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CIHM/ICMH

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DOGMA AND DUTY.

BY THF

REV. JAMES AWDE, B.A.

CHRIST'S DIVINE MISSION.

ItY THK

REV. S. J. HUNTER.

BEING THE EIGHTH ANNUAL LECTURE AND SERMON DELIVERED
BEFORE THE THEOLOGICAL UNION OF VICTORIA UNIVERSITY

IN 1885.

TORONTO:

WILLIAM BRIGGS, 78 & 80 KING ST. EAST.

C. W. COATES, Montreal, Que. | S. F. HUESTIS, Halifax, N.S.

1885.

A LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE THEOLOGICAL UNION OF
VICTORIA UNIVERSITY, MAY llTir, 1885.

BY THE

REV. JAMES AWDE, B.A.

%tttuxt.

DOGMA AND DUTY.

" Let me know what is true that I may do what
is right," is an appropriate motto for the highest
intellectual life. This knowledge of the true, when
exactly formulated, is the content of the word dogma.
This right-doing, connected with the antecedent obli-
gation, is the meaning of the term duty. What is
the connection of duty with dogma in personal and
social life ? What is the effect of our thinking upon
our conduct ? What is the bearing of Theology upon
Morality ? This is the question which demands our
grave and patient consideration.

Not without reason do I venture upon this topic,
for it is one of the most serious and significant con-
troversies of our time. The champions of the Gospel
of our fathers are summoned to show why the ancient
theologies should be conserved and perpetuated. The
relation of Theology to Morality is, by some, regarded
as, at best, an open question. Our dogmatic systems,
and even the fundamental truths upon which the
systems are built, are assailed with a confidence, a

G DOGMA AND DUTY.

persistence and an ability which the Church may not
allow to pass unchallenged. Mr. Herbert Spencer, a
keen observer, a man of immense industry, and a
master of style, attempts to show that moral ideas are
gradually developed by a process coordinated with the
course of scientific evolution. The late Professor
Clifford has also produced a most interesting treatise
upon the scientific basis of morals. Mr. Leslie Stephens,
in a still more powerful book, likewise endeavors to
construct a science of ethics. An able Canadian writer
propounds the question, "Has science found a new
basis for morality ? " The Secularists are seeking an
ethical ground for the well-being of society, upon the
assuinption that this world is all. There is a growing
repugnance to accept, as valid in morals, any con-
clusion which cannot be submitted to the same formal
logical proof as ordinary knowledge. Men are indulg-
ing the hope that all modes of moral conduct, personal
righteousness, domestic fidelity, social obligations, polit-
ical purity, ideal legislation, and international amity
may be secured from the multidudes, without the aid
or the intervention of theological ideas. In essays on
Natural Science, on P.sychology, on Social Economy,
on the Philosophy of History, on the Theory jf Religion,
in works of fiction, and in the most pervasive peri-
odical literature of the day, the controversy is recog-
nized. And by all these avenues of approach, openly
or clandestinely, the sacred truths of religion are
attacked with astonishing virulence. There is a Ger-
man legend attached to the martial story of the great

DOfJMA AND DUTV. ' 7

battle of Chalons where the Roman allies won a
sanguinary victory over the fierce Attila. The battle
ended, the sword was sheathed, and the field was
strewed with hc^aps of slain. But, for three nights
after the engagement, it is said, the spirits of the dead
soldiers were seen hovering over the battle-field, and
continuing; their savajre warfare in the silent air. The
conflict of our age is more aerial than terrestrial ; it is
mental, spiritual. The foes of the holy Gospel have
put up their swords, they have extinguished the fire.«
of Nero, and no longer keep enraged wild beasts tc
crunch the bones of the martyrs ; but they yield the
pen and the press, the persuasive eloquence, and all
the weapons of intellectual warfare, with a courage in
attack, and a skill in defence that would have delighted
the heart of an apostate Julian or a scoffing Voltaire.

For us, this is a living question. " For all whc
think seriously, and still trust their religious instincts
the hour is one of fearful perplexity. It must be one
almost of agony for many of the best and most cul-
tivated among the clergy." These are the words ol
Mr. Gold win Smith. With him, I fling back the
insinuation that "The clergyman is a part of the
Church equipment not more liable to intellectual dis-
turbance than the pulpit or the font. The Roman
Catholic priest may perhaps go mechanically through
his prescribed round of duties without greatly feeling
the pressure upon his individual soul. But the Prot-
estant pastor, as often as he enters the pulpit, has tc
express his personal convictions, and if he reads whal

8 DO(JMA AND DUTY.

is read by other men, his step surely must sometimes
falter as he mounts the pulpit stair." Any contro-
versy touchinjjf the utility antl validity of theolo<ify
aH'ects us and our work. We all hear, from a distance,
the confused noise of the warfare. Many of us, like
David, have sat by life's dusty roadside, hail'n<:( the
fleet couriers with the eager question, " What news
from the battlefield ? " And some of us, with such
equipments as we could improvise in our busy life,
have minted in the tumultuous strife. We stand
ready to vindicate the claims of theological dogma as
the ground of ethical duty. We do not fear to ask
how far the connection 3^ dogma with duty is vital
and necessary, and how far conventional e \ acci-
dental.

I. — We need feel under no constraint, at this time, to
uphold any specific doctrine, least of all to justify any
dogma which any considerable section of the Church
may deem untenable. A dogma may be either an
individual conviction or the formal edict of a supreme
ecclesiastical court. In the good sense it includes all
exact truth-formuljB. Thus, an axiom in Geometry,
Newton's Law in Physics, and the personality of the
Holy Ghost in Theology are equally dogmas. In the
bad sense a dogma signifies an imperious edict of some
spiritual or secular authority which does violence to
reason or liberty. In so far as I venture to specify
the present application of the word, I confine it to the
fundamental religious ideas, God, man and immor-
tality ; or, in a wider sense, to the simple, unmethodi-

IKKJMA AND DUTY. 9

cal content of tlu* Bible, as given to us, in tlie artless
simplicity of nature, l)y the inspiring Provi<lence.

Hence we do not now set up a <lefence of Wesleyan
standards, 01" of the Thirty-nine Articles, any more than
we open a bombardment upon the five points of
Geneva, or the seven sacraments of the Vatican. We
should endeavour to take a generous view of the sub-
ject. We should feel after some of the facts and
incontrovertible principles involved in this question.
This course ma^' be the more perilous, or it may not ;
but, if I am called, by your suffrages, to navigate this
lectureship, I would rather, if you please, sail in the
ocean than in the creek.

1. The first 'principle, then, which demands our
assent is the necessary relation between thinking and
action. This is one firm position upon which to base
our exposition. It is the more appropriate since it is
admitted by all parties in the controversy, and furnishes
common ground from which believer and sceptic of
every school of thought may stand side by side and
survey the field. There is a real bond between right
thinking and right action, as there is between false
thinking and wrong action. Other things being e(|ual,
the man who has true conceptions of life and its main
factors will be morally a better and stronger man than
one who has false views of life and its conditions. He
who believes that he is doomed to die like a dog, that
being the last of him, will not live as he would in the
faith that death, to the good man, is the gateway to a
perfect and immortal life. As all rules have excep-

(

10 DOCJMA AND DUTY.

tions, HO all principles reciuire occasional flexion or
modification in practical life. I shall indicate the
modification of this principle further on. At present
I insist only upon the vital relation of a man's creed,
the sum of his ruling convictions, and his conduct, the
circle of his purposes and activities. There is here a
fixed logical sequence ; and where this iron link of
logic exists, if there be no neutralizing influence, there
is a certain practical consequence. We may expect,
witb unvarying certainty, that every tlieory, wrought
into operative convictions, will produce its practical
results. Bring forward your scientific observer, your
biologist, your philosopher, your positivist, your
moralist, your poet, your theologian, and all agree that
dogma tends to expression in duty, and that a man's
conduct is both the logical and practical sequence of
his actual creed.

2. A second elementary proposition is that the value
of any dogma, or dogmatic system, is to he tested by its
actual results. " The tree is known by its fruits." So
of our theologies. The merit; t of a system may be
righteously tested by the actual consequences of the
teaching. If the system be new, and have not been
tried in real life, its intrinsic worth can be tested
solely by its logical results. But, as already stated, if
no counteracting influence intervene, the logical and
practical consequences will be identical. In clear
thought, then, in determining the utility of dogma, it
is fair to abstract from all opposing moral forces, and
to trace the doctrine or teaching to its ultimate logical
outcome.

DOGMA AND DUTY.

Here we find tancrible distinctions among dogmi

In August the fanner finds it p,asy to separate tlie i

alluvial plain from the great stretches of surface lini

stone. He can stand upon a hill, and with his e

trace a line between them, on one side of the line beii

verdure and waving corn, on the ether side the r

and parched surface. Some systems are barren as t

sands of Sahara, others fertile as the valley of t

Nile. The green, in spots, extends into the desei

and the bare rock runs up here and there into the ri

field, so that the line is wavy and irregular ; but y<

can see this line. Lessing, in " Nathan the Wis(

declares that the ultimate test of the value of religio

sects is their fruits. When the world can tell whi(

set of doctrines, or which religious denomination, cj

do most for human well-being, can best satisfy tl

deepest human instincts and meet the wants of mf

in life and death, then the world will know what

believe. It is therefore in order to ask, " How wi

your reputed truth affect me ? " If it tend to deba

me or my brother, then let me reject it, though i

angel from heaven preach it ; but if it will elevate n

or my neighbor, then I will gladly embrace it, esteer

ing the humblest man who brinofs it as a messen<»-(

from God, from " that someone not myself who mak

for righteousness." • For, while here comparison is ui

commonly odious, if I am driven to comparison, as tl

life is more than meat, and the body than raiment, i

conduct is more than opinion, and character ths

creed.

12 DOGMA AND DUTY.

II. — These two principles are simple, self-evident,
and sufficient for our purpose. In this clear, uncom-
pounded light, let us proceed rapidly to review some
of those half-fledged, embryonic theories which are
proposed as substitutes for the ancient theological basis
of morals.

1. The new ethical systems put forward are so near
akin that if we say aught about one of them we are
lauding or defaming the whole family. Indeed, they
are like the Siamese twins, you cannot attack one
without hurting both. For the sake of clearness, how-
ever, we may say that the substitutes for the estab-
lished ethics are three — not twin but triple theories —
the Materialistic, the Hedonistic, and the Secular; and
that the ligament which firmly unites them is their
common Materialism.

2. We begin with the Materialistic hypothesis. Life
is the outcome of organization. Consciousness, thought,
will and moral ideas result from the organism, and
with the organism they perish. Matter is the Alpha
and Omega of being. All matter is similar. The first
man is called a mollusk or a jelly-bag, and the last
mollusk we call a man. The only diflerence is that one
came early, the other late; one is simple, the other
complex. The molecules may have been moving a few
ages longer in one case than in another; but the whirl-
ing of a leaf, the growth of an apple, the writhing of
a worm when trodden upon, the flight of a deer from
the hound, the eloquent philippic of Demosthenes, the
lay sermon of Huxley, the prayer of Elijah, and the

DOGMA AND DUTY. 13

charity of Peabody are all alike the simple effects of
moving atoms. We have supposed that instinct
thought, reason, imagination, will, sentiment, passion,
fear, love and hope determine the flight, the oration,
the poem, the prayer and the charity. No, replies
the materialist, all these are the effects of the move-
ments of the molecules of matter.

This means that men are moved by atoms. Those
atoms, then, are the responsible gentlemen that ought to
be sent to heaven or to hell. Those molecules, and
not we, are the criminals to be brought to judgment.
We are thus exempt from condemnation and approval.
The cause of all action in mind and morals (says one
of these thinkers) is "nascent motor excitations of
nerve and brain." If these motions are single they run
into action ; if various they lead to a conflict among
the nerve forces which we call comparison, reasoning,
volition. Volition does not determine nerve motions,
but contrariwise. At present we have one set of
"nascent motor excitations" corresponding to the ideas
of right, duty, freedom and responsibility. We have
also another set of "nascent motor excitations" corres-
ponding to the desire for ease, property, gratification,
another man's privileges, his money, or his wife. But
the materialistic theory puts a stop to the first set of
nerve-motions, utterly destroys them, and leaves the
lower, selfish, sensuous appetites to sweep the individual
and society away. Imagine all the lazy, unoccupied
and immoral classes, now kept in order by the sense of
right and wrong and impending judgment, turned

14 DOGMA AND DUTY.

loose upon society, freed from responsibility and moral
restraint, under the sole sway of the baser appetites,
and the logical and practical outcome would be social
anarchy and destruction.

