which we set down to the devil are really the doing of the Spirit of God. The preacher has made his appeal. It has touched our heart. We have vowed a vow, 'Lord, I will follow Thee.' And the service is at an end. As we pass into the street, someone remarks on the weather, recalls an event of the week, touches perhaps upon the eloquence of the preacher, or some amusing incident in the service. The impression passes. vow is forgotten. It is the devil's doing, we say. No. It is the work of the Spirit of God. 'Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head.' Have you counted the cost? 'Go back again,' He is saying; 'for what have I done to thee?'

The

For He is most particular that He do not force us to follow Him. What would be the use of us if He did? What would be the worth of the work we do? It is not for our work He wants us. We are so pleased with our work sometimes that we are sure God must be pleased with it also. He is not pleased with our work; He is only pleased with us. So important is our work, we sometimes think, that we are almost indispensable to God. We are not indispensable; He can get his work done without us.

God doth not need

Either man's work, or His own gifts.

He is not concerned about the work. He is concerned about us. And He is most particular lest

we should so follow that He gets our work and loses ourselves.

We, too, should be particular about this. We should be as particular as Elijah, as particular as Christ.

come.'

We say, 'Ho, everyone that thirsteth, We should also say, 'Go back again.' For the work is nothing to God without the worker, and the worker is nothing without his heart. We think we do God service when we crowd His churches with human beings. If God were content with human beings, He could have them in abundance. 'God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.' It is hearts of love He wants. And even God Himself cannot turn the stones into hearts to love Him. He must wait. He devises means, no doubt, that the heart may love Him heartily; but He cannot force it, He must wait. And He is so appreciative of love, so anxious that love be true, a genuine, unfettered choice, that when there is the least risk of pressure, when we are in danger of being carried off our feet by the tide of emotion that is sweeping over the congregation, He does not arrest the word or gesture that jars upon us. 'Go back again,' He says; for what have I done to thee?'

And yet, if the heart is set upon loving Him, it is when He is most particular not to force our love that He is most irresistible. 'Go back again; for what have I done to thee?' O my God, Thou hast given Thy Son to die for me.

MANY persons are disturbed by the idea that they must choose between Faith and Science, as it is impossible to give due allegiance to both. I believe that, rightly defined, faith can never be in conflict with true science; where there seems to be opposition between them, it is either because

the limits of faith are not rightly fixed, or because the science is not true science. The Catholic Church once condemned the world-system of Copernicus because it was in contradiction to the Sun, stand thou still,' of Jos 1012, and only forty years ago, the civic authorities of Berlin,

in response to an Evangelical pastor, solemnly decided that the earth revolves round the sun. On both these occasions the rulers were overstepping their competence, for such things are not matters of faith, but of knowledge. Much more frequently the realm of faith is invaded in the name of science. My object in writing is to show that such raids are not undertaken by true science, but by what I call sophistry. Let us first of all examine what this is, and what are its relations to science.

KNOWLEDGE AND SCIENCE.

When we speak of 'knowledge' we mean that, in the matter referred to, every doubt is excluded; otherwise we do not say, 'I know,' but 'I think,' 'I believe,' 'it appears to me,' or such like. 'Science' is almost equivalent to 'knowledge,' the origin of the former being Latin, as the latter is Teutonic. In France and England the term 'science' is strictly applied only to mathematics and natural history; in Germany history and philosophy are included. We need not inquire, for instance, whether it is absolutely proved that three times three are nine, or if, as mathematicians have said, it is only probable in an infinite degree. Let us compare with this an historical statement, such as, 'Charlemagne lived, and did so and so,' and we at once see the difference. If we had any doubt about the truth of the former sentence, we should have nothing to do but count for ourselves, whereas the existence of Charlemagne cannot be verified by our own perception or experience. Yet, though some one, in jest or in earnest, has proved Napoleon the First to be a myth, and there is even now at Bremen an officiating pastor who doubts the historical existence of the Christ, such hypotheses give us no practical trouble, but every examiner says, 'Do you not know that?' 'Are you so ignorant?' The life of Charlemagne, for example, is so well attested by the transmitted evidence of contemporaries that no one can doubt it. All the events of his life, however, may not have been transmitted with equal fidelity. With knowledge is mingled supposition, yet where an effort has been made to know, the whole may well be termed 'scientific.' It is still more so when the historian tries to rise above the marshalling of outward facts, and to trace the motives of the acting persons. He then becomes somewhat of a poet, calling his imagination to his aid; but the picture he draws is never quite

true, and the expert reader knows that it will vary with each single historian according to his temperament.

SOPHISTRY.

