-caused something, but as the oriental image of a personal thinker and law-giver, a potential maker of worlds without number and responsible only to himself. It may not be the province of the elder philosophy, which partakes of the scientific spirit, to pronounce the name of the Law-giver, but the younger or later philosophy, baptized by a Christian spirit, will proclaim Elohim as the founder of all things and blot out all other titles. The mechanical theory of mind, first tentatively held by Hartley, elegantly expounded by Hobbes, and scientifically elaborated by Alexander Bain, is surrendering to the philosophic conception of mind as a spiritual integer, with independent functions and an immortal life. Life itself, the conundrum of thinkers, is being referred to the All-Source, as partaking of it and finally returning to it. In the foreground of science is a universe alive but cold-a Topsy-figure in unmeasured space; in the great picture of philosophy is a universe, with Deity in the background as Causer, Explainer, the All-Agency in all things. Pursuing its function with the zeal that belongs to it, philosophy will prepare the way for the still higher and more beneficent task of theology, which is to reveal to the thought of man the character, purposes, methods, and works of the all-embracing Deity whom sages ever announced, if at all, with bated breath, because they could not understand him. The prerogative of philosophy, broader and richer than that of science, is less than that of theology; but, as one may see, it is the connecting link between science and theology, as law is the connection between fact and its origin. The birth of science was the birth of matcrialism; the dawn of philosophy is the resurrection of ideas, and the submergence of materialism; the sway of theology is the restored reign of God in human thought, and the consequent extinction of the theoric spirit in opposition to God.

THE ARENA.

As its name implies, this department suggests pleasant intellectual contests among those who differ on philosophical, theological, ethical, social, and political subjects, and a field for criticisms, opinions, and suggestions along any of the lines of thought or action within the province of the Review. The giants of thought may draw their swords and challenge to combat; the critics may expose the weakness of the enemy, or groan over the wounds they have received; inquirers may indicate difficulties in faith, reason, and religion; and Christianity, government, society, and literature may contend, each in its way, for its rights and title to dominion. Thinkers! write, limiting yourselves to two hundred words.

"IN THE BEGINNING," OR "IN BEGINNING "—WHICH? IN the Methodist Review for September the editor asks, "Why do scholars persistently translate (Gen. i, 1) 'in the beginning,' when the article is entirely absent? If the exactly literal translation-‘in beginning'were printed in the Bible it would change the meaning of the verse," etc. It is presumed the Editor raised the question to excite thought, and though I cannot claim to be "the Hebraist," yet I shall give some reasons for adhering to the translation as given in both the Authorized and Revised Versions, and as it is recognized by most commentators and scholars. Though the preposition is absent, is it not implied or understood?

Consider: 1. The word is not a participle, nor a participial noun, nor is it derived from the verb meaning to begin, as used in Gen. xi, 6, which Moses Stuart renders, "This is their commencing to operate, or the commencing of their operations."

2. This word is a noun, meaning a beginning, earlier state, earlier thing, the first of its kind, and is a modified form of 7, a beginning. It is derived from the substantive , ahead, the first, the beginning.

3. The same word (□a1лx¬л), modified by a prefix and a suffix, occurs in Ezek. xxxvi, 11, and means, as it is translated, "at your beginnings," not in your beginning things.

4. This position is supported by a reference to Gen. i, 1, in the Septuagint. The Seventy translated the Hebrew by Ev ȧpxy, In the beginning. The preposition iv corresponds to in Hebrew, and ȧpx?, takes the place and has the meaning of N. As in the Hebrew, so here, the article Tv is absent. Dr. Robinson (Lexicon) says, “¿v åpx?, in the beginning, in the very first, before the world began, from eternity."

5. Dr. Bloomfield on John's Gospel i. 1, says: “¿v åpxy-scil. tov kóσμov, The expression answers to the Hebrew na in Gen. i, 1, which the evangelist seems to have in mind. things; and ev ȧpxí is for έπ' ápxns; to designate eternity."

By ȧpxy is here meant the origin of all

and the expression is evidently meant

6. Both lexicographers and grammarians say that, as a prefix before a noun of time, is equivalent to έv with the dative, and that the Hebrew article, commonly written, corresponds nearly with the definite article the in English, and in Gen. i, 1, is a prefix to yx, earth, and to op heavens. And the reason the article is omitted in a is, it suffers syncope after, and gives up its vowel to the particle. The syncope of the article is common. (Stuart's Grammar, sec. 152, note, and sec. 108, 6.) BOSTWICK HAWLEY.

AN ITINERANTS' CLUB.

Dr. John A. Broadus, one of the most accomplished scholars and one of the most charming preachers of the Baptist Church, in an address on Bible study before the Kentucky Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church at its recent session in Louisville, heartily commended the policy of the Baptist and Methodist Episcopal Churches in bringing into the ministry men of natural ability with simply a public school education, and such biblical and theological training as may be secured by the denominational seminaries. He showed how unwise and impracticable it is for churches which aim to carry the Gospel to the multitude, to require thorough collegiate and theological education on the part of all ministers. Bible scholars should be familiar with Hebrew and with New Testament Greek; educated in ecclesiastical history and pastoral and systematic theology; but he claimed that it would be worse than folly to condition in every case ordination as ministers of the Gospel upon rigid examination in the ancient classics, in mathematics, and other studies of the college curriculum. There is no danger that the Methodist Episcopal Church will ever make such imperative requirement. The fact that she is in no such danger should, however, be an argument in favor of greater strictness in the studies and examinations already required in conjunction with the Annual Conferences. The problem is this: How shall we make the general, biblical, theological, and ecclesiastical examinations on the four years' Course of Study more complete and satisfactory; a fairer test of actual attainment, and an incentive and encouragement to really ambitious students? I shall not here attempt to point out the defects of the system in its present practical working, but to suggest tentatively a scheme which will go far toward correcting such defects.

Let the Four Years' Conference Examiners and the Four Years' Undergraduates meet once, twice, or thrice during the Conference year in some central place--an educational institution preferred-for reading, studies, the outlining of books, lectures on systematical and practical theology, specimen lessons to illustrate the method of teaching the Catechism, Bible geography, Bible biography, the history, doctrines, and usages of our Church, and for conversations on how to present most successfully the "benevolences" to our people; how to increase the salary, etc., etc. Such an "Itinerants' Club" will meet in winter session in Louisville, Ky., the approaching season. JOHN H. VINCENT.