Earlier text: A SONG OF PRAISEWHAT is to be the aftermath of Equitable Corruption? We do not refer especially to the inevitable changes in the life-insurance system, but to the moral, social, and political results. For years radical speakers and radical newspapers have been indiscriminately assailing Wall Street and organized capital. They have been denouncing the relations between government and predatory wealth. They have been attacking the conscience and the moral integrity of the great captains of finance and appealing to the people to throw off their "shackles." Everybody knew that there was a measure of truth in these charges, but the indictment failed to make an indelible impression upon the minds of the great mass of the people. When one set of financiers stole a railroad from another set of financiers, the average man might regard the transaction as immoral, but it was not close enough to his personal interests to awaken his resentment. When a trust increased the cost of a necessary of life it was an impersonal sort of transaction which aroused wrath, but bred a corresponding sense of helplessness. After all, the consumer was not quite sure that the trust was wholly responsible. Besides, he liked to sell his own labor or products at the highest price, and was willing to concede something of the same right to others. But Equitable Corruption has made its appeal to a wholly different sentiment. The man in the street suddenly comes to see how "high finance" has been fattening off his scanty savings—off the savings he laid by for the support of his widow and children in case they were left alone. He sees how men who were supposed to be of unimpeachable integrity were systematically and studiously and ingeniously corrupt. He sees how men of the highest reputation lent their names to a band of organized swindlers. He sees how government has been debauched to protect year after year these highly respectable criminals. He sees how they have been able to purchase immunity from prosecution or publicity. He sees how they formed an alliance with Wall Street on one hand and the state government on the other; how prominent lawyer-politicians in both parties were generously retained by the insurance corruptionists; how the money of the policy-holder was freely spent in buying the privilege to continue looting the policy-holder; how men of seemingly the highest standing in the community could wantonly violate the most sacred of all trusts and feel no shame. Then he sees how when one set of Wall Street operators is forced out by exposure another set calmly steps in and proceeds to pile falsehood upon falsehood and illegality upon illegality. And he is asked to accept this as reform, and to pour in more of his hard-earned money to keep the machinery running! What is going to be the effect of it? Nothing that Lawson has ever said, nothing that Bryan has ever said, nothing that all the socialist orators in the country have said about Wall Street and high-finance politics, ever carried a thousandth part of the conviction that has come from the exposure of Equitable Corruption.—New York World. Religion and Politics in France
Referring to the bill passed by the French Chamber of Deputies, designed to cut the tie between church and state in France, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat says: "A republic has no business to have any connection with any church. The framers of the United States Government wisely kept religion and politics separate." But, by some means, they are becoming very closely connected. When a religious-political association can have its peculiar documents printed and sent over the country at government expense, as in the case of the National Reform Bureau, there is certainly an illicit connection between religion and politics in the government.7 This fact is especially significant when the main purpose of the "bureau" is to establish a religious control in the government. Another straw which shows a marked departure from the principle of a separation between religion and politics, is the growing influence of the Roman Catholic Church with the government whenever the special interests of that church are concerned. PROGRESS TOWARD IMPERIALISM.
By G.