There is a point, however, where science ceases and something else begins. The Greek word 'sophist' can, according to its original meaning, be translated as 'a learned man' or 'a searcher.' The people who called themselves 'sophists' took the word as a name of honour. But in process of time other people, finding that these 'sophists' were more concerned with the semblance of truth than with its reality, put the corresponding meaning into the name. A 'philosopher' meant to them one who strives after wisdom,' a 'sophist' 'one who strives after its semblance.' In a like sense I use the word, but I do not wish to offend anybody, and I define it thus: where truth outweighs, there is Science; where semblance outweighs, there is Sophistry. Where facts rule, while conjecture and imagination come in to supplement them, we get Science. Where, on the contrary, imagination rules, and facts are made to fit into it, I call that Sophistry, although the sophist may give it out as Science. The result is either empty or deceptive; the author begins by deceiving himself, and easily deceives others. When the subject happens to be of little importance, no very great harm is done; but the sophist has a preference for dealing with the most important matters, even with sacred ones, under the name of science. I regard the sophist as being self-deceived, but yet we cannot excuse him on that account. 'It must needs be that offences come; but woe unto that man by whom the offence cometh. It were better for him,' etc. It is also written, 'Ye must give account of every idle word that ye have spoken.' Therefore also of every idle conjecture and fancy which we publish as truth. Now, if I have published false conjectures in the texts of Greek and Latin authors, which is certainly the case, yet these have caused no offence, and if I maintain (as others have done before me in the sixteenth century) that in Jn 19 the sponge with vinegar was not handed up to the cross by means of a thin hyssop-stalk, but by means of a lance, for which there is required a trifling change in the Greek text,1 supported moreover by a MS., this, I hope, causes no offence. The sophists, however, do not stop at such like 1 'Hysso' (lance) instead of 'hyssopo' (hyssop).

things. It is true that a doctor who has cured a patient to death is not brought before our tribunals, unless the circumstances are very exceptional; and a professor who teaches things that are ever so distorted and hurtful is not brought before a court of law. The doctor is a bachelor of medicine, and the professor a representative of science; that gives protection here (and it is all in order); whether or not it gives protection elsewhere is another question.

SPREAD OF SOPHISTRY.

1

My friend Dr. Edward Meyer in Berlin, who up to a year ago was my colleague in Halle for ancient history, published in 1902 a farewell discourse on the Theory and Method of History.' In it he describes a tendency which is always getting stronger. It is a tendency which leans on the natural sciences, and which wishes to regulate and comprehend mental science, or the study of mankind and its history, according to unchangeable laws, whereby historical facts possess only the value of evidential material, but have no value of their own, general laws being absolutely the chief thing. This tendency would reduce everything to formula and schemes, axuara, that is, shadows. Read Meyer, if you have any interest in historical science. Sophistry shoots up beside various sciences. It cannot take root beside mathematics, nor physics; nor beside the natural sciences, so long as they describe what exists. But for many people that is too bare. They claim to know the difference there was in former times: for example, what Man was before he was a man; and there Imagination gets full swing. There were men with tails, for instance. In some bog a prehistoric boat has been found, in the rower's seat of which there is a hole, evidently in order that he might put his tail through. Possibly the boat may exist somewhere, and the hole also; but I do not need to tell you that other explanations are possible. In our classical philology we have weeded out a good deal of the former sophistry; but Mythology is still one of her favourite fields. The new science of Assyriology is itself most valuable, but sophistry has already begun to sprout there. As for Theology, it has long been full of sophistry, and it is here chiefly that The plants and the weeds

offence is caused by it. are often very much alike, and the layman craves for marks by which he can distinguish them. Such marks it will now be my endeavour to give. 1 Halle: N. Niemeyer.

DISTINGUISHING MARKS.

1. Science is lasting, Sophistry transient.-We are told in the Psalms about the godless man, who flourishes like a green bay-tree, and in a little while he is no more there, and his place knoweth him no more (Ps 3735). Science is lasting. Whatever rests on accurate investigation of facts will not, after one or two centuries, look any different from what it now does. A scientific book of to-day will not, of course, be as serviceable then, because the number of investigated facts will have increased; but the persons who write after a century or two will feel that they are continuing the work of the authors of our own day.

On the other hand, Sophistry is ephemeral. Look backwards, and you will see many things that once had a great name, and now lie despised in the dust. Much therefore that is to-day great and celebrated will certainly have the same fate.