This molecular hypothesis leads also to physical
fatalism. When attacked upon this point, the
materialists hide behind the doctrine of philosophical
necessity. Mr. Huxley, for example, obtains a big
screen which is held up by Calvin on one side and by
Jonathan Edwards on the other ; and taking refuge
behind it, he challenges the hottest fire of the theo-
logians. But, Mr. Huxley, some wise men think that
Calvi II is not invulnerable. Philosophical necessity is
guards ' and counterbalanced by other doctrines.
Philosophical necessity, pure and simple, is dangerous
enough when reduced to practice, but physical fatalism
is ten times worse. And the molecular Ethics is fatal-
istic. As Moleschott affirms, good and bad actions
being determined by physical causes in the same way
as speech and style, the color of the eyebrows, and the
motions of the earth, it follows that "freedom is a
fancy." Says Carl Vogt: " Free will does not exist; at
no moment are we our own masters." Man, then, is an
automatic machine. The poor man is no more free
than the rolling stone which gathers no moss. Man is
no more worthy of praise or blame than a water-wheel
or windmill. To punish human action? is as absurd as
to explode the cave of ^olus on account of a hurricane.
As just had been the Komans in hanging the image of
Neptune because a storm had shattered their fleet ; as

DOGMA AND DUTY. 15

wise was Xerxes when he whipped the Hellespont that
destroyed his bridge of boats, as that court which
brands a man criminal, or inflicts upon him pain or
death, when he is at no moment his own master, and
every thought and deed is determined by physical
necessity. To punish an automaton man is like break-
ing into fragments your watch because you are five
minutes too late for the train. Materialism is fatalism,
and thus destroys freedom, responsibility, and all moral
ideas, and subverts the ethical basis of society.

In our day the materialist is invariably an evolu-
tionist, and the leading ethical doctrine which he pro-
claims is the law of the survival of the fittest. Thus
Hellwald claims that " the word 'morality' should be
banished from scientific writings because it is empty,
that there is neither freedom nor soul, that the struggle
for existence and the right of the stronger is the only
basis of morals." Here he would replace our moral
conflicts, with their lofty, historic grandeur, by a
struggle for existence, a dog-fight, with its brutal
debasements. The permanence of holiness, justice and
love now gives way to the right of the stronger. This
is the famous robber's transposition of might for
right. The new basis of morals — the only right is
that of the strongest. Studying this principle in
nature a witty Frenchman sayL, " The whole of nature
may be summed up in the conjugation, active and
passive, of the verb to eat and to be eaten." The same
becomes the law of human life. The verb to destroy
and to be destroyed tells the whole tragic and

16 DOGMA AND DUTV.

monotonous story. Nobody is to be blamed. S )ciety
destroys the criminal not because he is to blami , but
because society is the stronger. If the criminal be
able he should destroy society ^ecause he is the
stronger. Only the ittest ought to survive. The
new ethics discovers an easy solution of the problem,
What is to be done with the many people who are not
worth keeping ? Kill them off — what harm ? " It is
wrong," you say. There is no wrong. The only
crime is being a nuisance, and surely we may abate a
nuisance. Those tramps — do not feed them, swiftly
remove them. Those helpless, deformed children —
divine Plato approved of exposing them, follow his
sage counsel. Certain people are in your w^ay — learn
from the Fijians before the advent of missionaries,
eat those whom it is inconvenient to keep. Aged and
infirm persons own millions of property of no present
value to the public — why not forcibly seize those pos-
sessions. Purify the race and thus confer a boon on
posterity. Drunkenness, says one, is a valuable
agent in destroying the low and sensual class. Then
keep your liquor-shops in full blast. What expense
we shall thus avoid — no hospitals, no orphan homes, no
asylums for the insane, no instruction for the blind
or dumb, no churches, no parsons, no useless scientific
speculators ; all these are of no public utility, cut them
off in the same simple fashion and earn the gratitude
of succeeding generations. Clearly the materialistic
conception of ethics, when pressed to its logical con-
sequences, overturns the entire framework of society
and obliterates the very name of morality.

DOCMA ANn DUTY. 17

3. The second basis of morals proposed by the EvokL-
tionists is modern Hedonism. Pleasure anil pain are
the supreme tests of conduct. Pleasure is favorable to
the vitality of the organism, pain unfavorable; the for-
mer is therefore right, the latter wrong. This is sub-
stantially the doctrine expounded by Mr. Herbert Spen-
cer in his "Data of Ethics." In his evolution of moral
ideas he begins with a moUusk and ends with a man.
There is no radical distinction between the moral
character of an oyster and that of an Oxford scholar.
Spencer calls one higher and the other lower, but the
moral signiHcance of these adjectives is borrowed from
the religious system. Man is more complex than the
mollusk, but bears no moral differentia. All life is
purely animal. In this theory is no authority, no con-
science, no duty, no virtue, no obligation, no principle,
no rectitude of motive. It knows nothing of moral
beauty or excellence. Actions purely pleasant are
absolutely right, actions attended with pain are wrong.

This is not the Hedonism of Epicurus. This phil-
osopher came into the world six ye ./s after Plato left
it, and has been generally assailed as the apostle of low,
sensual enjoyment. But he was a man of blameless
life, moving in the atmosphere of an estimable Greek
scholar. His doctrine, that happiness or pleasure is
the end of life, differs from the animal Hedonism of the
evolutionist in that Epicurus teaches that the pleasures
of the soul are to be pref ei red before those of the body,
that pleasure is closely connected with virtue, that a
wise man may be happy though in torture, and thati
2

18 DOOMA AND DUTY.

ho .so far transcends mere animal delights ♦^hat with a
little barley -broad and water he can rival Jove in hap-
piness.

But modern Hedonism is animalism pure and simple.
For man is an animal, nothing more. In the commun-
ity the only test of the moral quality of an action is
pleasure, the only end of an action is to increase the
duration and intensity of life and transmit it to our
offspring. There is no more morality in a community
of men than in an ant-hill, a bee-hive, or a beaver-
dam. The shark that moves through the sea with
fins and devours fish for pleasure, or to sustain
life, and the shark that walks our streets and steals
property and honor for pleasure, and for the increased
intensity of life, are upon the same level. It can be
shown by this method that the seagull, which lives
beyond the span of human life, in wild freedom, exempt
from care and pain, is morally superior to the storm-
beaten sailor. To take an example from an author
already quoted : A heroic Italian physician finds a new,
mysterious plague ravaging the city. He resolves to
devote himself for the life of the people. He shuts
himself up with a subject, makes observations upon the
disease, commits them to writing, feels the poison in
his blood, and calmly lies down to die. Another man
finds a single life standing between him and a large
fortune. He takes that life in such a way as to escape
suspicion, he gets possession of the fortune, avoids a
life of drudgery, improves his intellect, shares every
pleasure, social, domestic, intellectual, animal; is sur-

I)0(;ma and duty. 19

rounded by troops of adniirinfjj friends, and after a
long life dies univovsally honored and lamented. Why
should the murderer die unhappy? Why does the
physician die happy ^. Why do you call one man base
and the other noble? We have an answer. The a^nos-
tic has none! By the pleasure test the murderer is
the wiser and the better man of the two. "But," says
the hedonist, "the physician had an altruistic nature,
and the murderer had an egoistic nature, and an altru-
ist is higher than an egoist." " Higher, Mr. Spencer ?"
'• Yes, higher, as a lobster is higher than an oyster, that
is all. There is no moral differentiation." " The altruist
and egoist, according to your hypothesis, are bound
to seek pleasure, each following his own nature. If
one is thus led to murder, and the other to self-sacri-
fice, there is no essential superiority or excellence of
one over the other." The physician is like the remark-
able wolf that suckled Romulus and Remus, th3 mur-
derer is a common wolf that devours the children ; but
both are wolves. The objections then to modern
Hedonism are briefly these : —

(1) It subverts all moral distinctions.

(2) Since pleasure is relative to the organism, whether
altruist or egoist, it makes all morality subjective or
individual.

(3) It fails to decide the plainest questions of moral-
ity.

4. The third and remaining substitute for Christian
morality is Secularism, with which we may connect
Positivism. As I understand the connection of these

20 DOGMA AND DUTY.

two systems, Positivism is the scientific, and Secularism
the popular, side of the same general theory of life.
Secularism maintains that man has an adequate rule
of life independent of belief in God, immortality, or
revelation, and would regulate our affairs by considera-
tions purely human. Positivism teaches that man is
a beast that perishes — no more, no less; that then is no
personal immortality ; that we know only what we
can discern with the five senses, all beyond this
material mechanism being a blank ; that there is no
mind, and therefore metaphysics, as a science of mind,
is a dream ; that there is no God, and therefore theo-
logy, as a science of God, is visionary ; that humanity
is the sole and loftiest object of adoration and worship.
While, therefore. Positivism is the scepticism of the
savant, and Secularism is the scepticism of the man of
business and the proletaire, both agree in making this
life all. All our good is compressed into these few
stormy years which are numbered on our tombstones.
The only life beyond is to live in the memory of
humanity.

Such is the Secular theory of morals. Not entering
into any prolonged discussion of the Secular ethics, we
may, in a few words, summarize its logical results.

(1) It is devoid of authority. It possesses no moral
dynamic. It contains nothing to impel or persuade
one animal to make sacrifices for another animal.
Why should an individual work for the good of a
society of animals which is to flourish some aeons after
the individual has perished ? There is here no original

- .g^. r^-;^v.^-.^^ ■

DOGMA AND DT^TY. 21

authority, The assumption of authority by society,
or a part of society, the individual may resent and
repudiate.

(2) This theory of morals removes man beyond the
reach of law, it makes law impotent, and justice an
empty name. The secularist says society can l)e kept
in order by human enactment. But a twitch of the
forefinger, or a sip of a sweetened licjuid will remove
me, in a moment, beyond all these pains and penalties.
I ran laugh at all your human legislation, if there is
no Divine Lawgiver. It is absurd to speak of a law
which I can escape as easily as a man lies down to
pleesant dreams.

(3) The secular code justifies suicide. We recall
Hamlet's famous soliloquy. How simple, in poverty
or bodily pain, in failure or in crime, to escape all the
unpleasantness, and make our quietus " with a bare
bodkin." Convinced that this is the only way of
peace, the reproaches, denunciations, and pleading
which it is the fashion of society to heap upon the
would-be suicide would fall upon deaf ears. A man's
first duty is to find comfort, even if he seek it in the
bowl of Socrates, or the fire of Sardanapalus, or the
seven-shooter of a bankrupt merchant. This life being
all, it is immaterial wheiher it end in June or July.

(4) This theory also furnishes a most cogent argu-
ment for Communism. Your serene philosopher in his
West-End mansion »vill not follow this principle to its
logical results. But teach the masses, the poor, vicious,
idle and dangerous classes, that there is no law but

;l:

22 t)0({MA AND nUTV.

such as men mako, no good or evil but such as thoy
can grasp by force, here, t()i(hiy and to-morrow, and
they will find a short path to ease and pleasure; tliey
will involve society in a din^ catastrophe, and repeat
the horrors ol^ the l*ai is Commune in London, Birmii -
liam, Chicago, New York and Toronto.

(5) That the individual should live for the welfare
of the humanity of the future is, upon the secular
hypothesis, an unwarrantable assumption. The hu-
manity of the future is clearly not worth living for.
A tale is told of a Russian woman and her children in
a sleigh pursued by wolves. As the tierce brutes ap-
proached she threw a child to them, and this she did
again and again until alone she arrived in safety at a
village. In the village inn she was reciting the tale
of her deliverance, when a stalwart peasant cleft her
head with an axe. She had no right to be saved at
the cost of those children. And, on the hypothesis of
Secularism, the humanity of the future has no right to
flourish upon the labors, the life, the suflerings of the
individuals of to-day. Down with that humanity of
the future which would sacrifice the individual to-day.
A few cattle are not worth keeping, then why should
you and I continue to live and suffer for the humanity
of the future. Life is not worth living. 1 will not
toil for a dream. I will not toil at all. In pain I will
not live. If I live at all, animal I am ; comfort to-day
is my philosophy, my aim, my exceeding great reward,
and if my personal comfort cease, I will pass swiftly
into night and nothingness.

nocJMA AND DUTY. 28

" 'Twcre bcHt at once to sink in peace
Like Itinls tho charmed Herpent draws,
To drop heiulf(ir8nio8t in the jaws
Of vacant darkness and to cease."

This most popular ethical hypothesis of the modern
schools of unbelief is thus tried and found wantintr.