THERE never has been an imperial government without some kind of state religion. So the tendency toward imperialism in a republic is always accompanied by the tendency toward church-and-state union. The United States Government is no exception to this principle. Militarism is the quintessence of imperialism, as is also a state religion; and during the Civil War the spirit of militarism was imbibed so freely by the people, both North and South, that it has been instilled into the minds of the children ever since. During the war, when militarism received its great impetus, there was organized the National Reform Association, whose aim is such a religious control of the state as to become practically a national religion. The influence of this movement has grown till there is now a so-called "Christian lobby" permanently maintained in the national capital, whose managers boast of their influence in Congressional legislation. Their influence is of such force as to be able to send their "bureau" documents through the mails under the free franks of certain Congressmen. In view of these conditions, it may be asked, Is the Republic tending toward imperialism?—Yes, so much so that in the last presidential campaign anti-imperialism as a leading plank in some party platforms was deemed essential. Furthermore the present Secretary of War, who is now in the Philippines, has publicly admitted the existence of an imperial party. In a recent speech in Manila, referring to the disposition of the islands by this government, Secretary Taft said the people of the United States were divided on the subject, and stated that "there is a considerable number who have the real imperialistic idea of extending the influence of America, by purchase and conquest, in the Orient, enlarging the power of the American Government for the purpose of controlling the Pacific and securing the largest possible share of the Orient trade, yet undeveloped." The "imperialistic idea" always is the subjugation of other peoples wherever possible, and the aggrandizement of self. When this spirit and the spirit of political religion are in evidence, there is manifest progress toward imperialistic government. A Vain Purpose.—The editor of the Charleston, S. C., News says: "We have small patience with those who, while professing to enforce observance of a sacred command, do no more than seek to regulate the manner and degree of violations of it." The whole principle of enforced Sunday observance is exposed to view in that one critical sentence. Assuming Sunday to be the Sabbath of the Lord, the Sunday law, as shown by its exceptions, always presumes to declare who may violate it, and in what ways, and to what extent. All of which is on the principle of indulgence, which is a purely Roman invention; and this shows that the whole Sunday institution and the civil laws sought to uphold it are of Roman origin. As a Roman institution, Rome may be allowed to regulate its observance or its violation for those who accept it as such—and for them alone. But she has no right to regulate or to enforce its observance upon others. Nor has any civil government the right to regulate its observance or enforce it upon any one on behalf of Rome, or at the behest of any of her imitators. For men to set up a human institution in place of God's law, or to grant men exemption from the observance of God's law, is nothing short of blasphemy; it is assuming the prerogative of God. Condemnation of Wealthy Donations
The bestowal of large donations upon municipalities here and there will not long be recognized on the part of the common people as compensation for the wholesale extortions that have made such donations possible by single individuals. Laboring men and the "common people" generally feel that these gifts to great schools and municipal libraries have been made at their expense. The sentiment of laudation that has prevailed to a great extent in the recent past is being changed to an expression of condemnation, even by some men of influence in the world. In a recent address in Chautauqua, N. Y., District Attorney Jerome, of New York City, voiced this growing sentiment in very plain terms. A press report says: Mr. Jerome declared that conditions of political and social unrest are fast approaching a crisis in this country. He referred to the building of Carnegie libraries in New York, which he said are not used, and never can be. "Better forget," he said, "the name of Carnegie, and leave that money with the men who earned it, and make their homes happy. I believe in law and order, but if I lived in one of those miserable hovels in the iron and steel district, and needed money for a loved one, I should not view the founding of these libraries with complacency." Catholic Military Organization
By Editor
A significant move is that recently reported from Chicago in reference to a great Catholic military organization which is now in process of formation. The organization will include every state in the union, and will have national headquarters to direct its operations and extensions. Delegates were present at the meeting in Chicago from several of the Catholic military organizations, and others signified their hearty accord with the plan. It is difficult for a Christian to see the necessity for a great military organization in any church. Peter, the rock on which the Catholic Church is supposed to be founded, received a fitting rebuke from the Master for the use which he made of a carnal weapon. Peter accepted the rebuke and never repeated the offense; but that church goes on with its military organizations as tho the Master they profess to follow had given explicit directions for the advancement of His kingdom in the earth by the use of the cannon, sword, and bayonet. This federation of Catholic military organizations is full of significance to those who know what the Bible teaches regarding the future work of that church. The Russian and Japanese envoys at Portsmouth, N. H., have reached an agreement, and peace is now within sight. The cessation of hostilities will not be authorized, however, until the envoys have signed the treaty, which is now complete. It will be signed in a few days. Japan, at the last moment, withdrew her demand for a cash indemnity, and will allow Russia to retain half of Saghalien Island. The provisions of the treaty have not been made known. But Russia evacuates China; Japan secures preponderating influence in Korea, and gets all of Russia's possessions in the Liao Tung Peninsula, which includes Port Arthur and Dalny. Japan also secures fishing rights off the coast of