A MODERN "CHRISTIAN" PHILOSOPHER.
SUCH Prof. Henry Drummond, LL.D., F.R.S.E., F.G.S., is reputed to be. His addresses, "The Greatest Thing in the World," "Pax Vobiscum," "What Is a Christian?" and some others have been circulated by the millions and lauded to the skies. That he has in these short, well written, and concisely put talks, articles, booklets, and speeches, said over some good things we freely admit; but he has only said over the good things; and the good things are used unconsciously, perhaps, by the learned author, but purposely by the devil to undermine faith in the word of God and the truth as it is in Jesus. For instance, the book entitled "Drummond's Addresses" closes with a little chapter on "The Study of the Bible," in which the biblical facts of inspiration are diametrically opposed. We are told "that the Bible came out of religion and not religion out of the Bible," which is both truth and error; for religion is in the Bible, and the best and only saving religion the world knows is obtained from it daily by hearts of faith. "It is not the words that are inspired so much as the men," he tells us; but the Bible nowhere tells us that the men are inspired, but it does expressly say that "all Scripture," that is, the very writings, are "God-breathed," or "inspired; that holy men "spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost;" that the words were not "the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth," etc., etc. We are told that the Bible is not one book but many, and this has led to "endless mistakes in theology and practical life." Of course this would all be true if the books were of man alone, but the Spirit of God is the author, and not recognizing this is what has brought in endless mistakes. But Mr. Drummond will not even admit that the writer of the book meant what he said; for he speaks of626Paul having spent "three Sundays in Thessalonica [and] created a great disturbance by his preaching," but the Bible says "three Sabbath days." But let this pass. Professor Drummond is an evolutionist, and has an article in the June number of McClure's Magazine, entitled "Where Man Got His Ears," in which this erudite doctor of the laws soberly, sagely, and learnedly tells us that they came by a process of evolution from the gills of a fish. He closes by wondering how through the centuries of the past the temple of the human body has been built up, and from what sources of lands, seas, climates, atmospheres its material has come, and what creatures, swimming, creeping, flying, climbing, contributed to its perfection, and then informs us, "How these things came to be biology is one long record." What is all this but a direct denial of the "Scriptures of truth" and of the record which they give concerning the origin of man, created in the image of God. We do not know as Professor Drummond is so much to be blamed. He evidently learned "the wisdom of the world" first, and considers it divine; but what shall we say of those Christians who are giving the widest currency to such infidelity as this by the advocacy of Professor Drummond's works. They are of that wisdom by which the world knows not God; but we are grateful that it is yet true that "the foolishness of God is wiser than man."