III. — Thus far we have conHned our attention to tlie
loj^ical bearings of the new ethics. This was the more
necessary, since thes-^ theories have never been tried.
Those gentlemen who teach them sit in their nice
suburban homes under the protection of a Christian
Government and civilization. Here they cannot do
much harm. Nor have they very ample opportunity
to ascertain what good is in the new ethics. They
should go, like missionaries — but leave all religious
ideas and the products of these ideas at home — and try
the new-fangled system upon a tribe of heathen
savages. Or let them take a million of people from the
lower parts of London to some remote locality, where,
undisturbed by the current religious truths and tradi-
tions, they can make an experiment. Hitherto they
have done nothing to speak of. They have caused no
sweeter fruit to grow upon the tree of life. I am not
aware that Materialism ever caused two blades of grass
to grow where Christianity only produced one. Per-
haps the evolutionist has forced some sluggish minds
in our era to think, but the Bible has been a thousand
times better intellectual stimulant. Hedonism teaches
us to care for the body, but the apostles of Christ pro-
claimed this duty in more impressive language, and

S4 DOGMA AND Duty.

urged it by more powerful motives. Secularism pro*
fesses to be busy with rn^py plans for the temporal
improvement of the people, but Christians are much
more prompt, more active, and more successful in
secular enterprises. We are thankful that those nega-
tive systems have never been fairly tested, no organiza-
tion has arisen with sufficient faith in them to give
them an open trial. But we may now mention a few
facts to indicate what the practical influence of the
new ethics may be. What manner of men does it
make ? How does it work when applied in practical
life ?

1. Let us take, then, the most romantic picture in
the gallery, that of Comte, the founder and idol of the
Positivists. He, when a delicate and fractious youth,
was turned out of school ; he was rejected by the
great socialist teacher, St. Simon, Was unhappy in his
marriage and in his family life, spent a season in an
insand asylum, nearly succeeded in drowning himself
in the Seine, and was banished by his wife as a mad-
man, an atheist, and immoral. He finds he has a
heart which m swept away by his frantic adoration of
the lonely wife of a convict who is absent in the
galleys. Following those who sixty-four years earlier
had set up goddesses of reason in the cathedrals and
churches of Paris, where upon each high altar a fair
woman, chosen for her faultless beauty, sat enthroned,
her foot resting upon the consecrated slab, Comte pro-
claims that two hours a day, divided into three private
services, are to be spent in the adoration of humanity

of Rome. This is your man, however it is attempted
hide the gjrim reality under the glamour of Frer
romance ; this is the Positive philosopher who gives
woman everything except justice, disowns God a
immortality, worships humanity and his Clotilde, a
dolefully sings :

" Cessation is true rest,

And sleep for them opprest,

And not to be were blest ;
Annihilation is a better state than this,

]3etter than woe or bliss."

2. Turn now to a more familiar example of
legitimate products of secular morality. No m
painful and shameful scenes have been enacted in
proceedings of the British Parliament in our. ti
than those in which Mr. Charles Bradlaugh wa
chief actor. We see this man, a blatant and b
phemous atheist, appearing at the bar of the Hous(
Commons, ready to deny God or to appeal to H
ready to take an oath upon the Bible or to spit u
it, ready to trample upon the law of a Chrisi
nation Ox to crouch before it like a whipped cui
order to. obtain a seat in the legislature; and in
man without fine sensibility, in this man devoic
moral honesty, in this man unfit to be trusted v
the interests of a great Christian people, in this r
we have a specimen of the grade of moral chara
that atheistic Secularism can produce. And he is

26 DOGMA AND DUTY.

ordinary person. He is one of the popular and influ-
ential leaders and teachers of the Secularist party, at
whose feet their common men meekly sit.

3. Do you call for an example of the type of moral
character which the new ethics can evolve in the life
of woman. We have one ready to hand in that singu-
lar compound of feminine sensibility and masculine
yigor of intellect known to us all- under the sobriquet
of " George Eliot." She became a disciple of the Posi-
tivist school, a daughter or granddaughter Jomte.
Educated amid evangelistic influences, had she yielded
to the teachings of her Methodist relatives, and her
father, she would have been saved from those errors
which impel even Mr. Cross to speak her name with
bated breath. But she went over to the Secularists.
Here surely was good material to work upon. Out of
this nobly endowed woman, whose works of genius we
read with unaffected admiration, the anti-Christian
moralists had a splendid opportunity to produce an
example of pure and lovely womanhood which we
should delight to place before our wives and daughters
for their imitation. But they ignominiously failed.
They failed, not because the woman was bad, but
because their ethical system was vicious ; and I charge
it to Hennell and to Bray, to Strauss and to Lewes,
and to the coterie of sceptics that surrounded her im-
pressible intellect and hungering heart, that this
marvellous woman fell into those moral and domestic
vagaries which render it well nigh impossible to study
her life without tears.

DOGMA AND DUTY. 2*3

4. I will pass over Mr. Louis Greg going to churcl:
devoutly carrying a prayer-book in which he does no1
believe ; perhaps it makes him feel better in the dark-
ness of his doubt. I will not speak of the author oi
" John Inglesant," who, with no faith in Christianitj
or its Christ, comes to the Lord's table, and in taking
the sacred symbols of Christ's doctrine and life, joim
in the holiest act of* Christian worship ; it may b(
that in some way the unknown God touches his sou
through the shadows. I will not insist that anothei
member of the agnostic fraternity, Mr. J. H. Clapper-
ton, characterizes such conduct as hypocritical, anc
therefore immoral. I will not further refer to tht
inconsistency of the advocates of the new theory,
But I will give you one more instance of the practical
working of the new ethics when consistently applied

6. Some years ago a man of exceptional intelligence
thoroughly educated, a graduate of the University oi
France, stood before the criminal court in Paris, or
trial for his life. He had murdered an aged woman oi
some means for her money. His defence, logical tc
him, but audacious to society, was bold enough tc
startle even gay Paris. It was the Darwinian theorj
of "the survival of the fittest." He knew the olc
woman had a large sum of money ; that she could nol
or would not use it ; he was convinced he could mak(
better use of it than she, and it was therefore fair anc
right to put her out of the way, and assume possessior
of the money. Admitting his premises, that there if
no future, no responsibility, that the right of th(

28 DOGMA AND DUTV.

stronger is the only rule of morals, his conclusion is
unavoidable. The logical sequence and the practical
results are identical. This was his defence in the
French court. His advocate, silenced by the cool
effrontery of his client, could not defend him directly.
But he presented this deplorable case as a result of the
false teachings of the day, especially in France ; and
there and then, before that tribunal, he solemnly, in
scathing eloquence, impeached those damning doctrines
which had led this unhappy man into crime, and to
the scaffold.

Such men are produced by these doctrines. They
are more dangerous to society than ordinary criminals,
for they corrupt their fellows, making crime a neces-
sity and a virtue. They are the rotting fruit of society,
contaminating whatever they touch. They are the
malcontents of the modern state who rise to the sur-
face in times of popular agitation. Each of them
brings a torch for burning, but no hammer for build-
ing; and when their numbers increase they imperil
the social order and tranquillity. They stood at the
head of the Paris Commune. They are the leaders of
the more dangerous forms of German Socialism. They
are the most desperate and unscrupulous characters
among the Russian Nihilists. Wherever these evils
threaten to disturb the existing order, allowing a large
margin for superstition, and much for hoary wrongs
that need redress, these evils are the bitter fruit of
those irreligious theories which are put forth as sub-
stitutes for the dogmatic foundation of morals. When

DOGMA AND DUTY. 29

tried, those systems do not work well, and whatever
do'-\s not work well stands condemned. ** The tree is
known by its fruit."

IV. — Our next step will be to survey the theological
heritage we possess. What are our truth-treasures
which modern speculation asks us to replace by her
novel negations ? What dogmas do we already hold ?
Have they proven strong enough to sustain the frame-
work of character and society ? What has been the
result of the transmutation of Biblical doctrines into
convictions ? How do they work when honestly ap-
plied ? The answer to this question finds so frequent
expression in the pulpits, and on the platforms of our
churches, that it is le '^ necessary to deal with it at
any length. But justice demands some allusion to the
nature and influence of Biblical dogma. Is, then, this
bird in the hand so void of plumage and song and
true value that we are prepared to let it go, and beat
the bushes for the two birds said to be hidden in the
tangled undergrowth of incipient science ? I trow
not.

1. Take the Bible as a summary of religious truth.
Take Jesus Christ as the most efficient teacher of this
truth. Commit to memory the Sermon on the Mount ;
take the Gospel according to St. John in your right
hand, and the Epistle to the Romans in your left ;
stand under the cross of Calvary, and there study in
the light of subsequent history the influence of Chris-
tian dogma, in the only form which we, as a Church,
recognize as of Divine authority. This, however, is

80 DOGMA AND DUTY.

not a study for an hour ; years >vould not exhaust it.
No learning or eloquence would suff'ce to recite these
annals ; it would need some celestial genius to depict
in becoming terms the marvellous influence of Chris-
tian truth since Jesus flung those sayings of His upon
wind and wave.

Here is a small book. We call it the New Testa-
ment. From the middle of this book we select a few
pages. Here, in this audience, select at random an
educated man. He has read many books, in various
departments of literature, in many branches of science,
in several different languages. During the thirty
remaining years of his life he expects to read many
more volumes, to absorb the best thoughts of many
great and good men. When he becomes an old man,
he will have spent his life in familiar contact with the
richest products of the best minds. Then, standing
on life's bourne, he will put all those stories of human
learning into one scale, and these few pages from this
small duodecimo volume into the other scale ; and he
will testify that these few pages from the New Testa-
ment, in his life, outweigh all the treasures of litera-
ture. In power to transform, to elevate, to control,
and to bless the individual life, these few pages are
proven to have more vitality, greater moral momentum,
and more efficiency in awakening the dormant intellect,
kindling the moral nature with holy life, and thrilling
man with angelic raptures, than any, or all, teachings
that have ever touched us. Such is my personal
testimony, and such is yours. Such is the testimony

DOGMA AND DUTY. 31

of tens of thousands of the most admirable of living
men. Such is the testimony of that great multitude
which no man can number, who have passed into the
unseen. This alone is a remarkable fruit of the pure
theological dogma. I venture to say that not three
men can bear similar emphatic testimony concerning
any one of the three systems of which we have spoken.
Those trees are barren, why cumber they the ground ;
cut them down !

2. The Biblical doctrine has left a track of light
through the ages. Wherever the Bible has gone we
see a ramification of this radiance. I^ has furnished
the most powerful motives to virtue. It has exem-
plified the meaning of holiness. It has formed the
most saintly and beneficent characters of history. In
the days of the Patriarchs, of Moses, of Solomon, of
Jesus, of Luther and of Cromwell, it has produced the
best men. It has not indeed made those men perfect,
not obliterated every trace of depravity, not rectified
every crook and perverse deformity of character, not
made those men invulnerable to temptation ; but it
has taken them, made of common clay, from the
lowliest places, and has exalted them far above the
ordinary level of human excellence. Men moulded by
the Bible have not been perfect, but they have always
been the best men of their time, and their country.
Who are your pure and saintly men ? Who are your
stalwart workingmen ? Who your model mothers ?
Who your pure-minded patriots ? Who your trusted
legislators ? Who your revered teachers on Monday

DOGMA AND DUTY.

as well as on Sunday ? Who your noblest men of
letters ? Who the brave pioneers of your civilization ?
Who your heroic missionaries ? Who your martyrs
esteeminjy truth more precious than life ? Who ?
Men whose souls accumulated vigor and health, and
force and beauty by feeding upon the doctrine of the
Bible ! What made grand old Abraham tower above
the men of his time ? Or Socrates, or Paul, or
Constantino, or Bede, or Alfred, or Columbus, or
Washinorton, or Florence Niorhtinorale, or Grace Darlin<j,
or Victoria, or Gladstone ? What made the lives of
myriads of men and women fragrant as the rose of
Sharon ? Nothing but religious truth and principles
appropriated by natures of original force and mettle.
The test of a system of ethics is the manner of men it
makes. Select the half dozen men that Secularism
can produce, if you can find then take from them
such excellences as they ow -^ to Christian civilization,
and let them stand, half clad, a poor corporal's guard,
beside the countless hosts that Biblical dogma, in-
formed with the spirit of Christ, has instructed and
transformed and glorified with all the high qualities
of stately, and beautiful, and benevolent manhood.
Then, as you read the unmeasured and immeasurable
contrast, remember the principle to which you freely
assented, " The tree is known by its fruit."