Siberia. The Japanese people are said to be very indignant at the peace terms. The war party in Russia is also dissatisfied, as they hoped to see Oyama beaten in the battle with Linevitch. Great praise has been showered upon President Roosevelt for his part in bringing about an agreement between these nations. Bishop Potter's saloon, so called because at its opening the bishop gave an address, and had the doxology sung, has been forced to close its doors for lack of patronage. The bishop's blessing on the saloon, like the pope's blessing on the Spanish Armada, on Maximilian's army in Mexico, on the wife of Maximilian when she returned from Mexico, on the army of the confederacy, and on the Spanish army in the late war with the United States,—seems to have had a contrary effect to that designed. This saloon will make no further pretense to running as a "sanctified saloon;" the scripture texts will be taken down; and it will be run like any other dispensary of the home-destroying and life-blighting liquids. The Lord will not bless evil, as this saloon incident shows; He will not curse the good, as the experience of Balaam proves. A treaty has been signed between England and Japan, by the terms of which either is to go to the assistance of the other when attacked by a third power. The purpose of this treaty is to maintain the continuance of the conditions that will exist in the East as a result of the treaty of peace between Japan and Russia. Japan desires the continued integrity of China, the continuance of her predominating influence in Korea, and the discontinuance of Russia's aggressive action in the Orient. It is thought that it is to act also as a check to Russia's southward movement toward the Indian frontier. The Interparliamentary Congress, called together in the interest of international arbitration, met at Brussels in the Palais de le Nacion, on August 28. Delegates are present from the parliaments or congresses of all the principal nations of the world. A draft for a model arbitration treaty has already been presented to this congress. The last engagement of the Russo-Japanese War was fought on August 31. It was an encounter between relatively small bodies of men. The Japanese are said to have lost to the Russians 130 prisoners, and quite a number were killed. The Russian loss was 8 killed. The remnant of the Japanese retired, bearing their wounded. Chicago has another strike on its hands, this time it is a strike of the printers, who threaten to close all the shops of that city. They are demanding an eight-hour day. President Mitchell, of the mine workers, has announced that the miners will strike after the first of April next for recognition and an eight-hour day. Chicago is now to pay for the damage done during the railroad strike of 1894 by the mobs of strikers that set fire to railroad property within the city limits. The road sued for $140,000; but the court has awarded to it $100,000. The total solar eclipse of the sun on August 30 was observed by companies of scientists at Assouan, Egypt; Alhama, Spain; Guetalma, Algeria; Tripoli; and St. Johns, Newfoundland. All were successful except the last named. Secretary of War Taft has not met with an enthusiastic or even cordial reception in China. The streets have been placarded with anti-american posters, many of which are exceedingly discourteous to the visitors. Three thousand of the inhabitants of Saghalien have been landed by the Japanese on the Russian mainland. This forced emigration is said to have been attended with great suffering. The yellow fever record in New Orleans up to the present time is as follows: number of cases, 1,878; number of deaths, 277. The disease has broken out at Pensacola, Fla., also. Cholera has broken out in Germany, and is spreading. "PATRIOTIC STUDIES."
By New York Herald
THE Rev. Dr. Wilbur F. Crafts, of Washington, with his International Reform Bureau, which styles itself "The First Christian Lobby," is certainly a very ingenious gentleman. If Mr. Crafts, with the ponderous volume of "Patriotic Studies" he is distributing free through the mails, is really trying to do good, he has stolen the livery of the devil to serve heaven in. Engaged in the publishing business, he has hit upon the happy expedient of using the franks of members of Congress to send his book without cost to possible purchasers "on approval," and enclosing extra franks to insure the free return of the book if refused, or the money if accepted. Fancy tens of thousands of copies of this book, each copy weighing more than a pound, loading down the postal cars in every part of the continent, and all at the cost of the American people, the pretext for free carriage being that in the 288 pages is included a leaflet which on motion of Senator Gallinger of New Hampshire was ordered printed as a Senate document. And this document is merely an advertisement for the Rev. Wilbur F. Crafts and his International Reform Bureau, with its address in Washington, and a list of books it publishes with their respective prices. Not the least amusing feature is the fact that the book contains a statement made by Dr. Crafts in favor of the Loud Postal Bill in a hearing some years ago in which he objected to the existing postal laws on the ground that "it gives large subsidies to certain special interests and makes the people pay the bill." Thirty-five thousand envelopes, we are told, have been printed for the use of Dr. Crafts with the frank of Representative Gillet, of Massachusetts, and a like number bearing the frank of Senator Gallinger of New Hampshire. There have been many abuses of the franking privilege, but none so glaring as this. It calls for investigation that the public may know by whose order such an outrage is perpetrated. The law provides that "the Vice-president, Senators, Representatives, and delegates in Congress, the Secretary of the Senate, and the clerk of the House of Representatives, may send and receive through the mail all public documents printed by order of Congress," and that the name of the person exercising this privilege "shall be written thereon with the proper designation of the office he holds." The fact that the law prescribes that the name shall be "written" thereon indicates that Congress never looked to the "printing" of thirty-five thousand franks in one block in the name of any Representative or Senator, nor does the inclusion of a single leaflet make of Mr. Crafts' bulky document a "public document." Who is the "still higher official" who authorized this performance at the expense of the people? —New York Herald. TRUE WORDS FROM CANADA.
