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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 
 
I! 
 
 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 
 
« 
 
 i 
 
 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 
 
i! 
 
 I 
 
 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( 
 
mi 
 
 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 
 

 1 
 
 
 
 ! 
 
 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 
 
32 
 
 DOGMA AND DUTY. 
 
 J 
 
 i 
 
 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 
 
 3 
 

 
 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. 
 
36 
 
 nOQMA AND DUTV. 
 
 ill 
 
 '\ 
 
 I 
 
 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 
 
38 
 
 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 
 
40 
 
 DOGMA AND DUT^. 
 
 I 
 
 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 
 
42 
 
 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 
 
 IJL 
 
 ^ 
 
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. 
 
44 
 
 DOGMA AND DUTY. 
 
 1 1 
 
 ; 
 
 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 
 
 \\\ 
 
 !ai 
 
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 
 
46 
 
 DOGMA AND DUTY. 
 
 ( 
 
 i 
 
 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 
 
 i 
 
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." 
 
 i 
 
Ij 
 
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A SERMON DELIVERED BEFORE THE THEOLOGICAL UNION OF 
 VICTORIA UNIVERSITY, MAY IOtii, 1885. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. S. J. HUNTER. 
 
Mil 
 
 
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^rmott. 
 
 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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 54 
 
 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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 li 
 
 56 
 
 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 
 

 S8 
 
 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 
 
 ! M 
 
 JJ ij 
 
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 
 
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 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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 62 
 
 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 
 

 
 1 
 
 'i 
 
 
 i '■■ 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 ■• 
 
 
 1 
 
 ■1; 
 
 - I, 
 
 
 1 . 
 
 66 
 
 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 
 
I 
 
 ! is 
 
 68 
 
 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 
 
<w 
 
 f*- 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 70 
 
 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. 
 
II 
 
 
 III V: 
 
 E!il; 
 
 l! I 
 
 Ih; 
 
 li 
 
 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. 
 
 79 
 
 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> 
 
 74 
 
 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. 
 
 75 
 
 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 
 
 ; 
 
 76 
 
 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. 
 
 M 
 
LIST OF MEMBERS. 
 
 77 
 
 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. 
 
 IS 
 
 COURSE OF READING 
 
 rt 
 
 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.