a railing accusation" even "against the devil" on so tender a subject as the whereabouts of the body or his attempt to prevent its rising before the general resurrection, thus cheating the transfiguration out of one of its chief personalities, or whatever else may have been the nature of the dispute, but simply said, "The Lord rebuke thee." As if it were said, "He is the One to do it. He has never delegated such work to me. I will contend with you on what I conceive to be right, but in the proper spirit. No matter how rude you may be toward me, and how vital the point in dispute, it is my place to keep sweet, ever remembering with whom I am contending and Whom I represent." Is not this the real point which is here presented? In other words, Don't lose your head, but keep sweet, no matter with whom you contend or what may be the odds against you. If the world had learned this lesson from Michael long since, much acrimony and ill-feeling and even martyrdom might have been prevented. New Haven, Conn. WM. WELLS W. WILSON.

EVANGELISTIC USE OF THE BIBLE

I HAVE read with some interest the able article of Dr. Swift on "The Conference Course of Study." I believe that the need of the hour is a graduate course of study. Supposing that the Conference course remains the same, there should be in the graduate course a system of Bible study that is more than criticism. The REVIEW has had articles bearing upon "the homiletic use of the Bible," "the Bible as literature," "the Bible as a text-book of science;" but little has appeared in regard to the "Evangelistic use of the Bible." Moody's revival was one of the skillful use of Scripture as is also nearly every genuine revival. The Salvation Army teaches its soldiers to use the Scriptures skillfully. The Christian Scientists have a ready use of Scripture. Methodism sprang up through the evangelical use of the Bible. Yet our preachers have little time while pursuing the Conference course to equip themselves as the leading evangelists have been equipped with a ready use of Scripture passages for winning men to Christ. Let us go among the Cornish people and we will find them ready with a Scripture quotation suitable to every incident. Shall not the preacher of to-morrow be as skillful in the use of Scripture? The need of to-day and to-morrow is evangelism. The call of the church is for evangelistic pastors. Then let the Conference course equip the young men in the evangelistic use of the Bible. A course of lectures at Conference or at mid-year Bible conferences in Districts, or the text-book method, may do it. Whatever is remembered in a graduate course of study my belief is that it should be thoroughly evangelical and prepare the teacher to be his own evangelist.

Port Hope, Michigan.

A. O. HAMMOND.

THE ITINERANTS' CLUB

ISCARIOT

It was not an Institute but a Ministerial Club of a half dozen denominations in which a paper was read on Judas. It was a fine study of his life, character, great crime, and tragic end, assuming the truth of the record and its usual interpretation. It did not bother about original sources, nor suggest that there might be anything new to be learned. It sailed over thin ice as if it were rock a thousand miles deep, but glowed with a hot ethical condemnation of the traitor. It was apparently complete. But there was a man there who, as was Pope, was "a little crooked interrogation point." Others, too, would indulge in the passion of this age, and ask questions. Some brethren were evidently disturbed. What is the use of questions? Why spoil the effect of so fine a paper? Why not go away with the contented feeling that they knew about Judas, and that he was safely housed in "his own place"? When the inquisitive brother asked if they were sure about the name of Judas there was a ripple of laughter. That there was any uncertainty about "Iscariot" was the height of improbability. What had been settled so long surely could not be questioned now-so great is the power of tradition. But the little "interrogation point" stood his ground. A wise old pastor who had been fifty years in his present charge said, "I never pass an interrogation point without digging around it a little, let's try this one." Indeed that was one secret of the freshness of his ministry, and of its long and noted success. So it soon developed that the little interrogation point was in good company. It was found that the "texts" varied in the use of the name "Iscariot." The "King James," the "Revised," and the "American" versions do not agree. Origen, Ewald, Grotius, Hermann, Bartolocci, Gill, Heinsius, Lightfoot, and other more recent scholars had discussed it, and some of them given a half dozen other meanings to the name than the one usually suggested, "Judas, the man of Kerioth."