By Editor
The agitation for religious legislation is not by any means confined to the United States. From numerous points in Canada we hear echoes of the conflict that is going on there over this matter. There has been agitation there over post-office closing on Sunday, over street-car traffic on that day, over the closing of stores, etc., and even those quietly laboring on farms, disturbing none, have been hailed before courts for the so-called "desecration of the Lord's day." But if Canada needed a precedent in this matter, she need not look farther than our own United States to find them by the hundreds. It is good to know that there are some worthy men who see the injustice of these things and are not afraid to declare their position. The declarations of one such we quote, in part, from the Listowel (Ontario) Banner: When Christ was here on earth, He taught the total separation of church and state by rendering to Caesar (civil government) that which is Caesar's and to God that which is God's. Matt. 22: 15-22. The Sabbath belongs to God. Ex. 20: 10. That the church of Christ is positively prohibited from using worldly force, or power of any kind, to enforce the principles of the spiritual kingdom, is evident from the following: - Christ says that His kingdom is not of this world, hence He will not allow His servants to fight for it. John 18: 36.
- He rebuked Peter because he used his sword to defend his Master. Matt. 26: 47-53.
- He rebuked the disciples because they desired to see those destroyed who would not believe Jesus. Luke 9: 51-56.
When He was upon earth, He preached the Gospel and did not act the part of a policeman. Those ministerial secretaries of the Alliance who go about with "a big stick" enforcing a sabbatical law, instead of preaching the Gospel (to which work they once affirmed they were called), have much to learn both from the precepts and example of the Christ they profess to follow. We quite agree with you, Mr. Editor, that we can not make a person holy by legislative enactment. We drive more people away from religion by any attempts to follow Lord's Day Alliance lines, than we draw to it. Sabbath observance and religion are governed by the conscience, and the sooner we learn this, the less hypocrites there will be, for men will never be other than hypocrites who act a part with which they are not in sympathy.
ROBERT SAINT CLAIR,
Pastor U. B. Church. We are glad that the editor of the Listowel Banner is brave enough to declare in his own columns the truth that "we can not make a person holy by legislative enactment." It is a matter of deepest regret that so many of the professed ministers of Jesus Christ are so unwilling to admit that most obvious fact, and continue to advocate a course which the Master never sanctioned and did not and could not employ in His work. No coercion of conscience should be the Christian's motto; for no coerced conscience ever was, or ever can be, acceptable to our Lord. Religious legislation is a power for the making of hypocrites, but it can not make Christian character, and it has no right to make the attempt. FORETOKENS OF OUR LORD'S RETURN
By George W. Rine
APOSTASY IN THE NOMINAL CHRISTIAN WORLD.
POWER, wisdom, love, and righteousness, are the essential constituents of genuine Christianity. Christianity is the Gospel, and the Gospel "is the power of God;" Christianity is the science of the cross, and the cross is "the wisdom of God;" Christianity is of God, and "God is love;" Christianity is the religion of Jesus Christ, and He is "the Lord our Righteousness." Obviously, then, a church that is Christian in fact, as well as in name, is a church mighty in power, guided in wisdom, serving in love, and innocent by virtue of imputed righteousness. Such was the apostolic church, such the Reformation church, such the early Wesleyan church, and such must be "the remnant of her seed," the advent church. This is the glorious heritage of even the church militant; yet how often—O, how often!—has she despised her heavenly birthright by bartering it for the "beggarly elements of the world"! However painful to contemplate, it is nevertheless true that the history of the Christian church has been a history of spiritual vicissitudes—of risings and fallings. Our Lord foretold this dreadful fact in His message to the seven churches. Revelation 2 and 3. Latter-day Apostasy Repeatedly Foretold.
