A PROMINENT minister of the Methodist Church, who is a professor in a well-known university, has been summoned to trial on the charge of heresy. The basis of the indictment against him is that his “views concerning the Deity, the inspiration and authority of the Holy Scriptures, and the atonement are contrary to the plain teachings of the Scriptures, and that his teachings of eschatology and his views of Christian experience are also contrary to the Scriptures and to the established doctrines of the Methodist Episcopal Church.” In an editorial with the heading “Heretics in the Ministry” a leading daily paper comments upon this proposed trial as follows:— Probably these charges are true; but how many are there among the more intellectual ministers of the Methodist Church and of Protestant churches and theological seminaries generally against whom similar charges could not be brought with equal reason? In all this country there are, so far as we know, not half a dozen theological seminaries, even of the most nominally orthodox Protestant churches, where the old theology is taught. In its place has come up a “new theology,” of which the features objected to in the Methodist professor’s teaching are a distinctive part. The authority of the Holy Scriptures is explained away. The dogma of the atonement is reduced to a meaningless abstraction. Everlasting punishment in the future state is taught no longer. Even doubt of the personality of God is stimulated.5 If, therefore, heresy trials like that of the Boston Methodist minister are to be begun, they will have to be increased to hundreds before all the heretics are brought to book. Moreover, how will it be possible to get courts not themselves tainted with heresy? The personality of God, the inspiration and divine authority of the Holy Scriptures, and the atoning sacrifice of Christ as the sinner’s only hope of salvation are the fundamental truths of Christianity. To reject these truths is to reject the foundation principles of Christianity. To substitute something else for these truths is to substitute something else for Christianity. To depart from these truths is to depart from “the faith once delivered to the saints.” And yet there is an increasing and alarming tendency among religious teachers to-day to accept and to disseminate such views of these fundamental doctrines of the gospel of Christ as really make it another gospel altogether. The authority of the Scriptures is being discredited by bringing them to trial at the bar of human reason; the inspired statement that “Christ died for our sins” is interpreted as meaning nothing more than that Christ gives his life to sustain our physical being, and inasmuch as this is done for the whole animal creation, the whole idea of an atonement for sin is thus set aside; the new conception of the being and nature of God destroys any wholesome thought of his personality, and dissipates him into Infinite Mind, Power, Intelligence, the unknown Force, Kosmos, etc. And when these ideas prevail, there is no real basis for faith in the forgiveness of sins, and there is no barrier against sin. Man becomes the creature of inexorable fate; and cut off from any real hold upon God, he is left to be a prey to the powers of darkness. These teachings are the real essence of idolatry in a refined form, adapted to modern modes of thought. They just as truly subvert the gospel of salvation from sin as did the teachings of the priests of Baal in the olden time. “With many, a philosophical idol is enthroned in the place of Jehovah; while the living God, as he is revealed in his Word, in Christ, and in the works of creation, is worshiped by but few. Thousands deify nature, while they deny the God of nature. Though in a different form, idolatry exists in the Christian world to-day as verily as it existed among ancient Israel in the days of Elijah. The god of many professedly wise men, of philosophers, poets, politicians, journalists,—the god of polished, fashionable circles, of many colleges and universities, even of some theological institutions, is little better than Baal, the sun-god of Phenicia.” Are we not seeing the fulfilment of that prediction concerning the latter days, that some should depart from the faith? Is it not clear that the way is being prepared for that overmastering deception of Satan, when he will openly reveal himself with the claim that he is Christ? Just now the message ought to sound forth with great clearness and power, “Behold your God!” “Fear God, and give glory to him; . . . and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” And the people who give this warning message must be wholly free from these satanic sophistries, or they will be simply blind leaders of the blind. “Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself?”