3. But any system of truth that can produce such
manhood and womanhood can also build up society.
What pure soul does not take fire in contemplating the
beneficent influence of the Christian dogma upon social

DOGMA AND DUTY. 33

conditions. It has dotted each Christian country with
happy homes. It has erected our marriage altars, and
placed woman, in queenly state, upon her throne. It
has filled the Western world with sweet charities. It
has fed the poor and aged, and gathered the sick and
infirm into hospitals. It has built asylums for orphan
children. It has trained armies of skilled nurses. It
has sent ministers of mercy with cordials to the
wounded and dying soldier. It has manned life- boats
on the storm-beaten coast. It has broken the fetters
of the slave. It has founded schools, and given, in the
dark ages, an impulse to learning. To the toiling
children of men it has given the Sabbath, as a bene-
diction to rural life, and a safety-valve of city popula-
tions. It has improved the temporal condition of the
peoples that have received it. It gave England the
Magna Charta, and the free constitution of the world's
greatest Monarchy. It gave to the United States the
Declaration of Independence, and the free constitution
of the world's greatest Republic. It has purified many
corrupt fountains of political life. It has made many
deserts " rejoice and blossom as the rose."

I will ask the opponent of the open Bible, be he a
priest or a sceptic, to study history and life. I will
show him that the grandest modern nations have
founded their constitutions upon the Bible. I will
show him, both in England and New England, that
the brightest pages of history were written when the
people had an open Bible, read it, and loved it. I will
take him to Canada, or Ireland, or Italy ; and show

84 DOGMA AND DUTY.

him thai those countries are the most prosperous where
the Bible is in the homes and hearts of the people. I
will take him into any city of this country, into any
street of that city, and show him that there is more
wealth, better health, higher intelligence, cleaner
dwellings, greater sobriety, industry and purity, a
superior class of citizens, a happier people, and sweeter
homes, where the Bible is open, taught, believed and
obeyed. Where our dogmas, pure and potent, are
received, there we find the material comforts, the
moralities, and the holiest sentiments of life. This, I
judge, is an incontrovertible position.

Some thirty-five years ago (writes the Rev. Joseph
Cook), Lord Beaconsfield wrote a book called "Tancred."
He saw that, notwithstanding the wide diffusion of
liberty, intelligence and property, the people were not
happy. In this book, Disraeli sends a young English
lord from London to the Jordan in search of a cure
for the social and political evils of Europe. He repre-
sents the young noble kneeling at the Holy Sepulchre,
at Bethany and at Bethlehem, in prayer to the Unseen
Powei jr some guide in the healing of the nations.
He passes over the Jordan, and traverses the wilder-
ness, until at last he comes to Mount Sinai. One night
he goes alone to the very spot where the law was
given. There he kneels beneath the watching stars,
and falling into a trance, sees the Genius of Chris-
tianity standing with her arms outstretched over the
nations. She speaks in answer to his prayer, and
exclaims; "The equality of man can be accomplished

fraternity can never be satisfied but under the sway
of a common Father. Announce the sublime and
solacing doctrine of theocratic equality." Not only is
Theology the firm foundation of morals, but it is also
the groundwork of national prosperity, and of the fra-
ternity and happiness of the people.

This Christian truth is the Tree of Life. It is laden
with fruit forevermore. Its leaves are for the healing
of the nations. With former generations of men, we
" sit under its shadow with great delight, and its fruit
is sweet to our taste."

V. — We may fitly conclude this exposition with
some reflections upon the attitude of a wise and
fair-minded theologian in the present state of ethical
speculation.

1. And first, let us distinctly recognize that a man
may be better or worse than his written creed. As a
man is not therefore good because he can pronounce
every theological shibboleth, so he is not necessarily bad
because he has plunged into the depths and shallows of
sceptical materialism. The theist may be vicious in
defiance of his creed, as the atheist may be virtuous
despite the inherent tendency of his negation. Our
opponents exultingly inform us that David, the king
and poet, the pet of the theologians, fell into sin.
True, but his sin brought him into deadly antagonism
with the principles of his religion. Darwin, the
modern apostle of evolution, we are told, was a man
of stainless, and almost massive grandeur of character.

nOQMA AND DUTV.

ill

True again, but he was made such by forces outside of
the blank negations of niatorialism. We can neither
attribute tlie excellence of the agnostic to his denial
of theology, 'lOr trace the moral delinquency of the
believer to its acceptance.

We cannot, in all candour, avoid being charmed by
the lofty sentiments and serene morality of some of
those men who have wandered from the faith of their
fathers. Far be it from us to throw dirt upon any
white garment. Let us rather acknowledge that
a man may be better than his creed. And no wonder!
There is a certain unworldliness in the manner of life
of some of those men of science. Think of Agassiz, so
intent upon the study of nature that he had no time
to make money. We have heard even of some
clergymen more worldly than that. Those years
spent in patient toil, and long, and lone journeyings
over forest, mountain, and sea; this self-abnegation,
to accumulate information, and furnish data for future
inductions ; these habits of close study and wide
reading, all give a certain elevation and refinement
to the character of the original investigator. Then,
even in the extinction of their own faith, these men
still live in the twilight of religion. They are held
fast to the existing social order, in a net-work of
sacred personal relationships. They are rich in the
possession of sentiments and hopes formed by religion.
They have taken the fundamental idea of duty from
Christianity ; and while their theoretical convictions
have fallen into ruins, their conscience still remains

'^i-m^iimummmm

DOGMA ANt) DUTY. 37

standing, the sole witness of a demolished building.
The terms higher and lower applied to actions, the
terms noble and base, moral and immoral, right and
wrong, and the corresponding i<leas, they have appro-
priated and freely use. They 'ive by the faith
of others. By the religious convictions of others,
society is sustained and conserved, and these few
men share the benedictions. They are so busy
digging stones, or measuring planets, or pondering
metaphysics, or playing the iconoclast, that they have
no time to bake the bread necessary to sustain life ;
but they live upon the bread already prepared by the
great permanent faiths of humanity. When specula-
tion becomes absurd in reason, and hence falls into
aberrations of conduct, then strong, sturdy common
sense, that enemy of fruitless and dangerous specula-
tion, keeps men in the ways of righteousness. The
child lives by instinct before he attains a conscious,
fixed faith in the truth of life. And often, when the
man of science loses his early faith, he goes back, and
lives by instinct again. What marvel that those men are
often better than their creed ! For, as it has been well
said, " The priests of science have stolen from the crown
of Christ's Gospel its most rare and precious jewels,
and then have pretended to the world that they found
them in the mines of nature, in their own honest
search after truth."

2. Theologians should, in the second place, frankly
acknowledge that their dogmatic statements are not
final. This truth-treasure is often poured into earthen

DOGMA AND DUTY.

vessels. It is surely no indignity to creeds and con-
fessions, ancient or moaern, to say that these vessels
are earthen. Shall the vessels which we fill from the
sacred fount of inspiration always be of the same
shape and design ? Must T continue to carry the
water of life in the same goblet, although it is cracked,
or a hole is worn in the bottom ? Do you compel us
to drink from the same tin-cup no matter how rusty
the years have made it ? Are we supposed to be un-
able to see the hole or rust ? May we not solder it,
or polish it, or even cleanse it ? I do not need to
counsel so grave and learned a body to obtain the best
possible theological vessels, and occasionally to mend
them.

Dogmatic statements are not final. They are liable
to the imperfection that attaches to all human con-
cerns. Incompleteness is a characteristic of creeds, in
the nature of things. And misconceptions of incom-
plete statements of religious truth have stirred many
an unholy passion, provoked many a savage blow, and
shaken the Church with unseemly controversy. Hear
the venerable Copernicus, with his eye on the star
circles, lift his feeble voice against the finality of
creeds. Hear the Smithfield martyrs from the flames,
hear the Vaudois mountaineers whose moans the vales
repevat to the hills and they to heaven, hear the brave
Covenanters as they raise their psalms in the lonely
glens of Scotland, hear the Keformers of Germany
and the Evangelists of England, hear all those who
are charged with turning the world upside dovv^n pro-

■aB-.'iidaa a Mg i M K rt

DOGMA And DtJTY. 89

test in a voice of thunder, in the hearing of all the
Churches, ai^ainst the finality of creeds. Hear Mr.
George Holyoake, the prominent advocate of free-
thought, in an address delivered in this country,
tracing his heterodoxy to his early impressions re-
ceived from his devoted mother's torturing dread lest
she had committed the unpardonable sin, and to the
doctrine of infant damnation enunciated by the cele-
brated John Angell James in Carr's Lane Chapel, which
he attended in his boyhood. And if the transition be
not too sudden, I may ask you to hear the quaint lan-
guage of the Farm Ballad of Carlton.

" The first thing I remember whereon we disagreed
Was something concerning Heaven, a differenc in our creed ;
We argued the thing at breakfast, we argued the thing at tea.
And the more we argued the question the more we didn't agree ;
And so the Heaven we argued no nearer to us got,
But it gave us a taste of something a thousand times as hot."

These are concrete examples of some of the p(;rils of
dogmatism. Exact theological terminology and formal
statement is necessary. Yet we should not liesitate to
purify and improve such extreme statements as may
be liable to abuse. The theologian proceeds to demolish
Huxley's automaton man, when, to his astonishment,
Huxley turns the theologian's arguments against the
fatalism of Edwards. The sovereignty of God, a
dogma firm as the pillars of heaven, has been abused
by men seeking excuse for inaction or false conduct.
Extreme predestinarian formulae are admitted to be
injurious. On the same principle it has been said that

DOGMA AND DUT^.

Vi li

the doctrine of justification by faith is immoral.
Roman Catholics declare that Protestantism is inimical
to the stability of society, and this is founded on a
misconception of the position of the Reformed
Churches. It is disastrous to the interests of truth to
cling to defective statements needlessly liable tp mis-
construction and abuse. We may safely grant that
dogmatic statements are not final. We need not fear
to purge them of extraneous matter. Every intelligent
teacher of religion practically does so in his sermons
and prelections. In theology, all imperative proposi-
tions should possess the qualities of brevity, simplicity
and scientific accuracy.

3. Thirdly, in regard to the use of dogma, it is well
to distinguish between the pulpit and the school. This
suggestion is intended both for that venerable wor-
shipper in our churches who, being a born theologian,
is never quite satisfied with a sermon unless it is a
profound theological disquisition ; and for that student
in our theological colleges who is a born evangelist,
and thinks every class lecture by the Professor of
Divinity should be a red-hot sermon. Now your theo-
logian in the pew, and your evangelist in the class,
having confounded the essential functions of the pulpit
and the school, are both doomed to frequent disap-
pointment.

There is also another practical error here which I
may indicate. A young man, fresh from one of our
theological institutions, or while yet a student, is
called to regularly occupy a pulpit. He must have

DOGMA AND DUTY. 4l

sermons, of course. If you could see into his study,
during the first year of two of his ministry, you would
probably find him, week by week, pacing that room,
wringing his hands, and pressing his throbbing
temples, saying, " O dear, what shall I preach about
next Sunday V* In his trouble he has recourse to his
accumulated stock of theology. He fishes from his
trunk those old notes and lectures, with one or two
well-worn text-books. He intends to preach on Sin.
Here is a chapter that will make a sermon on that
subject. He proposes to preach on Justification. Here
is a chapter which may be wrought up into a sermon
on that topic. And if this does not quite satisfy him,
he will polish it or buttress it with some extracts from
one of Wesley's. It is in order, upon a Methodist
platform, to refer to personal experience. I recall my
first year in the pulpit, having graduated, not from a
college, but from a farm-house. I have preserved
those first manuscript sermons. Very careful state-
ments, are many of them, of such doctrines as Primeval
Man, The Fall, Depravity, and The Atonement. How
the villagers applauded those productions ; for though
they were like the dry bones of Ezekiel's vision, they
were orthodox. I cannot honestly preach in that
fashion now. And it is my misfortune that those old
sermons will not likely be of any further use until
that day which seems very far distant, when I shall
be called to a theological lectureship in some college.

The relation between theology and preaching ap-
pears to me to be nearly the same as that between

DOGMA AND DUTY.

botany and materia medica. The botanist lives among
plants, for his own pleasure, or in the interests of
science, to enlarge the domain of knowledge by original
research and discovery. He knows all about plants,
their organs, structure, habits, and technical nanies,
and can put each into its own genus, species, or class.
An Indian doctor, however, is ignorant of all scientific
terminology; he could not classify a Canada thistle so
as to satisfy a professor of botany. But if an Indian
brave is wounded, or a papoose has a fever, the rude
medicine man knows what to do with the herbs he has
found in the woods. Here we see the reason why a
Methodist preacher, with very slender educational
advantages, often proves more effective in converting
sinners from the error of their way than the scholar
who comes forth equipped with all the learning of the
theological seminary. But we may roll the botanist
and the Indian doctor into one, and give this compound
man some special college and hospital training in the
art of healing, and we then have the enlightened
physician who goes into the sick room, ministers to the
diseased body, and prescribes from the fulness of exact
knowledge, while no pedantic echo of a scientific term
escapes his lips. We are aiming, I am persuaded, to
roll the Methodist preacher and scholar into one, and
to give to this compound "man some special training in
the sacred art of healing the moral maladies of men.
I say not that the professor's chair should never become
a pulpit, or that the pulpit should never become a
teacher's desk. But I fear the distinction has not

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DOGMA AND DUTY. 43

always been cleaWy recognized. Tlie theologian, as
such, goes through the Bible, in the interests of truth
first, and of man secondly. The preacher, as such, goes
through the same Bible, first in the interests of man,
and secondly in the interests of truth. The theologian
endeavors to fix the relation of each truth to other
truths, and its place in the system. The preacher takes
the same truth and asks, What can be done with it ?
How can I use it to minister to a mind diseased ? Is
it antiseptic or anodyne, tonic or antifebrile, aperient,
or stimulant ? Never mind the system of doctrine,
what malady will this truth heal ?