If the prophets of God have emphasized and repeated one fact more than any other, it is, that "in the last days," in the days when "the coming of the Lord draweth nigh," religious apostasy, spiritual decadence, would be terribly acute and widespread. Perhaps the most startlingly graphic and complete inspired prediction relative to this painful fact, is that given through Paul, and recorded in the first eight verses, and in verse thirteen, of the third chapter of 2 Timothy. Mark the fact, it is "in the last days" that "grievous times shall come." The apostle proceeds to adduce the particular, concrete sins that would prevail, not in the world as such, but in the professed church of Christ. For does he not expressly tell us, in verse 5, that this awful catalog of sins obtains among those who hold to "a form of godliness, but deny [in practise] the power thereof"? Will not the reader take the pains to read the formidable list of evils which the divine Spirit here declares would infest the nominal church in the closing days of time? Prominent among the sins enumerated are the love of self, the love of money, the love of pleasure, lacking in self-control, "ever learning, and NEVER ABLE TO COME TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH," and that evil men and impostors would "wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived." Every one who has read the preceding articles of this series will recall the fact that they afforded conclusive evidence—conclusive in quantity and quality—that the mass of professing Christians, as well as the people who subscribe to no faith, are lovers of money, of self, of pleasure, and are lacking in self-control. In this discussion, I have set for myself the task of producing the evidence—indubitable evidence—that the formal Christian churches do practically deny the power of godliness, the holding a form thereof; and that many religious teachers are ever learning, and yet never able to come to a knowledge of the TRUTH. Did not our Lord Himself most vividly anticipate the almost universal spiritual declension that would characterize the churches in the days when He was about to be revealed in the glory of His kingdom? O, the anguish of heart with which He repeatedly foretold that as it was in the days of Noah and of Lot so would it be in the days when the Son of Man should appear. In the time of the Deluge and the destruction of Sodom, the professing children of Jehovah were utterly absorbed in the pleasures of the table, in marrying and giving in marriage, in planting, sowing, building, and at the same time they neglected to "strengthen the hand of the poor and needy." Again, in the closing part of the parable of the unjust judge, He asks the touchingly pathetic question: "Nevertheless when the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?" Is this not a most impressive declaration that when the Son of Man cometh He will find wofully little faith on the earth? Hence with infinite solicitude He admonishes His few servants who would remain true to their profession, to watch and pray, so that their love, like that of the multitudes of formal professors, might not "wax cold," and that they might not be overtaken "as a thief in the night." Now, dear reader, let us at once proceed to note the marvelous accuracy and minuteness with which these inspired last-day prognostications are realized and fulfilled in these days in which you and I live; and then judge whether these days are, or are not, the days which Inspiration characterizes repeatedly as "the last days." The Bible Largely Discounted.