Kerioth seems to be mentioned twice in the Old Testament, but its locality has never been determined, and the plural form indicates that it is the plural of a general term, and means cities or hamlets. Such it most surely is in the reference to a region in Moab; a region from which it is not thought that Judas came. The other supposed reference to Kerioth is in Josh. 15. 25, and the place has been sought for some distance south of Hebron. Both the "Revised" and "American" versions recognize the absence of the copula, however, which would make Kerioth a distinct place in company with "Hezron, Amam, and Shema," and also make it a compound with Hezron; "Kerioth-hezron," and then make this equivalent to Hazor which Joshua burned. Reference to the original shows that a simpler reading would be to translate "kerioth" as "hamlets," a meaning suggested by Fuerst, and so make the passage read, "the hamlets springing up in place of Hazor." And with this interpretation the few

scattered remains, the frontier position, and the associated epithets seem to agree. So Kerioth as a place disappears from view, and if there were no such place, the usual interpretation of Kerioth must be given up. In this dilemma the explanation was suggested that the Greek name "Iscariot” was from the Hebrew "ascara," denoting "strangling." This would derive the name from the same root as the modern Hebrew word for “angina" or quinsy, literally "a choking" or "a strangling." Lightfoot suggests that this name might have been given to Judas after his death, and in commemoration of the manner of his dying. Heinsius suggests that he may have been subject to a disease tending to suffocation in his earlier life, and hence his name. If this were true, it seems most probable that as a disciple of Jesus, one of the select twelve, Judas would have been healed. How natural then-what poetical justice-that after his betrayal of the Master he should die of strangling. That from which the Master saved him, he makes to be the means of his own undoing. Is it not often so? "I believe it; I believe it," said the pastor of fifty years, and the next Sunday preached a fresh, original, startling sermon on the thought that if the saved are ever lost it is by their own agency, and is most likely to be through the evil from which they were once saved.

THE MINISTRY

Is the world an expression of selfishness or of ministry? Many statements in arguments for, or interpretations of, "the struggle for existence," "the survival of the fittest," and "natural selection," sound as if life in its upward strides had always been selfish, and as if the final outcome of the onward march would be the triumph of incarnated selfishness. To the Christian such an interpretation of the world is unbelievable.

Should the world be interpreted by its lower ranges of life, or by its highest? In the abodes of highest life it is now seen that not selfishness but ministry is surviving and enjoying what promises to be a permanent triumph. Not the tornado nor the earthquake, that seem for a time to be working and winning, but the quiet, ministering, constructive forces of sunshine and helpfulness are building the advancing world. Not the worthless weeds, thorns, and thistles, but the ministering plants-wheat, corn and others-are having more abundant life, and cover the land. The wild beasts that minister less are becoming extinct, while the domestic animals that minister more multiply, and increase in power of ministry also. So, among men, savages, in whom is more of selfishness, and among whom the chief is served, are dying out, but the peoples who minister in manifold mutuality, and among whom the highest is the servant of all, are coming to power and permanence. Should not the outcome give meaning to the process by which it came, even though that process be dark in places and red in tooth and fang? It is not selfishness but ministry that helps on life to its highest and best manifestations.

Was it Montesquieu who said “Happy is the people whose annals are vacant"? Carlyle wrote: "Stillest perseverance were our blessedness; not dislocation and alteration." Yet these latter are called events and chronicled by history, and magnified too often by scientists and philosophers, as the processes by which the world of mankind moves on. "Attila Invasions, Walter-the-Penniless Crusades, Sicilian Vespers, Thirty Years War, were sin and misery; not work, but hindrance of work. For the Earth, all this while, was yearly green and yellow with her kind harvests; the hand of the Craftsman, the mind of the thinker rested not; and so, after all, and in spite of all, we have this so glorious high-domed blossoming world." Not by the forces that selfishly destroy, but by those that unselfishly minister is our civilization made.