Now in the school 'he clergyman is a theologian,
but in the pulpit he a preacher. The preacher, as
far as possible, should be able to handle truth as the
theologian does, but that is not his proper work. He
knows the intrinsic value of the school theologies.
But he surveys a group of once hopeless men and
women, saved by the rough methods of some unlettered
men, and he discerns that quite crude and simple state-
ments of doctrine are very effective in dealing with a
certain class of living and sinning souls. An evange-
list may make a sad medley of the theologies, and yet
be successful. Like the sailors' preacher of Boston,
when he lost himself in an involved sentence, he can
say, " I don't know where I came into this sentence,
and I don't in the least know where I am going out,
but thank God I am bound for the Kingdom of Hea-
ven." If, in these days, we are wise, we will not
confound the functions of the school and the pulpit.

DOGMA AND DUTY.

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;

We will not set one against the other. The raor6
clearly we perceive their true relation the less likely
shall we be to provoke the hostility of frivolous or
critical hearers to doctrinal sermons, and to the hard
and dry dogmatism of the pulpit.

4. Fourthly, in view of current ethical speculation,
we need not tremble for the final issue of the conflict
of our age. An age of doubt, of ferment, of high
intellectual excitement, it certainly is. This sign of
our time is daily forced upon our notice. Every .
sunset brings it before us with the evening journals.
What will be the end of all this turmoil ?

Now, I think the study of former critical epochs in
the history of religion and philosophy will enable us,
with tolerable certainty, to forecast the future. We see
a great deal of fine writing, doleful too, about a
" moral interregnum." Morality is about to be de-
throned, leaving every man to do what is right in his
own eyes. All this mournful eloquence should be read
by Christians while they dwell in the sunlight and the
song of their high faith, lest these melancholy predic-
tions should plunge the faithful into the abyss of
pessimism. Above all these nightmare fancies of
doubt we may confidently lift up the prediction that,
as the world never has been cursed with a moral inter-
regnum, so the world never shall be desolated with a
moral interregnum. The Almighty Power, who created
the world, who guides its multifarious life onward to
that " far off" divine event to which the whole creation
moves," will guard against any calamity so dhastrous

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DOGMA. AND DUTY. 45

to society, to the Church and to humanity, as a total
collapse of moral principle and practice. Amid all
these doleful prophecies we observe a steady improve-
ment in the moral conditions of human life. Our
Heavenly Father has led His people down the ages to
this the happiest and most fruitful of the centuries,
and we, His children, will rest and sing in the sweet
confidence.that the world and mankind are safe in His
hands.

Man has come through former periods of searching
inquiry, the truth of Christ has passed through the
hottest criticism, the Church has seen forms of unbelief
bolder and more blasphemous than those which we
contemplate, and man has lived on through it all; the
institutions of society have stood, all the interests of
life have been conserved and promoted, the old truth
has still held the noblest minds and formed the best
characters, the Gospel has continued to be received,
the Sabbath shone upon devout worshippers, wise
legislation was effected, crime was punished as before,
schools were kept open, children were educated, evan-
gels flamed far and near, explorers penetrated unknown
lands, commerce sent her swift ships over the seas,
literary workers poured forth books, artizans toiled at
their various crafts, happy homes were established,
the millions ate and drank, married and gave in mar-
riage, lived and loved, served their generation, fell on
sleep and went in triumph to heaven, heedless of the
wailing prophets of scepticism, because men knew
God their Father, and eternal life their hei^itage, and

DOGMA AND DUTY.

(

duty their watchword, and hope the anchor which
fastened them to the unseen verities. Occasional un-
believers there may be, but humanity is not sceptical.
Therefore has society ever remained stable and secure
amid the fluctuating billows of unbelief. The few
ripples on the surface cannot change the course of
the mighty tide of human life as guided by Him that
made the sun, moon, and stars. A moral interregnum
coming :* No, never ! ** The thing that hath been
is that which shall be," only under happier conditions.
In this respect, depend upon it, " there is nothing new
under the sun."

Yet we may find some cause for immediate alarm.
Not, indeed, from the handful of cultured agnostics
" whom nobody expects to break out into violence or
lust," but from the spread of those pernicious theories
among turbulent spirits, taking from the masses of the
poor the compensating hope of a future life, and excit-
ing them to grasp, by fair means or foul, all they can
of the temporal and material good. The horoscope of
any theory that tends to disintegrate and enfeeble the
faith of the people in the great dogmatic truths of
religion points to possible disturbance. To select an
instance, the life of the French nation, her religion and
her Church were not overthrown by the scepticism of
the eighteenth century, but the decay of faith intro-
duced the most turbulent and unhappy period of her
history. The bloody revolution, the awful " reign of
terror," the seige of Paris, the horrors of the Commune,
the tragic end of the good Archbishop, the nameless

DOGMA AND DUTY. 47

crimes, and the subsequent restlessness which even
now threatens to burst forth, with volcanic fury, in
some national fanaticism or popular madness, all this
is, in part at least, the effect of the relaxing of the
religious faith of the French people. They who ride
at anchor in some roadstead, or sail a yacht on some
placid Windermere, know little of the storms ; but let
them launch upon the ocean, if they would feel the
fury of the elements. We, in Canada, in our quiet
towns, never feel the pressure of feudal tyranny or
wrong, and dwell in peaceful security. But go into
the great centres, the dense populations of countries
long divided between ignorant superstition and clamor-
ous infidelity, and there learn that when faith wavers
we may expect destroying tempests, and conflagrations,
and volcanic eruptions in the heart of society. Never-
theless we know, in the great battle of Armageddon,
which side will conquer, and assured of the final result,
we join our fortunes to that only and eternal King
who " must reign till He hath put all enemies under
His feet."

5. Lastly, we are resolved, I am persuaded, to stand
by duty wherever it may lead. Nelson, in the hour
of battle, sent ringing through the bands of British
sailors the clarion call, " England expects every man
to do his duty." But long before Copenhagen, and
ever since, duty has been a talismanic word. Yes, we
will stand by our duty. Then must we also stand by
those dogmas upon which duty is based. God, the
supernal Trinity ; Christ, the Divine Sacrifice and

48 DOGMA AND DUTY.

Example ; freedom, the glorious endowment ; eternal
life, ♦^rhe hope and reward — this is our faith ; for it is
our life, our joy, the power of righteousness, the salt

I of society, the safeguard oi all human interests, the

1 \\(fht of the world.

A favorite dogma of modern science is the conserva-
tion and dissipation of energy. It appeals that in
the operations of nature there is a continuous waste.
In a remote geological epoch the earth was once
unfit for human habitation ; and in conseq 'enco of
this perpetual dissipation of force, such a time will
come again, unless power supra-material intervene to
preserve the life of man upon th' planet. Even
science calls for a Power, that is for a God, to rescue
nature from desolation. We know there is similar
necessity in the n^oral life. In the advancement of
society there is a ceaseless dissipation of moral energy.
This waste must be repaired by the constant com-
munication of Divine power and life. If terrestrial
life must eventually perish without God, how much
more the spiritual life of the race. It then becomes
our duty, so far as in us lies, to unite the soul,
the Church, and the world to the Divine Power by
j invincible faith and prevailing prayer, —

1 " For 80 the whole round earth is everywhere

Bound by golden chains about the feet of God."

! Not detaining you longer, I will quote a few lines

1 from a discourse delivered in Montreal at the meeting

^ of the American Association for the Advancement of

DOGMA AND DUTY. 49

Science : " I liave sat beside many death-bods and
have learned that there are truths in the system of
things as real and as certain as any law of nature.
My eyes cannot see them, my ears cannot hear
them, nor can I touch them with my hands, but
thev are there. I know them to be true, and that
tliey will endure when nature and her laws shall
have passed away like the memory of a troubled
dream. I testify what I have seen. I have many a
time seen an humble earnest faith in those unseen
truths cause a smile of joy to play upon the pale face
distorted with pain, like a sunbeam dancing on the
bosom of the troubled ocean. I have seen those
truths illumine with a light from heaven the dim
eyes soon to be closed forever by the cold hand of
death. Those truths are more dear to me than all
that nature can teach me, because they touch my
inner life and consciousness. I learned those truths
as a little child at my mother's knee ; I cherish them
in my heart of hearts; and in defence of them, if
opportunity should offer, and God should count me
worthy, I would gladly lay down my life."

liil

A SERMON DELIVERED BEFORE THE THEOLOGICAL UNION OF
VICTORIA UNIVERSITY, MAY IOtii, 1885.

BY THE

REV. S. J. HUNTER.

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CHRIST'S DIVINE MISSION.

*' Philip saith unto Him, Lord, show us the Father, and it
sufficeth us." — John xiv. 8-12.

While there is a great variety of views as to the
relative importance of the evidences of Christ's di-
vine nature and mission, such vari^+y does not disclose
any weakness in those evidences. It arises out of
the very abundance of resources at the command of
the Christian apologist. Neither let any one suppose
that a change in the line of battle betrays any weak-
ness or misgivings about the ultimate issue of the
conflict. The Greeks made several changes of dis-
position in front of their watchful enemy before the
battle of Piatea, which Mardonious mistook for weak-
ness ; but soon and sorrowfully he found that his
exultation was unfounded. In my text, Christ states
the evidences of His mission. He speaks of a variety
of proofs,— " works," "greater works," His "words,"
and that union of His with the Father which a true
insight might have discovered, and which would be
discovered by those who should come under the guid-

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CHRIST S DIVINE MISSION.

ance of the Holy Ghost. First He asserts that His
miracles are of themselves proofs of His mission ; but
He evidently places them below that self-evidencing
power residing in Himself, which He seems to regard
as the highest evidence. Then, He makes this re-
markable assertion : " He that believeth on Me, the
works that I do shall he do also ; and greater works
than these shall he do ; because I go untv^ My Father."
Because of His ascent to the Father and the conse-
quent descent of the Spirit, His disciples would do
greater works than He. On another occasion He
taught a kindred truth : " He that believeth on Me, as
the Scripture saith, out of his belly shall flow rivers
of living water. But this spake He of the Spirit
which they that believe on Him should receive : for
the Holy Ghost was not yet given ; because that Jesus
was not yet glorified." The explanation of these
" greater works," given by some, is puerile ; namely,
that they are the cures wrought by the shadow of
Peter, or the handkerchiefs of St. Paul, or the gift of
tongU€'s, considered simply as a miracle.

Alford gives, I think, the true interpretation.
"* Greater works than these' they did; not in degree
but in kind ; spiritual works, under the dispensation
of the Spirit, which had not yet come in. They
should have much greater success in their ministry
than He had met with." But is this promise to be
limited to the disciples ? No. The wonders of grace
and the triumphs of the Spirit cannot be temporary,
but must continue to the end of time, if the Spirit so

Christ's divine mission. 66

Continue. Surely we may saj'^ that the flowing out
of the Spirit from the hearts of believers in holy
tendencies and sympathies and assimilating power,
through all time, is included in the promises of the
seventh chapter of this book ; and this is equally true
of these "greater works," so that we have here in-
dicated the whole evidence of the propagation and
moral effects of Christianity resulting from the in-
dwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Church, and this
evidence Christ places above that of the material
miracles wrought by Him and His followers. But,
further, Christ here speaks of His words, of which
He elsewhere says : " They are spirit and they are
life ;" as if they carried with them to the hearing ear
unmistakable proof of His divinity. But over and
above all He sets Himself as His own evidence, and
treats it as a matter of surprise that those who had
been so long with Him as His disciples had been, did
not recognize His oneness with the Father. And thus
is brought out in its full force a truth of paramount
importance, namely, that the discovery of His divinity,
which personal intercourse had failed to give, should
be imparted by the teaching of the Spirit, whom He
promised to send. "At that day," — after the Holy
Spirit has come, — "ye shall know that I am in My
Father." Now, if called upon to state the evidences,
as this passage states them, and as they stand related
to each other in value and importance, I should range
them thus : — 1. Miracles ; 2. Christ's words ; 3. The
propagation and moral effects of Christianity ; and,

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Christ's divine mission.