Mr. W. H. Mallock, the famous English writer, says in a recent number of The Nineteenth Century and After, that the most thoughtful and highly educated of the Episcopal clergy have in a large measure repudiated doctrines which all orthodox Christians have ever regarded as essential and fundamental. Referring to two of the most eminent of the Anglican bishops, he declares: "They both start with admitting that the Gospels are full of errors, and demand in various parts very unequal credence. The accounts . . . of the circumstances in which Christ's discourses were spoken were often nothing more than vague conjectures of the Gospel writers. . . . The errors of the evangelists as historians are far from ending here." Similarly, the Rev. Dr. Sandy alleges that the incidents of Christ's temptation are on the face of them not historical. He even declares that the casting out of devils, of which many of Christ's miracles consisted, "was not really a casting out of devils9at all." He has the temerity to aver: "Christ Himself certainly imagined that it was so." As to the miracles of the loaves and Christ's walking on the water, whatever actual incidents may be at the bottom of these, "a nineteenth century observer would have given, had he been present, a different account from that which has come down to us." Observe, please, that here is a bishop of a professedly Christian church, who has the effrontery to declare that the ever-blessed Redeemer was the victim of mental illusion, and, in effect, was deluded, in thinking that He was casting out evil spirits when, in truth, He was doing no such thing. It should be remembered that a bishop has authority over the vast body of ordinary clergymen, and that all these are supposed to follow and enforce the teachings of their ecclesiastical superiors—the bishops. Is it strange that, as a great thinker recently declared, the English church is honeycombed with what practically amounts to infidelity? The Bishop of Exeter has made equally short work with the gift of tongues at Pentecost, of Judas's thirty pieces of silver, of the mingling of gall with vinegar, and so on indefinitely. The Bishop of Worcester maintains that Christ spoke with superhuman knowledge only about such spiritual matters as the moral character of God, and of man's proper relation to Him. But as to all questions connected with science and human history, Christ did not and could not speak otherwise "than in accordance with the ignorance of His time." The bishop goes even so far as to say that Christ accepted certain prophecies of the Old Testament "in a sense different from that which it is possible for a scholar to attribute to them." Is not this the very climax of impious presumption? Mr. Mallock declares that this kind of reasoning so far dominates Episcopal doctrine that practically all the miracles described in the Bible have now been brushed aside as legends or misconceptions of fact. He, however, believes that the leaders of the Anglican church still avow their belief in the genuineness of the four major miracles; namely, the virgin birth of Jesus, His divinity, resurrection, and ascension. And they profess faith in these four only because they have sense enough to see that, if these were surrendered, Christianity would logically be overthrown. The aged scholar and theologian, Dr. Fischer, of the Protestant church of Germany, urged with fervid eloquence that the "most advanced theological thought ought to be proclaimed from the pulpit and taught in the schools." The reader hardly needs to be told that "advanced theological thought" in Germany practically means the placing of the Bible on a par with the so-called sacred books of heathen religions. The doctor says further respecting the origin of the Bible: "The whole conception of revelation has now disappeared from religious thought; it was a product of religious reasoning under the form of an antique philosophy. . . . There can no longer be any claim to a revelation in the old sense of the word, and the idea is not in harmony with the certain results of modern scientific research. . . . The deification of Christ has not stood the test of real historical investigation." He does not hesitate to teach that the whole Bible wears a radically different aspect from what it formerly wore, as the result of the "light of modern science" to which it has been subjected. Yet this famous Bible infidel persists in posing before the world as a Christian teacher and preacher—to champion a religion in which he practically no longer believes. But this is precisely the contradictory and utterly stultifying position in which thousands of so-called radical theologians throughout Christendom are to-day standing. If they deny the truth of the very fundamentals of Christianity, why have they not sense and common honesty enough to step down and out? Ah, how true the words of Jesus to the effect that when the light that is in one becomes darkness, "how great is that darkness"! As late as May 13, of the present year, the despatches from New York told us that the Rev. Dr. John Peters of St. Michael’s Church (Episcopal) of that city, had startled the conservative Christian world, by his contention that the Bible must be subjected to the same canons of criticism as any ordinary narrative compilation. He unblushingly affirmed that the book of Genesis is full of myths; that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were not real persons in the commonly accepted sense, but were merely composite photographs, so to speak, of all Israel, and that much of what is recorded of the patriarchs is purely romantic. Most of the scriptural narratives, he insists, are legends somewhat higher than other folklore in that they serve to point to a higher spiritual life. Dr. Lyman Abbott, in his latest confession of faith, made in the course of a sermon before the students of Harvard