We live in troubled times. In all parts of the world society is perturbed, uneasy, revolutionary. The slumbering fires of human passions, like volcanic forces, are upheaving and modifying politics, philosophy, social order and theology. Systems, and habits of thought and belief, that have commanded the veneration of ages, are visibly tottering upon their foundations. Society seems unwilling to tabernacle longer in ancient forms. The old is rejected; the new pursued with avidity. And everywhere the tide of human affairs seems run wild, reckless, tumultuary.
Nations are convulsed. Governments are suffering modifications from social and political revolutions. There are visible all over the world uprisings of the people against established institutions. Japan shows signs of agitation. China still suffers from a chronic revolution of years' standing. India is uneasy beneath British rule. Turkey, even in the decrepitudes of old age, is subject to local agitations and upheavals. Greece is making and unmaking kings. Italy yet rocks above the decaying fires of revolution. Austria's energies continue to be taxed with the question of Hungary and its uprisings. And Russia is grappling afresh at the throat of downtrodden, but liberty-loving Poland. The United States are upheaved by a rebellion exceeding in magnitude anything made known in history. Mexico has exchanged civil commotions and dissensions for foreign invasion. And the governments and nations of Central and South America continue to suffer from chronic feud and insurrections. Such a picture of the world shows that we have fallen upon a revolutionary era. Nearly all peoples appear uneasy and wishful of change. Some are impelled to their insurrectionary movements by the progress of the age. This is true of Poland, Italy, Hungary, Greece and perhaps of China and Japan. Some others may justly be regarded as reactions against the progress of the age. Such is emphatically true of the rebellion in America. Its leaders were not driven into movement by oppression, or a restriction of their rights. They originated it in the interest of slavery. If they should succeed it would throw the nation back along eighty years of progress. But their success in such a case is impossible. Art, science, philosophy, have all felt the touch of change and improvement. The best test of their ingenuity is visible in the labor-saving machinery with which they are filling and transforming the world. This is the true philosopher's stone, fruitlessly sought after for ages, but brought to light by the inventions and discoveries of modern times. Its touch transmutes into gold the crudest substance. Science has entered upon her true mission in creating such labor-saving machinery.
Theology is subjected to new and severe tests. The form of controversy between belief and skepticism through which our fathers passed related to the harmony subsisting between science and revelation. And efforts at its revival continue to be made in our day by adepts in science who would rejoice to bring into disrepute the teachings of Moses and Jesus. About twenty-two years ago, at Abbeville in France, flint implements were found associated with the remains of mammals, that were supposed to belong to a very remote geological period—as far back, at least, as 30,000 years. Subsequent researches have discovered these flint implements at other places in the valley of the Somme, as at Amiens, St. Acheul and Menchecourt. They were made, it was presumed, by man. And hence it was concluded that man must have lived for at least 30,000 years upon the earth. On the strength of such testimony we were required to surrender our faith in Moses and the Bible. But in the meantime geologists began to differ among themselves in regard to these flints and their associated mammal remains. Some were skeptical, and denied that there was any evidence furnished by these flints that man had a higher antiquity upon the earth than is allowed him in the commonly received chronology. Till they settle the controversy among themselves the Christian world need give itself no uneasiness about the authority of Moses and the Bible.
But the controversy between theology and skepticism has assumed a new form. The opponents of the Bible dignify their views with the lofty name of the "higher criticism." This "higher criticism" began in Germany, and has prevailed there for years. It has now passed into England, and is threading its way into the channels of thought. It is a novel idea, too, that Christianity is now invaded from within—by its avowed friends. Former attacks were from without—from acknowledged foes. But such men as Bishop Colenso, of the English Established Church, are now engaged in leading the new onslaught upon the Bible and revealed religion.
The food furnished by the English market is but a rehash of the biblical criticism found in Paine's Age of Reason, and more elaborately found in the works of the later German Neologists. Most of these have been refuted. Some of them show but moderate sagacity on the part of men with pretensions to the "higher criticism." And some of them discuss actually knotty points in Scripture, which were known to theologians from the earliest Christian ages. All of them, however, admit of explanation consistent with the Divine originality of the Bible. The world is changing its base. It is not what it was, and never will be again. Its transitions are affected by storm as well as calm. Our days have fallen upon an era of convulsion. Dissolution and reconstruction are the order of things. What befits us is to act well our part upon the stage of strife. The Gospel minister cannot certainly be excused, if he shall consent to be an inefficient workman in this era threatening to be so stormy to religious belief. He should familiarize himself with the latest phase of the controversy conducted by skepticism, that he may be prepared with intelligent and sufficient safeguards for the faith of his people.