4. The personality and character of Christ, associated
with the existence and indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Ist Miracles. I shall not enter upon a detailed
argument in proof of the possibility of miracles. To
assert the impossibility of the miraculous, on the
ground that the course of nature is immutably fixed,
exhibits an assumed knowledge of the universe and of
God which the greatest mind ought to be slow to
arrogate to itself. If the world was created by a God
of infinite wisdom and power, He must be able to lay
His hand upon the mightiest forces that He has
brought into existence, and compel them to do His
will. Bind God by the iron laws of necessity, and I
may fear Him, but I cannot reverence Him. As Sir
Isaac Newton justly said, " If you deprive God of
His providence and intelligent purposes in creation,
you have nothing left but mere Fate and Nature."
Equally fallacious is it to argue that even if miracles
are possible, it may be impossible to prove that they
ever happened. Hume's argument is, that our con-
fidence in testimony, being due entirely to experience,
can never warrant our believing any reported depar-
ture from experience. But, assuredly, all that Hume
was entitled to say was, that he had never had
experience of the circumstances in which super-
natural facts are alleged to have occurred. It was
impossible for him to say what could or might
happen in different circumstances. And then, as to
testimony itself — and this is true in the case of the
New Testament writers — it may be given in such a

Christ's diVine mission. 67

form, by such men, and in such circumstances, that its
falsehood would be a miracle. Christ did not go to
obscure places to work His miracles, where investiga-
tion could not follow Him. He did not work one
miracle, but many — on sea and on land — on hopeless
paralytics and raving maniacs, and on death itself.
The people laughed Him to scorn because He said of
the daughter of Jairus, " She is not dead, but
vsleepeth ;" but He took her by the hand and she lived
again. If you say this was a case of ajrparent death —
was the son of the widow of Nain only a case of
suspended animation ? Was Lazarus another case of
trance — four days dead— corruption already working
upon the fluids and solids of the body ? Was C> dst
Himself a case of suspended animation — an anima-
tion which asserted itself at the very time at which
before His death He said He should rise again ? No.
Mothers had learnt too well the look of death in the
faces of their children to be mistaken, and disease
was too well understood to be cured by the incanta-
tions of a juggler. Men tell me that the doctrine of
miracles impeaches the perfection and order of the
universe. Why, the regularity of the laws of Nature
is indispensable to the argument from miracles. If
these laws were not ordinarily uniform in their action,
the interruption of their uniformity would be no sign
of God's hand. But why conclude that a miracle is a
violation of a law at all ? We rather believe that it is
the working of a higher law subordinating and con-
trolling the lower, in perfect analogy with what we

Christ's divine MissiojJ.

see and do every day in the sphere of the natural,
For instance, life, supervening to the mechanical and
chemical laws of matter, causes the sap to ascend con-
trary to the law of gravity. Will, itself a super-
natural power not subject to any natural laws, super-
vening to these, as organized in the human body,
causes the limbs to act and move intelligently, and
produces effects in the world of nature which nature
could not do. So the Divine will, according to laws
above our comprehension, and for ends within the
Divine reason, for which and bv which the world was
made, supervenes by miracle upon the ordinary course
of nature ; the higher and infinite circles of God's
supernatural system dipping into and sweeping visibly
across our lower system of material causes. This no
more deranges the order or violates the laws of nature
than eclipses or meteoric showers, which also are
miracles to the ignorant savage. Miracles are part of
an enduring order — visible signs of a vast system of
supernatural powers and agencies constantly acting
upon and within the system of nature. But while
accepting the fact of miracles, and while regarding
them as amongst the evidences of Christ's mission, I
do not place them on the highest pedestal. The chief
defence of Christianity does not rest in them. Pos-
sibly too much has been made of them, and hence
science has been brought into its mistaken conflict
with faith. The miracles are only in a few instances
claimed by Christ as evidences of His mission ; but
are wrought for the healing of the sick, the feeding

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fcfiRISTS DIVINE MISSION. 59

of the hungry ; so that one of their chief designs —
if not the chief — is to be visible fruits of His love
which sprang up in the pathway of so Divine a
Being. I cannot, indeed, see in His expressions the
extreme disparagement of them so current amongst
a certain class of theologians in the present day.
He certainly considered them sufficient evidence to
render opposition to Him inexcusable, and helpful to
a personal faith in Him ; though He expected that
those who were about Him should overleap this pre-
liminary stage. Nor do we forget what stress He
laid on that crowning miracle of all — His resurrection
from the dead. We should guard against carrying
into our estimate of miraculous evidence the not un-
common error of supposing that what is of less rela-
tive importance has no importance. It does not follow
that a thing is not great because something else is
greater.

^nd. His Words. I take the " words " of Christ to
mean His doctrines, His teachings relative to the great
facts of life, God, and eternity. And when I look upon
Him as a Teacher and study His words, I am convinced
of His Divinity. He was born nearly two thousand
years ago, in an obscure country village — the child of
a poor woman whose husband was a working carpenter.
His knowledge of men, His acquaintance with liter-
ature. His intercourse with the educated must have
been exceedingly limited. He died at the early age of
thirty-three. He never wrote a book. Men wrote
down what He said in four small books, and if all the

niRtSTS DIVINE MISSION.

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repetitions were expunged, the entire records would
fill but a few pages ; yet the thought of those few
pages fills the world to-day. His words, His teachings
are alive as the words of no other man are. Take
Plato, Demosthenes, Cicero, Socrates, Homer — the col-
leges study them, the student delves into them ; but
the words of Jesus are ringing everywhere ; little
children and masters of Philosophy are studying them;
they are translated into all languages, and men every-
where are reading them. Now, you look at Christ as
a Teacher, and how different He is from other teachers.
Ordinary teachers, if they are wise, are men of caution ;
they do not dogmatize ; they regard themselves as
learners a little in advance of their pupils. A teacher
is about ready for superannuation when he ceases to
be a learner. But Christ never felt His way to a
truth. His doctrines were not the accumulations of
experience. He never made a declaration in which
you can detect the slightest symptom of misgiving.
The tone of every utterance is " verily, verily, I say
unto you." On every subject on which He opened
His lips He had complete, absolute knowledge. The
system of truth taught by Him is complete. Science
is a development — every new principle contains the
germ of another new principle. Take, for instance,
the science of Chemistry. Mankind find themselves
surrounded by chemical phenomena. Fermentation^
combustion, oxidation, dissolution are occurring on
every hand. These events have been studied, have
been made the subjects of experiment. The result of

Christ's divine mission. 61

these experiments has been recorded. This record
constitutes the science of Cheniistrv. But on that
dread moment when Christ said " It is finished,"
Christianity was perfect. The idea that the words of
Christ are only steps to a completed revelation, and
that the human generations are approaching the truth
only as astronomfr"^ locate a new planet — the idea that
the truth is evolving — has no warrant in the Word of
God. When I say that Christianity is a completed
revelation, I mean that it was completed just as
creation was when God rested from His works and
pronounced them very good. All the great astro-
nomical facts existed then just as they do now. The
telescope has only brought nigh what was afar oft*. So
the science of Biblical interpretation has been pro-
gressive, and is still going on. Christ's words are so
full of meaning that we do not get their full measure
all at once. They are a mine, and no matter how far
bygone ages have delved into it, they have only
broken through the outer crust. But as to the truth
itself, the world will never discover anything that
goes beyond Jesus Christ. And then, how perfectly
accurate His teachings are ! Take, if you will. His
teaching relative to things concerning which we are in
a position to judge. There never was a teacher so
sharply criticised as Christ has been. Every word
He uttered, every doctrine He advanced has been placed
under the lens of critical analysis ; but who will say He
was mistaken in His teaching regarding earthly
things. He dwelt in an obscure corner of the earth.

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CHRIST S DIVINE MISSION.

and among the narrowest, most bigoted of people ;
yet He legislated for the world and for all time,
He touched upon the relations which men sustain to
one another. He gave rules for the government of the
family, He taught for the governance of civil society,
His Sermon on the Mount is replete with all that can
affect the welfare of the man, the family, the Church,
the world ; and who says that in any single point He
was wrong ? The keen, logical John Stuart Mill, the
polished, critical Renan, the able and eloquent Theo-
dore Parker — in a word, all sceptics capable of judging
and honest enough to give an unprejudiced opinion,
give the palm to Christ, and say that in relation to ques-
tions affecting material interests " never man spake
like this man." And now when I look at this fact,
and when I combine with it His life, which infidelity
itself admits was absolutely pure — I say, when I find
that this Teacher passes through the material world
where I can follow Him and compare His teaching
with facts as I find them, and discern that He is
absolutely correct ; when He passes on into a world
and life beyond, when He tells me of beings this world
never saw, of states of existence surpassing the most
fantastic exaggerations of romance, of facts in relation
to God and humanity which my reason never could
have discerned, of doctrines of the inner life which
the eye of sense cannot read ; and furthermore, when
I find in my own soul a desire for, and intimations of,
the immortality which He brings to light, and a
witness to the sin which He exposes, and a longing

Christ's divine mission. 63

for the deliverance which He promises, I sb' U follow
Him thither and trust Him to guide me out into the
future as He guides me in the present. He has been
true in everything else, unchallenged in everything
else, why should He not be the ^;ame here.

Srd. The Propagation and Mor(d Effects of Christi-
anity. I said a while ago that the remarkable words,
" He that belie veth on Me, the works that I <lo shall
he do also, and greater works than these shall he do;
because I go unto My Father," indicated the evidence
arising from the propagation and effects of the Gospel,
consequent upon the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in
the Church. I take this as the third in value of the
evidences. It is well to put forward and vigorously
press this upon the consideration of Christian people.
Men are for the most part influenced less by abstract
statement than by what they see immediately around
them, and so the life of every Christian, in every rank
of life, must and will have influence on those who
observe it. The effect of real harmonious and sustained
Christian life is above the power of words to estimate.
Christ has committed to His people the perilous dignity
of being " the light of the world," and the world has a
right to judge them by that standard. It can never
be known till " the day " shall declare it, how many
stumbling-blocks have been placed in the way of honest
doubters by the inconsistencies of professed Christians,
or how many who obeyed not the Word, have without
the Word been won by holy lives that they have
witnessed. The manifestation of an increased unity

(14

CHIIISTS niVINK MFSSION.

i fl'I

amo))(i»t GhrlHflans occupies a place of its own under
this liead, and no words can do justice to its importance,
when we consider the prominence given to it by our
Lord. If we need an illustration of it we may see it
in tlu^ infancy of the Church. " The nniltitude of
them that ])elleved were of one heart and soul. . . .
and with great power gave tlie Apostles witness of the
resurrection of the Lord Jesus." The uinnistakablo
manifestation of the internal unity of the believers
gave a greatly added power to the miraculous evidence-
That Christianity has been grievously shorn of her
strength in this particular cannot be concealed, but it
is a matter of great satisfaction that the signs of a
closer bond of union among Christians are becoming
so marked and numerous as to attract the notice even
of the sceptical. The evidence arising from the fruits
of Christianity possesses also peculiar power of its
own. A field is opened to us here too vast for us to ex-
plore to-day. Take a single illustration — the social and
commercial condition of Rome when Christianity ap-
peared. Rome was mistress of the world, the tribute of
all places flowed into it. " Mommsen," says Fairbairn,
" the greatest authority on Roman history, says its
populaltion was 1,610,000. How was it composed ?
There were 10,000 senators and knights, 60,000
foreigners, 20,000 garrison, 320,000 free citizens, 300,-
000 women and children, and 900,000 slaves — three
fifths of Rome were slaves. Slaves were the absolute
property of the master. Your dog has more rights
than a Roman slave had. All labor was done by

CHRIST'S DIVINE MISSION. 05

them, so that the wealth of Rome was gathered into
the hands of a few thousand men who owned them,
and outside that circle there was the deepest poverty.
The 820,000 were idlers, or they were worse — buttbons.
Look at that vast Colosseum — what does it mean ? It
means that an Emperor had a people so idle that he
had both to feed and amuse them. And whole rows
of gladiators, men or even ungentle women, met there
with knife and shield and sword to fight, row upon
row, and unt death ; and this was the amusement.
Moral putrefaction and death polluted the air of Rome.
Face to face with this came Christianity. What did
it do '{ It did not at once abolish slavery, yet it de-
clared itsell: the foe of slavery. In the Church there
was no slave and no master, all were servants of
Christ, and members one of another. Slowly the idea
of man's equality entered into the heart of society.
When you come to Justinian and his laws, slavery is
still allowed, but to kill a slave is made a crime.
Later still, the slave gains new rights. He can become
a free man, he can enter into a religious order, and
there become the peer of the very best. And so liberty
grew, until there arose a society without slaves, where
manhood is known and honored and has its rights
conferred. Then, following a greater love of freedom,
there came a large belief in the dignity of labor."
Christ and the Apostles gave dignity to toil. The
Roman citizen couldn't soil his hands, the Christian
teacher worked toiling with his hands. Then, see how
the Christian religion consecrated the home, built it
5

i '■■

■•

■1;

- I,

1 .