So God is coming to his own at last in the world. He is the eternal minister, and it is his infinite ministry that fills the world with all good things, and keeps the real evolution of life moving on to its highest destiny. The Bible is a record of God's personal ministry to man in the dark evolution of the centuries. It is not merely a record of "God's selfrevelation." That is too selfish and theatrical. It is a record of God's ministry to his child; a child wayward, stumbling, and falling, and yet ever crawling onward like a wounded giant for whom the world was made and for whom all the events of history are working. This ministry culminates in the incarnation when his Son comes "not to be ministered unto but to minister." On the Cross, suffering, the mightiest language of love speaks so that the world must hear, and his children receiving new life and love, come to that loving character of ministry which is worthy of their Father. It is this ministry of God that is carried on in "The Ministry," which is really to continue both the Bible and the Incarnation. This high, holy, and unselfish service of the ministry, incarnating the heart of God and the finally triumphant principle of the world, should surely appeal to men of highest ambitions and holiest ideals.

"CHRISTIAN SCIENCE"

EDDYISM has had a great time dedicating its two million dollar temple in Boston. It is a great temple too. Of course the ministers of Boston have had a great time with "Christian Science" also. The old saw that Christians say it is not Christian, and scientists say it is not science, has been made to do good service. It has been shown that "Christian Science" is not only nonChristian, but that it is an antichristian religion. It is practical atheism. It denies God as creator, denies any creation, denies that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It asserts a doctrine of God which is the baldest, nakedest pantheism; none the less odious for calling itself a spiritual pantheism. It denies the true Godhead of Jesus Christ. It denies the incarnation because it denies flesh. It denies the propitiation for our sins because for them there is no sin, and hence no sacrifice and no faith to take away sins that do not exist. tion, the Holy Spirit, and the Sacraments.

It denies Christ's resurrecWide of Christian, all that,

surely. It is sublimated selfishness says another. It builds a two million dollar temple for its own enjoyment. It has no hospitals, no free dispensaries, no missions in the slums, no orphanages. There is absolute lack of charity. There are no poor in the ranks of "Christian Scientists." Another goes even deeper and says it is utterly lacking in sympathy. How can it have true sympathy when there is no pain, or ache, or suffering to sympathize with? It cannot succeed for long in a suffering world.

Why does "Christian Science" seem to succeed? Mrs. Eddy is "the Lydia Pinkham of the Soul" is the reply. Great was the success of the former "Lydia," and for the same reason this latter "Lydia" seems to succeed. When people want, with a passionate selfishness, to be well in body, heart, or soul, they do not care much for either chemical formulas or logical conclusions. They take what offers relief, even if the relief be imaginary, temporary, partial, or narcotic. And this woman pretends to offer relief. There is neither mental nor heart stimulus in "Christian Science." It does not stir to the strenuous life but tends to tranquility. It differs from the old "quietism" in that it does not try to sink into God but rather into a self-satisfaction which includes a world-satisfaction also. This smug satisfaction makes many of their faces characterless and their congregations people "well-dressed in unruffled countenances." God is good and God is all, and so all is well. Why strive to make God better?

Now some such satisfaction is an attractive element in religion, and a comfortable thing in life. In the strenuous life of missions, charities, and activities of all kinds, may we not have gone to the other extreme? Methodism once urged a satisfying experience. Indeed this seemed to be her specialty. Years ago a strenuous business man of New York, not a professed Christian, said to this writer, "I like to go to Ocean Grove to see the happy faces. So many people there seem satisfied with their religion." Is it as much so as it ought to be in our churches?

WHAT MEN ARE ASKING TODAY

"MEN are asking today, as always, the elemental and imperative questions: Is there a God? If there is, does He care for us? If He cares for us, why do we suffer? And, after our life is done, what is there then? To these primal, eternal questions the Christian minister has plain, definite, positive answers. The message of Christianity is that God Himself has spoken. God Himself, made man in Jesus Christ, has taken the everlasting questions one by one and answered them. There is a God, and He is our Father; He cares for us and loves us, every one. Pain comes, indeed, and the problem of it is unsolved, but the Cross shows how pain and love do as a fact exist together. And after death is life. Not one of these fundamental assertions is capable of ordinary or scientific proof. Nevertheless the happiness of mankind depends upon them. The minister stands in the midst of the community, sent by Jesus Christ with a message direct from on high, to tell men in God's name that these things are true. The heart of his message, the words of it, and the worth of it, is Jesus Christ."