University, December 1904, said in part: "Science, literature, and history tell us that there is one eternal energy; that the Bible no longer can be accepted as ultimate; that many of its laws were copied from other religions; that the Ten Commandments were, like all laws, a gradual growth; and that man is a creature of evolution, not creation." The first sentence of the doctor’s remarkable address is fairly stunning in its atheistic chord: "I wonder if you students in Harvard will understand me when I say that I no longer believe in a great First Cause." In short, the essential tone of Dr. Abbott’s address is distinctively pantheistic. Yet he declares that "God has a personality;" thus treating his hearers to gross logical absurdity. The Rev. C. E. Cheney, of Chicago, says truly that these utterances "place Dr. Abbott utterly beyond the pale of Christianity." But unfortunately the doctor, with all his reputed intellectual acumen, seems incapable of grasping this obvious fact. The Rev. C. N. Field, of Boston, adds: "Dr. Abbott is repeating things which many heretics have said before him." The Rev. Robert Collyer hails Dr. Abbott’s unintelligible screed as being "new light upon religion;" when, in truth, it is nothing more than a nebulous effusion of effete pantheism. With what timely force the divine exhortation comes to us in these days of religious babel: "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, . . . and not after Christ." An eminent educator, of Canada, not long since alleged: "Of the Gospels, criticism has spared only the character and teachings of Jesus." How utterly fatuous—even childish—is such a statement from one who poses as a great thinker! He talks just as if Jesus had nothing to do with any part of the Bible except such scraps of the four Gospels as "higher criticism" has mercifully spared to the world. If these self-deputed critics of the sacred Scriptures really knew what that holy Book actually teaches, they would inevitably know that Christ is the Author and Lord of "all Scripture." How vividly the Holy Spirit enabled Paul to anticipate the melancholy fact that "in the last days," the nominal teachers of the Word, should be "ever learning, yet never able to come to a knowledge of the truth." Professor Goldwin Smith is, in his attitude toward the origin and nature of the Scriptures, typical of a vast majority of the educators that compose the faculties of the great colleges and universities of the Christian world. The following excerpt from one of his recent essays contains the gist of the theology of the tremendously influential class to which he belongs: "In the authenticity, contemporaneity, harmony of the documents [of the Bible], we can confide no longer. . . . Moreover, the Fall being a myth, as it is now everywhere allowed to be, there is no ground for the Incarnation and the Atonement, a disclosure which in itself is fatal to the traditional creed of Christianity." Many of these educators, too, are professors of Christian (?) doctrine and literature in theological seminaries, and are therefore the moulders of the multitudes of young men preparing for the Gospel ministry. The late Rev. Dr. George C. Lorimer stated an obvious truth a few years ago, when he said that, in the judgment of the great majority of religious teachers and leaders, "the Bible is no longer what it was, an unimpeached and trustworthy teacher; and that supernatural conversion is slowly giving way to the rationalistic theory of evolution." Another sweeping statement showing the incredible extent of infidelity within the very precincts of the professedly Christian church, is the following from the Rev. Frederic Henry Hedge, of Boston: "Faith in Christianity as divine dispensation does not imply, and must not be held to the belief, as veritable history, of all that is recorded in the Gospel. . . . Christianity, like every other religion, has its mythology,—a mythology so intertwined with the veritable facts of its early history, so braided and welded with its beginnings, that history and myth are not always distinguishable the one from the other. . . . To measure the claims of the Christian religion by the historic verity of all the narratives of the New Testament, is to prejudice the Christian cause in the judgment of competent critics." Nothing could be easier than to cite thousands of additional statements of precisely the same tenor, from the public utterances of those who are honored as teachers and leaders in the Christian churches. But those given are ample for the purpose of attesting the awful completeness with which the nominal Christian church has renounced her faith in the inspired credentials which constitute the sole warrant for the Christian religion. Destitute of faith, the churches have been shorn of spiritual power, and have, accordingly, sunk to the plane of mere social and fraternal organisms. How painfully complete is the fulfilment of that sorrowful prophecy of Jesus relative to these last days: "Nevertheless when the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?" Ah, He will find only a beggared moiety of faith. An English journal, The Spectator, sent thousands of letters to prominent men and women, in England and America, asking them (1) "Do we believe? (2) Are we religious?" After examining the multitudes of replies which he received, the editor reports: "The dominant note in the answers to the first question is emphatically ‘NO’; that in the answers to the second question is an equally emphatic ‘YES.’” O, yes, we have, exactly as Paul said we would have, a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof. Is it not fair, is it not safe, aye, is it not duty, to conclude that we are living in the testing, crucial "last days"? (In a second instalment, under the same caption, I shall treat more especially of the dearth of spirituality in the churches. G. W. R.)