sponsors so desired, nobody from that day on asked that it be omitted. A like use of a wise alternative, a like perception of the facts of human nature, would have kept all the Presbyterians and Congregationalists and Methodists and Baptists in the Episcopal Church to this day. On the other hand, our Puritan forefathers hated the Book of Common Prayer, simply because they had been compelled to use it; they had been banged about the ears with it by the bishops.

Or take the fact of heresy. Let us grant that the heretic is wholly mistaken. There he is teaching his erroneous doctrine, and here are we considering what we ought to do about it. It seems to be a problem in theology, but the solution of it depends on our understanding of human nature. One element in it is the nervousness of the orthodox. I mean the uneasy feeling that something may happen to the truth; the idea that truth is of a delicate constitution, and must be shielded and nursed like a sick child. This nervousness results in a panic fear, which on the one hand abandons reason, and on the other hand is capable of great cruelty. It is a psychological fact, which appears in connection with all proclamation of heresy, and must be taken into account. The nervous theologian is as incapable of competent discipline as the nervous teacher. The first thing which he needs to do is to take himself in hand. He needs to reassure himself as to the substantial foundations of the faith, and by prayer and patience to recover the serenity of his mind. Commonly, he preaches a vehement sermon, or writes a fierce letter to a church paper. He is angry and afraid, because he is nervous about the everlasting truth; and being afraid, he scares his sensitive neighbors, and being angry he stirs up a like anger in the heretic whom he attacks. And there it is.

Another element in the problem is the privilege of error. We are all bound to make mistakes, and we all have a right to make mistakes. This is a part of the process whereby we arrive at truth. Whoever is living an active life, whether in philanthropy or in theology, if he has any emotion, if he has any enthusiasm, if he has any gift of speech, is sure to say some things to-day which he will need to modify to-morrow. It is a matter of temperament. It is an inevitable defect of a fine quality. Your safe man, who is always right, is an unprofitable citizen. Your safe parson, who makes no mistakes, preaches the dullest of sermons to the sleepiest of congregations. Bishop Hobart used to say, "Give me a little zealous imprudence."

But the privilege of error carries along with it the right to change one's mind with self-respect. That is made possible and easy by the courtesies of debate. Under these Christian conditions, the heretic is

shown his heresy, and is shown at the same time the way out of it. By friendliness, by fairness, by the gentle force of reason, be is convinced of error. Sometimes the same result is reached by patiently leaving him alone, and letting him follow the wrong road till he finds out his mistake, or gets tired. A vast number of heresies which have distressed the Christian world would have ceased in the parish in which they began if they had been dealt with according to plain facts of human nature. For when the arguments of the heretics are answered with the argument of the club, two consequences follow: one is the confirmation of the heretic, the other is the dissemination of the heresy. At the sight of the club, the heretic cannot decently change his mind; he is forced into defenses and replies which serve to strengthen him in his error. And also at the sight of the club, the crowd comes, the thing is common property, the new doctrine or the new denial is taught to the community by the very process by which it is sought to stop it. Then with pain, in the midst of scandal and derision, wise men remember how the Master said of the tares, "Let both grow together till the harvest." The eager servants came and said to the householder, "Wilt thou that we go and gather them up?" But he said, "Nay, lest while ye gather the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them."

In order either to learn or to teach the knowledge of God, we must have the knowledge and the love of man. Theology must be tempered with philanthropy. The student of theology, the teacher of theology, must be a friendly and fraternal person, acquainted with human nature, and sympathetic with the souls of men. The other way is in the direction of the heresy of Cain. This is the way of peace and truth.

THE INFLUENCE OF MISSIONS ON CHRISTIAN CON

SCIOUSNESS

J. HERMAN RANDALL, D. D.

PASTOR MOUNT MORRIS BAPTIST CHURCH, NEW YORK, N. Y.

The fundamental purpose of Christian Missions is to make Jesus Christ known to all the world in such a way that the religion of Jesus may accomplish its permanent and characteristic work. The supreme motive in missions is love: Love for God, that leads to co-operation with Him in His work of bringing men to their highest and best, and love for man, that constrains us to exert our utmost effort in satisfying their deepest needs.

The Christian experience is the life, individual and collective, that consists in fellowship with God, as Christ reveals Him, and in the fruits of that fellowship. The Christian consciousness is the outcome of the Christian experience. As the experience broadens or deepens, new elements are introduced in the Christian consciousness, resulting in the transference of emphasis, in change of attitude, or in new or modified convictions of truth.