2. Science is (mostly) tedious, Sophistry (sometimes) exciting. I do not assert that all science is tedious. I could produce much to you from my own science, that of classical philology, without any admixture of sophistry, that could hardly fail to interest you. It would not, however, excite you. What would excite you must be something that would shatter your most sacred convictions. When that happens, you may suspect the presence of Sophistry. Let us take Assyriology, a science that is about fifty years old. It has the mark of profound tediousness, I mean for the layman. When one hears the endless lists of unknown kings read aloud, or the enormous number of contracts and letters that come from the dust of ages, one is interested in the first contract, but at the hundredth one has either gone to sleep or else run away. The specialist, however, who has to deliver a lecture. before ladies and gentlemen, does not read a hundred tablets, but is strongly tempted to dress up his material so as not merely to interest, but to excite, both his immediate hearers, and also countless others, by means of the Press. For this purpose he must touch upon high and serious matters, which are not really accessible to Science. Το Sophistry, on the other hand, everything is accessible; our Lord God, and the origin of the world, etc. This brings me to a further mark.

3. Sophistry readily passes beyond the bounds of its province. Artifici in sua arte credendum est.— Within his art, but not without it. Show back

into his own bounds every one who speaks outside his province, for he is practising Sophistry. Not long ago, in a Congress of Naturalists, a chemist spoke to the effect that there is no God and no immortality. Is that a question of chemistry? We have every regard for chemistry, especially for German chemistry, which is now the foremost in the world. But this is going beyond its bounds. Dante, in the Inferno, canto 29, makes a chemist say: 'You must remember this, how I was a good ape of Nature.' As Nature composes and decomposes substances, the chemist imitates her cleverly. Old Heraclitus of Ephesus is right when he says that the wisest man will appear, in relation to God, as an ape.' Then when a chemist says anything about chemistry, believe him; but let not him, being the ape of Nature, dispute the existence of his and her Creator. Or an Assyriologist speaks before a great assemblage of ladies and gentlemen, at first about matters of his department, such as the wild ox, which appears represented on Assyrian monuments, and in the Bible is called re'em, which Luther translated as 'unicorn.' It is, we are told, no kind of antelope, as some have supposed, but a wild ox. Artifici in sua arte credendum est. But then the lecturer comes to other things: there was no revelation from God to the people of Israel. Is that also Assyriology?

There are other Assyriologists, however, who are also theologians, and therefore they would not speak outside their province if they were to speak of these things. There cannot really be There cannot really be any science of God and of divine things. Theology is not a science, it is a scientific study, similar to jurisprudence and medicine, and it has quite as good a claim as they have to a place in the university. It is said that Theology can never be quite free, as it is antecedently bound to defined dogmas; Catholic Theology, for example, being tied to the infallible pope, and Protestant Theology not being as free as a science ought to be. the lawyer, too, must not teach that property is robbery, or regicide meritorious. As the lawyer has to interpret the existing system of justice, so the theologian has to interpret the dogma of his Church, and both can do so in a scientific manner. If the creed appears to the theologian not to be adequately founded on Scripture, he is free to say so; but if he adds something else out of his belief, he is transcending the bounds of Science.

But

SOPHISTICAL SCIENCE (SO-CALLED) of Religion.

The free-thinking theologian will declare, however, that when he frees himself from Christian dogmas, he is the representative of the universal science of religion. science of religion. Single religions, such as the Christian, the Jewish, the Mohammedan, etc., are the material out of which the universal science is composed. That is exactly as it is with history, whose single facts should be only material for something general to be built up out of them. Let us take animism as an example. Every man has a soul, even the Negro and the Red Indian; therefore animism, i.e. the worship of souls, can be found among all peoples. Everywhere men recognize the soul as the most imperishable essence of the man, and they feel also that the departed must be living in a higher form of existence.

But now Sophistry begins. Animism has been the ground-form of religion among all peoples, and out of it all religions have been evolved; just as according to Darwin out of imperfect life more perfect continually arose. Yet the Greeks, so far as we know, honoured their dead, while they paid a higher worship to the gods of heaven and of the earth and of the under-world. The proof therefore fails completely with them, and with the Romans and the Teutons as well. These sophists, English and German, try to do what is impossible, namely, to explain religion in all its forms, the lowest and the highest, from the nature of man. But religion is a relation between God and man, between the Eternal and beings who are of yesterday. Now how can the relation between them be explained from the weaker factor alone, the infinitely stronger one being completely ignored? Is it not atheism to suppose that religion arose in man and was even evolved out of man? Is there anything scientific in the theory? Can any facts to prove it be found among the Israelites? None. But there are at least so-called survivals, remains of an earlier faith driven out by the worship of Jehovah. When anyone died, the relatives tore their clothes. Why? To pay divine honour to the dead, says one; so here we have animism. Or, says another, slaves wore tattered garments, and they also wore sackcloth; therefore the mourner, in tearing his garments, till he could get hold of sackcloth, declared himself to be the slave of the departed. What do you think of such sophistry? I am a classical