CHRIST S DIVINE MISSION.

up in purity and love, gave position and character to
woman, built colleges and seminaries of learning, gave
inspiration to inventive genius, and opened up path-
ways for commerce through the seas. Men say these
are but the outgrowth of civilization ; but why is it
that they are found only where the Bible is read, and
where the Cross of Jesus is uplifted ? " Ye shall know
them by their fruits." And then there is the propa-
gation of Christianity. Miracles being common both
to Christ and His Apostles, they had greater success
than He had because, as He told them, the Holy Ghost
should be with them. Miracles being absent, it follows
that the spread of Christianity is the work of the
Holy Spirit. The Gospel has won its way because it
is divine. As such it has an independent life. It is
independent of outward forms. It can live and grow
amid wide diversity of creeds and great variety of
government — Congregational, Methodist, Presbyterian,
Episcopal, or Papal. It is an inward personal life, and
like all forms of life it maintains in all hearts its own
peculiar type. The pine tree may be different in size
and form, as it is planted in the sheltered valley or on
the stormy mountain side. But everywhere it is a
pine. And so with the Gospel, in all hearts and cir-
cumstances, it is the same Divine life, controlling and
regulating all. Christianity is also the only religion
which can now be propagated beyond the home of its
birth. Hinduism cannot live if translated to another
climate. The Chinese may come to our shores and
build tiieir joss-houses, but they cannot win converts

Christ's divine mission. 67

amongst our people. Mohammedans can extend only
by military conquest. But Christianity goes into the
home of the Hindoo and wins him to itself ; it bounds
over the great walls ox China and leads the poor child
of superstition to Jesus ; it throws its golden chain of
love around the Indian of the north or the savage of
the south, and makes him a member of the family of
God. Its past progress is the standing miracle of the
ages. It shows no sign of decay. It goes forward
majestically winning nation after nation, and by and
bye it will hold the world in its fond embrace.

Uh. The Personality and Character of Jesus, asso-
ciated ivith the Existence and Indwelling of the Holy
Spirit This evidence Christ appears to put the
highest of all. But anyone who carefully weighs it will
see how difficult it is to deal with it. It is addressed
to deeper perceptions than the others, and defies defi-
nition. The " character of Christ " may be drawn out
in beautiful words — but that is only a part of the
evidence we are now referring to. On one occasion,
in John viii. 46, 47, He challenged credence on that
ground, but on numberless occasions He demands re-
ception on the ground )f an inherent right to be
recognized as Divine in His words and in His being.
His own challenge, " Which of you convinceth Me of
sin ?" is plainly, from the context, a challenge to
show that He had been untrue to His Father. " I
honor My Father," " I seek not Mine own glory," " I
do always such things as please Him," " My meat is to
do the will of Him that sent Me." Such are a few of

! is

CHRIST S DIVINE MISSION.

the words spoken by Him in his aspect towards God.
We can form no conception of Him if we do not give
prominence to this supreme regard for God. He
acquiesced in God's appointment, " Even so, Father, for
so it seemeth good in Thy sight." " My Father, if this
cup may not pass away from Me except I drink it,
Thy will be done." So far we have been regarding
Him as a holy man, calling God His Father, not neces-
sarily in any other sense than that in which He teaches
us to call Him " Our Father." But when we once get
beyond the character of Christ in His relations to man,
and study it in its relations to God, we reach a point
where we become conscious of a region beyond, into
which we are sumr.oned to enter. There we hear
more distinctly the challenge to see Him as the Son, to
believe in Him as we believe in God, to believe that
He is in the Father and the Father in Him — in a word,
that He is God, that He and His Father are one.
Christ puts this evidence higher than all other evi-
dences, and the point to which all other evidence tends,
so that the faith that does not reach it falls short of
its ends. But, in connection with this, arises another
vital consideration. The disciples had been long with
Him, but He had still to say " How say est thou, show
us the Father ?" But then He added the promise of
the " Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost," and He
taught them that they should know more of Him when
absent, from the teaching of the Holy Ghost, than they
had known of Him when present. " At that day ye
shall know that I am in My Father." Now, it is im-

CHRIST'S DIVINE MISSION. 69

possible to draw out the evidence of the Divinity of
Christ without postulating the existence and opera-
tions of the Holy Ghost. He appeals to men's insight,
but adds that insight is to be obtained from the Holy
Spirit. He says to Peter that flesh and blood had not
revealed to him the truth he confessed. Again and
again He insists on the necessity of being taught of
God. " If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts
unto your children, how much more shall your Hea-
venly Father give His Holy Spirit to them that ask
Him." Put that promise to the test. If your prayer
be granted, the Bible with all its promises will become
your reward; but if your ardent, persevering prayer
bring no light and knowledge from above, you may
pronounce the Bible an imposture and doubt the being
of a God. The witness of the Holy Spirit gives heart-
felt effect to any evidence, and he who has that " wit-
ness in himself " is in his turn a witness to the reality
of that Divine Life from whence he draws his life.
Christianity, to such an one, is not a dead and powerless
thought of the forgotten past, but a living, energetic
reality, instinct with all that is noble, elevating and
divine.

My brethren, " What think ye of Christ ? " Is he a
man ? Yes, but I want more than the dignity of man-
hood, however perfect it may be. Is he a great teacher ?
Yes, but I want more than food for my intellect —
instruction relative to the things of the present. Is he
a great philanthropist ? Yes, but I want more than a
cure for the ills of the body. I am a member of a

f*-

CHRIST S DIVINE MISSION.

fallen race ; I myself am fallen ; I am diseased by sin ;
I hold no part of my being in soundness, and my soul
cries out for a healing balm and the offices of a physi-
cian who can infallibly cure. I am a candidate for
another world ; before me is the grave, the throne,
the Judge. I want a teacher who can can tell me how
to save my soul and reach a happiness lasting as
eternity. This Christ is a perfect man, a teacher, a
philanthropist — but is he God ? Yes ! cry the prophe-
cies that foretell His coming to our world. Yes ! say
his miracles — surpassing all the power of man. Yes !
echo His words, diviner in their wisdom than those of
earth's sages and philosophers. Verily He is ! speaks
His inimitable character in its relations to both God
and man. He is, He is ! declares the Holy Ghost, pro-
ceeding from the Father and the Son and dwelling in
me as a witness to the fact of salvation through the
name of Jesus Christ our Lord. If, then, this Christ
be God — if our Christianity be Divine — He is able to
save unto the uttermost all that come unto God by
Him, and this world shall yet be brought under the
strange spell that has lifted so many nations and peo-
ples into civilization and enduring greatness. I should
despair of bringing the nations to God, if it were not
for the Divinity of Christ. With that doctrine, heartily
and intelligently accepted and believed, we know
that the time shall come when the kingdoms of this
world shall become the kingdoms of our God and of
His Christ.

( 71 )

OFFICERS FOR 1886-86.

President— Rev. S. J. Hunter, Toronto.
Vice-Premlent—liKX. J no. Puilp, M.A., Toronto.
S'^cMary-Treamrer—UEX. A. M Piiii.LiPS. B.D., txalt.
Lecturer /or 18S6~l\EV. C. S. Eby, M.ART.L.. Japan.
Preacher for me-RKV. E. B. Karper, ^^-D-. tolling wood
Lecturer on Preaching -Rev. E. B. Ryckman, D.D., t. I.L., London.

LONDON CONFERENCE BRANCH.
Pmw/f'nf -Rev. J. R. GuNUY, Ridgetown.
Secretary- yrm^M^rr— Rev. G. H. Thompson, Lambeth.
Lecturerjorl8S5—REV. Robt. Fowler, M.D., London.

NIAGARA CONFERENCE BRANCH.

President-REV. Wm. Williams, Woodstock.

^fcVrrm.su7vr— Rev. G. A. Mitchell, B.A., Nia^^'ara Falls, houth.

Lecturer/or ISSo-ilEV. A. Burns, D.D., LL.D., Hannlton.

GUELPH CONFERENCE BRANCH.

Premlent—REV. W. C. Henderson, M.A., St. Marys.
Secretary- Treasurer— Rev. A. M. Phillips, B.D., Gait.
Lectu-erfor ISSo— Rev. T. M, Campbell, Goderich.

TORONTO CONFERENCE BRANCH.

Presirf^ni— Rev. S. J. Hunter, Toronto.

5f('cre«arw y/vasur^^r— Rev. G. Washington. M A, Mono Road.

Lecturer for 1S85-Rev. E. B. Harper, D.D., Collmgwood.

BAY OF QUINTE CONFERENCE BRANCH.

President— Ri. ' M. L. Pearson, Napanee
Secretary-REV. E. N. Bakkr, M.A., Wellington.
Treasurer— Rev. 0. R. Lambly, M.A., Stirling.
Lecturer for 1885— Rev. E. Badgley, LL.D., Cobourg.

MONTREAL CONFERENCE BRANCH.

President— Rev. W. I. Shaw, LL.B., Montreal.
Secretary- Treamrer— Rev. S. D. Chown, Kemptville.
Lecturer for 1885— Rev. J. W. Sparling, Quebec.
Preacher for 18S5— Rev. J. T. Pitcher, Sherbrooke.

MANITOBA CONFERENCE BRANCH.

President— Rev. J. Woodsworth, Portage la Prairie.
Secretary-Treasurer— Rev. J. W. Bell, B.D., Carberry.
Lect^irerfor 1885-Rev. B. Franklin, B.A., Portage la Prairie.
Preacher for 1885— Rev. J. F. Bkttj-', Brandon.

III V:

E!il;

l! I

Ih;

1 4

(72 )

MEMBERS ENROLLED, 1884-85. •

LO.\DON CONFERENCE BUANCH.

Bryers, William.
Butt, W. H.
Clement, Benjamin.
Cobb, Thomas.
Coupland, T. B.
Couzens, C. C.
Edwards, Abel S.
Ferguson, John A,
Fallis, John G.
Fowler, Robert, M.D.
Freeman, John W., B.D.
Freeman, John B., B.D.
Gane, Wm. H.
Godwin, William.
Graham, James.
Gundy, Jos. R.
Griffin, M.
Jackson, George.
Kerr, George J.
Lancely, Ebenezer.
Livingstone, James.
McDonagh, Wm,
McNair, Thos. R.
Middleton, Eli.

Neelands, John.
Pascoe, W. S.
Parker, Wm. R., D.D.
Philp, Joseph.
Pomeroy, Wm. M.
Quance, Wm.
Rigsby, Walter.
Russell, A. L., B.D.
Ryckman, E. B., D.D., F.T.L.
Reynolds, John.
Scott, John G.
Smith, John V.
Staples, S. G., B.A.
Stacey, Frank B.
Sutherland, D. G., LL.B.
Shaw, W. H.
Teeter, Chancellor.
Thompson, Geo. H.
Treleaven, Richard J.
WaJdell, Robert H., B.D.
Ward, Joseph, B.A.
Whiting, James.
Wilson, Jasper, B.A.

NIACURA <'OKFERENrE BRANCH.

Ames, William.

Archer, Joseph.

Balmer, Wm. J.

Brock, Thomas.

Brown, Thos. J.

Burns, Alex., D.D.,LL.D., F.T.L.

Burns, Robert.

Cassidy, Francis A., B.A.

Clark, George.

Clarke, Edward J.

Clarke, Thomas R.

Cleaver, Solomon, B.A.
Colling, Thomas, B.A.
Collins, James H.
Cookman, Christopher.
Cooley, John W.
Elliott, Robert J.
Emory, Vernon H.
Ferguson, George.
Foote, James G.
Goodwin, James.
Hall, Harvey M.

LIST OF MEMBERS.

Hobbs, Richard.
Hockey, John E.
Hunter, Wm. J., D.D
Jackson, Thomas W.
Kay, John.
Kettlewell, William.
Lanceley, John E.
Langford, Alex.
Maitland, Robert R.
Maxwell, Wm. J.
Mitchell, Geo. A., B.A.
Mooney, James.
Morrow, Chas. R.
Robinson, John H
Ross, Jas. S., M.A.
Rowe, Richard B.
Russ, Amos E., M.A.