1. Missions have revealed to the Christian consciousness that, while religions are many, religion is one. The religious instinct is the same in all races. The ultimate source of every religion is always good. The great fact disclosed by the religions of the world is that man has always been searching for God, and God has always been searching for man. Religion has been at the root of all morality that ever made society possible; it has been the spring of every philosophy and the incentive of every science yet born. It has formed the nucleus and animating soul of every nation, and has been the uplifting force of whatever progress the world, or any part of the world, has ever made. Held in connection with whatever amount of falsehood you like, it is nevertheless the beginning of all truth. Everything worth having in life is founded on belief; nothing worth having is founded on unbelief. India may be under the reign of Brahmanism, China, Thibet and Corea may be degraded under the reign of Buddhism and Confucianism; Arabia and Turkey may be cruel and lustful under Mohammedanism; Africa and the Islands of the Sea may be savage and barbarous under their dumb, dark fetishisms-nevertheless, all would be worse without these. The chief reason why many of the best and wisest have not seen this is the almost ineradicable tendency to ascribe to the religious beliefs of those

we call heathen the abuses we find in heathen society. No religion, Christianity any more than others, can stand that test. Apply it fairly, and you must make a clean sweep. Judged by this standard, all the divine things which Jesus brought into the world go by the board. The gigantic evils of society, as they exist in Christendom and heathendom alike, are the results of ignorance and selfishness in the human heart, against which every religion is always, in a degree which is the test of its value, an earnest protest. Our leading missionaries are keenly alive to the fact that non-Christian faiths are keeping their place in the world because they minister in a measure to some of the needs of the human heart. No system of absolute error could maintain its position in the world for a single moment. The non-Christian religions have maintained their positions in the world and their hold upon men by the great truths which, amid all errors and perversions, they undoubtedly contain. There is much of beauty in Confucian morals. There are Christian elements, if not a Christian spirit, in Buddhism. Christian Theism, catching the vision of the Divine Unity and the immanence of the Spirit, is not wholly out of touch with the Monotheism of Islam, or the Pantheism of the Hindu philosophies. This revelation of the unity of religion has led to a change of attitude toward the so-called heathen faiths and a change of temper in our approach to heathen people. The Christian consciousness recognizes to-day that the subjective qualities in the nature of man which are exercised in religion are the same in kind; though differing in degree, in all religious systems, and are always, therefore, to be treated with reverence. Hence comes the conviction that the mission of Christianity to the non-Christian systems is not one of condemnation, but of interpretation. It looks upon the non-Christian religions as archaic forms of the life of the Spirit. However valid and fresh they may seem to their followers, they are crude attempts at theology which have gathered around the personalities of men, who in their own spheres, to their own times and races, were spiritual kings. Each presents a problem the Gospel is bound to solve, but in doing so it may not disregard the fundamental law of teaching; it must proceed from the known to the unknown, from the acknowledged to the unacknowledged; from the truth partially perceived to the truth full orbed. Every ray of truth, every particle of holy feeling, every feeble impulse of pure desire, every noble deed, every act of sacrifice, every expression of tenderness and love, are but the expression of the workings of the Divine Spirit, and the right of Christianity to supplant will rest finally on its power to comprehend these ancient faiths. Truly, God has not left Himself without witness among the nations. As the late Dr. Barrows, who came into persona

contact with the great leaders of the world faiths, has said: "These religions are adumbrations of the Gospel. They give glimpses and foreshadowings of what were historical facts in the life of Jesus. All men need a diviner passion for truth; to be more inclusive in their hearts and faith; to think God's thoughts after Him in the wide-reaching sympathy for every manifestation of Himself which He has made. Is it not unwise to refuse faith in the evangelical history because that history is so precious that it has been foreshadowed by myths; because it is so desirable that men have invented legends that are remotely like it? Why should the Gospel record be deemed less true because of the story of Krishna, Buddha, and Hercules? Why should any reject an incarnation established by such evidences as are furnished in the coming of Jesus, because the Oriental, the universal heart, has longed for a celestial avatar? Stars disappear when the sun rises in its strength, but starlight is vastly better than utter darkness."

2. As cognate to this truth, missions have revealed the essential likemindedness of men, the whole world around. Underneath all varying forms of expression, man confronts the facts of his moral nature from practically the same viewpoint. He knows himself to have failed of the highest; he aspires to become something better than he is, and he believes himself capable of one day attaining the heights beyond. And so when he seeks to formulate his religious philosophy under differing forms and with various phrases, he is nevertheless striving to give expression to the same ideas and ideals which underlie all faiths. This revelation of the like-mindedness of men has made strong and meaningful the great conviction of the solidarity of the human race; that God hath made of one blood all nations of men. And with this sense of the oneness of humanity there come tremendous inspiration and increased hopefulness in the work of world regeneration.

3. While missions have brought this revelation of the unity of religion and the oneness of humanity, they have also clearly revealed that the religion of Jesus Christ, rightly interpreted, is best adapted to man's needs, and therefore worthy to become the world's religion. That religion is best which develops the best in man, and leads society to the highest planes. In its great essentials, the religion of Jesus Christ reveals the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. When Jesus summed up the law and the prophets in "love to God and love to man," He expressed not only the two great commandments, but the two final commandments. They reveal the ultimate in religion; there can be no beyond. To appreciate sympathetically the truths and the ideals of the great nonChristian religions is not in any sense to disparage the religion of Jesus.