asm where we now have indifference. Then will we have accessions to the ranks of our Christian workers, lay and clerical, of those who in devotion, intelligence and efficiency will more nearly meet the demands of the new century.

This imperative demand can only be met by our universities and schools of higher education. The pulpit cannot meet this demand. It may do something by way of influence, or illustration, or allusion; it cannot impart adequate instruction. Even in churches where special classes are formed, and through them great good is wrought for a limited number, those are not reached who most need it or are capable of rendering the best service. Nor can the theological seminaries meet this demand. The demand is that our laity, our educated young men and women, shall have this specific training which they need, and of which they are worthy.

Practically, then, what are the obstacles? They may be stated thus: An overcrowded curriculum, lack of time to take this with other required work, a lack of men of requisite ability and training to make such courses means of inspiration, of illumination, of power. To these should be added lack of money and the force of habit and custom. Taking them in their order, let us see if they are insurmountable:

In regard to the curriculum. These courses should be elective. They should depend upon the teacher and his methods for their attractiveness, but credit for work done in them should be given as in any other studies.

As to the objection that it makes a further draft upon a student's already burdened time: The time has come when in addition to athletics which develop the body, attention must be called to the culture of the spirit and to the work of realizing the kingdom of God. If there is a student given almost exclusively to science or economics, why not redress the balance by a course in Christian ethics, Christian institutions, or some great achievements of the Christian Church? Thus may symmetry come to life, thought and work.

The lack of trained teachers for this work is a more serious obstacle. It ought not to be impossible to find men qualified to teach concerning Christian missions. So in other departments

of the work of the modern church. One man, a man of rare gifts, a theological professor, sent his son to engage for some time in Settlement Work under the present Bishop of London when he made this the work of his life, before succeeding Dr. Creighton as bishop of the largest city of the world. Such men may well be called to teach. It is true that men whose studies and training have been only in secular history are not thereby fitted to teach Church history. It is also true that men who have intimate acquaintance with the Church of the present are best fitted to understand that of the past. Yet it ought not to be long difficult to find men thoroughly trained in both church and secular history, and with both experience and wide knowledge of the church life of their time to teach the great lessons of Christian history. The best and ablest men of their time may well teach Christian ethics in our great institutions of learning. It is significant of this trend in education that the first American professor to lecture in the University of Berlin on the new foundation of international exchange in the highest education was the Professor of Christian Ethics in Harvard University. In all this work the higher and increased demand will call forth the supply.

As to the cost and force of custom: For no instruction given in our schools would the American people contribute more quickly or more generously than for this. They would only need to be assured that this instruction would be thorough, wise and effective. Should it prove to be such, no force of custom could long resist its introduction or keep it from its rightful place in education and culture.

A passage from the recent history of education in this country shows what may be done. Fifteen or twenty years ago it was discovered that our schools, while doing much good work in other branches of study, were doing little, or little of worth, in teaching the English language or its literature. Some educators declared that such teaching was not needed, as English was our mother tongue. Those, however, who investigated the subject found that many students were graduated without a creditable knowledge of English. They found also that these students when in school had little opportunity to become better equipped in this most important

part of education. The obstacles were those familiar to us: there were not many teachers of adequate training; it added to the course of study, and to the teachers' work as well as to the cost of instruction. In these twenty years the teaching of English has become a great factor in our system of education. Does any body regret the cost to student, faculty or treasury? Through it are we not in every sense a more capable and better educated people? The Christian faith, its doctrines and individual morality are taught in the home, the Sunday schools and the pulpit. Yet the great part Christianity has played and is playing now in human history, the significance of the Christian institutions, the inspiration and imperative of Christian ethics in the widest field of thought and social endeavor are a realm unknown to our educated youth, to the men and women who are to rule our future. The men and the schools who will do in this sphere as much, according to the need, as has been done in the teaching of our native speech will deserve well not only of the Christian Church but of America and of the world.

To ignore religion, to ignore religion in its highest formChristianity is not to educate, it is to deform. To do this in the curriculum of the institutions of higher learning in a Christian land, and among a Christian people, is a defect which cannot long be endured.

That which is in part must be done away that that which is perfect may come.

G. H. Dryer

ART. IV. SOME PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC
BIBLICAL CRITICISM.

ALL thoughtful men agree that an earnest, reverent effort to ascertain the authorship of the biblical books, the historical conditions under which they were written, the original writers for whom they were designed, the purpose and character of the individual compositions and their relation to other writings of the group and to the whole, is not only a legitimate study but a valuable one. It must be granted, moreover, that views supported by tradition only cannot be rightly employed to impede scientific scholarship in its investigations into these matters. On the other hand, criticism must remember that it is only a human method of study, that, therefore, for its own rectification, security, true progress, it needs candidly to test itself; again and again to verify its methods, criticize its own principles, and with impartial reason correct its own processes. "Eternal vigilance" is the price of truth as well as of liberty. The history of scientific investigation in the physical realm shows that true scientific principles and methods have grown up, through careful study, out of a mass that were once applied, that the worthless and erroneous have been gradually sifted out and the sound disengaged, so that, today, whatever the results reached, the best students of physical science are pretty well agreed as to the principles and methods to be employed. It does not seem to be exactly so in the realm of Biblical criticism. We believe that just now a thorough discussion of the principles and methods employed in this field is more important than warm debate about supposed results. If Higher Criticism is to be an architect and builder and not simply an iconoclastic destroyer, the fire of the crucible and not a torch in a madman's hand, the knife in the hand of a skillful surgeon to cut harmful excrescences away and not a weapon to stab faith to the heart, it must guard itself well as to both spirit and method, test candidly and rigorously its own canons, and watch well their application. Much confusion has prevailed.

First, then, scientific biblical criticism should not be dog

matic, but modest in its claims. From all camps the leaven of dogmatism must be scrupulously purged. Certainly, if a Christian thinker believes that the deity of Jesus Christ made him always clearly cognizant of all the facts as to the authorship of the biblical books, and that he intended to make plain affirmation regarding them, that for him settles the question. But, apart from this query as to whether the words of Jesus bar all further investigation into these matters, we are sure that it would be in the interest of sound learning should biblical critics of all schools speak with less dogmatism of "assured results," "indubitable conclusions," "verdict of all the scholars," etc. The fact probably is that many are running over each other to accept so-called "assured results," not because they have examined for themselves the evidence, but because of a vague though strong feeling of awe caused by the stoutly asserted scientific character of biblical criticism. Assuming that it rests upon just as certain foundations as do physics and astronomy, they give to biblical criticism the same credence which they do to discoveries in the realm of nature. It should be remembered, however, that, even in physical science, candid investigation is always modest. Have the contentions of scientists never been overthrown? Do the best investigators of nature hold the same views as to light, atoms, electricity, which they held before the discovery of the X-rays, radium, and wireless telegraphy? Henry Drummond tells us that but yesterday, in the University of Edinburgh, the greatest figure in the faculty was Sir James Simpson, the discoverer of chloroform. "The other day, his successor and nephew, Professor Simpson, was asked by the librarian of the University to go to the library and take out the books on this subject that were no longer needed." His reply to the librarian was, "Take every text-book that is more than ten years old and put it down in the cellar." Similarly Hugo Muensterberg says: "To honor science means to respect its limitations." Moreover, it is well known that even in physical investigations allowance has to be made for the bias of the observer. The mind of man is, as Bacon says, an uneven mirror, measurably distorting instead of reflecting the facts of nature. Even when utmost care is taken errors often creep in. The true scientific investi