Cil!EliFH i

Aylesworth, I. B., LL.D.
Baugh, William.
Bielby, Wm. M.
Bowers, A. A., B.A.
Broley, James.
Campbell, Thos. M.
Chown, E. A., B.D.
Colling, Jos. S.
Cornish, Geo. H.
Edmunds, S. C, B.D.
Edwards, Samuel H.
Fisher, John S.
Fydell, Thos. R.
Gilpin, John W.
Gray, James.
Griffin, W. S., D.D
Hall, Robt. H.
Harris, Alex. G., F.T.L.
Harris, James.
Henders, R. C.
Henderson, Wm. C, M.A.
Holmes, Jos. W.

Saunders, John, M.A.
Sifton, J no. W., B.A.
Smith, John T.
Snider, David W.
Stevenson, E. B., B.A.
Stewart, John.
Taylor, David H.
Van Wyck, J. A., B.A.
Voaden, Thomas.
Wakefield, John.
Watson, Wm. C, M.A.
White, Jas. H.

Williams, J. A., D.D., F.T.L.
Williams, William.
Wilson, Samuel.
Woodsworth, Richard W.
Wright, Robert W.

ONFERENCK BRANCH.

Howell, Jacob E., M.A.
Isaac, Jno. R.
Leith, Thos. B.
Mills, William.
McCulloch, Andrew M.
McDowell, David C.
McLachlan, Jas., B.A.
Phillips, A. M., B.D.
Phillips, Robert.
Richardson, George.
Rupert, E. S., M.A.
Scott, John, M.A.
Sellery, San.uel, B.D.
Sherlock, Benjamin.
Shilton, J. W., B.A.
Stafford, Chas. E.
Swann, Frank.
Teskey, Ebenezer.
Turk, Geo. R.
Turner, John.
Webster, John.

TORONTO <'ONFEREN€E BRANCH.

Addison, Peter.
Barrass, Edward, M.A.
Benson, Manly.
Blackatock, W. S.
Briggs, Wm.

Brown, George.
Brown, W. P.
Burns, R. N., B.A.
Cochran, Geo., D.D.
Conron, M. B.

F.T.L.

I!U>

LIST OF M KM HERS.

Cullen, Thos.

Dewart, E. H., D.D., F.T.L.

Eby, C. S., M.A., F.T.L.

German, John F., M.A.

Griffith, Thos., M.A.

Hare, J. J., M.A.

Harper, E. B,, D.D.

Hill, Newton.

Hill, L. W., B.A.

Hunt, John.

Hunter, S. J.

Jeffrey, Thos. W.

Johnston, Hugh, B. D.

Langford, Charles.

Lidoy, James.

Matthews, H. S.

Meacham, G. M., D.D.. F.T.L.

McDonald, D., M.D., F.T.L.

Philp, John, M.A.

Philp, S. C, Jr.

Keid, Thos. R.

Rose, Samuel P.

Shorey, Sidney J.

Sing, Samuel.

Sutherland, Alex., D.D., F.T.L.

Thom, James.

Washington, Geo., M.A.

Washington, Wm. C.

Williams, Thos.

Whittington, R., M.A.

Young, Egerton R.

BAY OF ai'INTR CONFERENCE BUANCII.

Ash, Jno. C.
Badgley, E., LL.D.
Bates, M. J.
Baker, E. N., B.A.
Burwash, N., S.T.D., F.T.L
Edmison, Thos. J., B.D.
Elliott, Wm., B.A.
Jeffers, W., D.D., F.T.L.
Johnston, William.
Leitch, Robt. H.
Lewis, E. D.
T^mbly, O. R., M.A.

McCamus, D. N.

McFarlane, Jas.

Nelles, S. S., LL.D., F.T.L

Pearson, M L.

Rice, Jno. J.

Scott, Wm. L

Wallace, F. H., B.D.

Watch, C. W.

Workman, G. C , M.A.

Young, Joseph.

Young, Wm. J.

MA'^ilTOBA CONFERENCE BRANCH.

Adams, G. R.
Argue, Thos.
Barltrop, A. J.
Bell, J. W., B.D.
Betts, J. F.
Bridgman, W. W.
Beynon, T. B., B.A.
Chisholm, J.
Craig, R. H.
Crichton, Chas.
Colwill, S. E.
Dyer, W. T.
Finn, F. M
Franklin, B., B A.
Halstead, Wm.
Hames, A. B.

Harrison, J. M.

Kenner, Henry.

Lawson, Thos.

Long, G. H.

Laidley, R. B.

McLean, Jno., B.A.

Peters, Geo.

Ross, A. W.

Robinson, J. N.

Rutledge, W. L.

Ruttan, J. H.

Stafford, E. A., B.A., F.T.L.

Stewart, A., B.D

Wilson, T. B.

W'oods worth, Jas.

LIST OF MEMBERS.

NONTBEAL CONFEREXC E IIRANin.

Allen, James, B A.
Awde, James, B.A.
Beaudry, Louis N.
Bond, Stephen.
Chown, S. D.
Constable, T. W.
Crane, E. W.
Eldridge, G. S.
Elliott, Jas., D.D., F.T.L,
Galbraith, Wm., B.C.L.
Hall, Wm., M.A.
Hooker, Leroy.
Jackson, Wm.
Knox, Wm.
Kines, James.
Lawson, James.
Longley, Benj., B.A.

McGill, Wm.
McRitchie, George.
Phillips, S. G., M.A.
Pitcher, J. T.
Porter, G. H., B.A.
Poyser, G. C, F.T.L.
Saunders, J. B.
Shaw, W. L, LL.B.
Short, W. K., M.A.
Sparling, W, H., B A.
Sparling. J. W., B.D.
Timberlake, Wm., F.T.L.
AVatson, James.
Williams, T. G.
Whiteside, A.
Wilson, J., B.A.

JACii ON SOCIETY, YICTORIA €OLI.ECiE, fOBOHRCl.

Officers :

F. G. Lett President.

W. H. Garnham Vice- President.

J. R. Real Recording ^secretary.

T. T. George Corresponding Secretary.

H. Mahood Treasurer.

H. H. Coates Librarian.

A. C. CouRTicB, M. A Critic.

S. N. Mc Adoo A ssistant Critic.

H. H Coates Organist.

S. G. Livingstone ] t.„^.,..

W.B. Tucker / ^^«'^«*«-

Members

Anderson, S.
Beynon, R.
Birks, A. K.
Brown, H. A.
Frizzell, J. W.
Homer, R. C.
Kemp, J. M.
Kerby, G. W.
Love, A.
Miller, A. N.
Mussell, J. A.

Moore, C. I. D.
Morris, J.
Norman, W. T.
Osterhout, A. B.
Pentland, S. V.
Procunier, C. A.
Saunby, J. W.
Wilson, M. E.
Wilson, Joseph.
Wallwin, I. B.

: at* ii'^aa

;

LIST OF MEMBERS.

DOI/dLAS SOCIETY, WEiiLEYAN THI OUMtlCAL COLUtttS,

MONTBEAL.

Officers :

D. Balfour.- President.

J. S. Eaolbson Vice-President.

H. V. MouNTEER Recording Secretary.

M. Duke . Corresponding Secretary.

J. Locke Treasurer.

C. T. Scott Critic.

A. Henderson Assistant Critic.

T.S.Harris ] , .

H.Irvine / J^eaders.

Members

Bowlby, C. L.
Cooke, J. S.
Cosford, H. M.
Francesco, C.
Harrison, T. E.
Howitt, W.
Langevin, T.

Massicotte, L.
Smith, R.
Somerville, W.
Sparling, W.
Thurlow, H. M.
Wright, II. A.

*'FKLI.OWH" Vi THEOLOCilCAL LITEKATIIKE.

Rev. S. S. Nelles, D.D., LL.D Cobourg.

Rev. N. Burwash, S.T.D Coboure.

Rev. W. Jeffers, D. D Belleville.

*Rev. S. n. Rice, D.D Toronto.

Rev. J. Elliott, D.D Pembroke.

Rev. E. H. Dewart, D D Toronto.

Rbv. E. B. Rvckman, D.D London.

Rev. a. Burns, D.D., LL.D Hamilton.

Rev. E. a. Stafford, B.A Winnipeg.

*Rev. W^. W. Ross. . . IngersoU.

Rev. J. A. Williams, D.D St. Catharines.

Rev. Geo. Cochran, D. D Japan.

Rev. Geo. C. Poyser, F.T.L Sydenham.

Rev. D. McDonald, M.D Japan.

Rev. C. S. Eby, M.A Japan.

Rev. Geo. M. Meacham, M. A Toronto.

Rev. Wm. Timberlakb, F.T.L Aylmer Ewt.

Rev. Alex. G. Harris, F.T.L Leamington.

* Deceased.

LIST OF MEMBERS.

NEMBEBfii EEADINCl FOB •'FELLOWSHIP.*

Rev. J. R. Isaac.
Rev. J. H. Robinson.
Rev. Thomas Cobb.
Rev. S. D. Chown.
Rev. Jas. Watson.

Rev. A. C, Wilson.
Rev. Wm. Knox.
Rev. W. H. Gane.
Rev. A. Whiteside.
Rev. C. Teeter.

MEMBERSHIP FEE PA IB. I884-8K.

London Conference Branch • $39 00

Niagara Conference Branch n m

Guelph Conference Branch 07 nn

Toronto Conference Branch ,1 An

Bay of Quinte (Conference Branch 16 00

Montreal Conference Branch o nJ!

Manitoba Conference Branch 30 00

Total $228 00

N B— The privileges of membership are conditioned upon enrolment, and the
payment o! an annual fee of «l. All who pay the membership fee are entitled to a
copy of the " Animal Lecture and Sermon," and the "Lectures on Preaching.
Annual Fees paid in the "Jackson " and " Douglas " Societies are accepted in lieu
of the Annual Feti of the " Union," and entitie their members to all the privilege*
of membership.

7«

COURSE OF UKADINO.

COURSE OF READING

POU

FELLOW IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE (F.T.L.)

The Course of Reading is to extend over three yeara, and
to consist of Biblical, Historical, Doctrinal, or Apologetic
studies. The character of the Course shall be optional,
i.e., the subjects or branches of study may be elected by
each one reading; Provided ^ that two sul;jects shall be read
for each year, one to be selected at the beginning of the
Course and continued throughout, and the other varied
from year to year. The thoroughness of the reading will
be tested by a thesis on each subject, to be assigned by (he
Ist of February and forwarded by the 1st of Apiil to the
Examiners ; a written report of the examination of the thesis
to be in the hands of the Secretary by May 1st, who shall
report results to the candidates. All persons reading must
send application for subject of thesis to the Secretary by
January 1st. staging the year in which they are reading, the
Course subject, the option selected, and the books read.
Each subject should be studied in at least two authors, from
a comparison of which an independent opinion may be
formed ; and a student must put in at least one thesis each
year until the Course is completed.

COURSK nV STUDY. 19

COURSE OF STUDY.

FIKSr YKAU.

1. Biblical Studt/.—Ht. John's Gospel. Aids: Godet, Meyer,
Muulton, and Milligan.

2. lliHtorkal Htudy. — The Christian Church to the close of the
Council of Nice. Text-books : Neander and SchafT.

3. Doctrinal Stuily.— The Atonement. Text-books: Crawford,
Kandles, Miley.

4. Apologetic 5'<tt(/y.— Natural Theology. Text-books: Hint's
Theism and Anti-Theistic Theories, Diman's Theistic Argument,
and Janet's Final Causes.

SECOND YEAR.

1. Biblical Study.— The Epistle to the Romans. Aids: Godet,
Meyer, and Beet.

2. Hintorical Study.— The English Reformation. Text-books :
Burnet, D'Aubigne, and Hardwicke.

3. Doctrinal Study.— The Trinity. Text-books: Bull's Defence
i>f the Nicene Faith, Dorner's Person of Christ.

4. Apologetic Study.— The Canon of the New Testament. Text-
books: Westcott, Briggs' Biblical Study, Sanday's Gospels in the
Second Century.

THIRD YEAR.

1. Biblical Study.— la&mh. Aids: Cheyne and Lange.

2. Historical Study.— Americmn Church History. Text-books:
Stevens' and Bangs' American Methodism, Punshard's Congrega-
tionalism.

3. Doctrinal Study.— The Future Life. Text-books : Beecher's
History of the Doctrine, Randies, Shaw's Lecture on Eternal Pun-
ishment.

4. Apologetic Study. —Inspiration. Text-Books : Bannermann,
Lee, Elliott, Pope's Theology, Vol. I.