The Indian National Congress wanted that one-third of the members of the council should be chosen from distinguished English politicians and statesmen who had never been Government servants in India. That was a very useful suggestion and ought to have been accepted. Such men would undoubtedhy have been less biassed than retired Anglo-Indian officials and would have brought more progressive and non-partisan views to bear on the task of governing India. Retired civilians are more zealous to see that their class-interests do not suffer than in doing justice to the children of the soil.

The above comments do not touch the root of the matter. There may be an Indian Secretary, just as there is a Colonial Secretary; but the India Council ought to be abolished. Absentee rulers, like absentee landlords, are no good. Let the real rulers of India,-they may at first be preponderantly British,-be in India, and let them be made responsible to the people of India. They should have a free hand in dealing with the internal affairs of India. As for foreign relations, let the Indian Secretary deal with them in consultation with the Government of India.

That is the best way.

The next best thing to do is to keep the India Council and place half the number of seats at the disposal of Indians. These Indian members should be elected by the elected Indian members of the legislative the councils and elected fellows of the universities. Of the remaining members half are to be nominated by the Cabinet from among Anglo-Indian officials who have retired not more than a year or two before the date of nomination and half from the ranks of British public men.

The Nityananda Maternity Home. This philanthropic institution has been established at Navadwip by the earnest efforts of the late Sadhu Nityananda Das, who lost his life on the 14th February last while nursing cholera patients during the bathing festival of the month of Magh.

Some 600 women who have become mothers in widowhood come to Navad wip every year to hide their shame. What becomes of the children and what the Home wishes to do will appear from the following words of the late Sadhu :

"People from all parts of the province, especially from Dacca, Mymensing, Tippera and other districts of East Bengal, throng into this city (Nabadvip), seek shelter just to hide their shame under the shade of the multitudinous population, and the pecuniary greediness of the Sarai-keepers of Navadip deliver

these off-shoots from illicit connections, bide their time, and they depart again, to avoid calumny and disgrace, to their respective homes, leaving the unfortunaie infants to their fate.

These children often die for sheer neglect and wilful carelessness on the part of the mothers and the innkeepers, as it is generally against their interest and intention to preserve the lives of these babies. And even if they survive, the babies, if girls, are frequently handed over to the ignominious women-destined by the so-called parents themselves to life-long prostitution and wretched debasement. The boys are likewise recommended to beggarism and vagabondism all the days of their lives, to move about in low circles and and in low company, without education and without breeding, so that they have no other alternative but to grow up into a race of ruffians and rascals.

With a view to prevent, as far as possible, this lamentable state of affairs-to help these poor, help less, fateless children out of the imminent wreck and ruin of so many human lives-to provide them with food, lodging, and suitable education, so that they may push up their heads and stand out as men in the strife and struggle of life in the world, this institution craves the permission of the official staff and the active co-operation of the local police in the matter of the working and management of Delivery Home, where secrecy and due care of the babies delivered will be guaranteed."

We have kept the Sadhu's English just as we have found it, to show that to live nobly and die nobly it is not necessary to be able to write faultless English. His heart-affluence and his righeousness and manliness shine out through his crude language.

The Home at present maintains 8 infants and 3 mothers, and has five nurses to take care of them. It is managed by a committee of well-known men, with the District Magistrate as its President and the Maharajah of Krishnagar as its Vicepresident. The secretary is Babu Kuladaprasad Mallik, to whom all contributions should be sent.

task this answer

Mbriefly the question. What is the Bible

in the light of the Higher Criticism? Or, for the sake of clearness, I may divide the question into two parts, and say: My task is to answer the two inquiries, first, what is the Higher Criticism? and second, how does the Higher Criticism affect the Bible? To begin then, what is the Higher Criticism as applied to our Christian Scriptures?

The answer is very plain. It is simply historical criticism as applied to these Scriptures. It is simply literary criticism as applied to them. In other words, it is simply scholarly investigation as thus applied.

In some respects it is unfortunate to make use of the word criticism in this connection at all; because some minds understand criticism to mean something negative and destructive. When we speak of Biblical criticism to such minds they at once think we mean finding fault with the Bible, "picking it to pieces," destroying it. But this is a wholly mistaken idea. True criticism is not necessarily negative: it is as likely to be positive as negative. It does not necessarily destroy; indeed it may not be destructive at all; its effect may be wholly constructive.

It is easy to see this when we speak of criticism as applied to other books. For example, when, I speak of Shakespearean criticism, I am not understood as meaning efforts to destroy or to injure Shakespeare. Rather am I understood as meaning efforts to understand Shakespeare, to find out all that is possible about the great and priceless book of dramatic writing that comes to us from Shakespeare. And literary criticism is simply the study of literature in the light of all the knowledge we can get bearing on that literature which can illuminate it and help us to understand it better.

In the same way historical criticism does not mean efforts to destroy history

but to find out what the real history of any given period is that is to say, it is such a careful, accurate and full study of all the data, all the historic material bearing upon that period, as will enable us to gain the most reliable possible knowledge of the real history of that time.

Now apply all this to the Bible. Literary criticism of the Bible is the application of all the principles of careful literary study to the Bible, with a view to getting correct, large and thorough knowledge of it. In the same way historical criticism of the Bible is the application of all the recognized principles of careful historical study to the Bible and to everything connected therewith, in order to get a fuller and truer understanding of the Bible's origin and development-the sources from which its various books came, their writers, their dates, the purpose of their authors in writing them, and everything else that can help us to understand their meaning, their value, and their place in the world.

Is there anything necessarily negative or destructive in this? Is there anything in this that friends of the Bible should fear, or be on their guard against as hostile to the Bible? Rather should real lovers of the Bible welcome all this study and all this new light, as lovers of Shakespeare wel come all research which can throw light upon the dramas which they prize so highly.

I have used the words literary criticism and historical criticism because these are really better words than higher criticism, though meaning essentially the same thing. So when any of us read about the higher criticism of the Bible, let us understand that what we are really reading about is the application of the principles of literary and historical criticism,—that is, of careful literary and historical study-to the Bible.

is

The expression Higher Criticism merely a technical term employed by Biblical scholars in distinction from what they

call lower criticism, for more convenience to themselves.

By the lower criticism of the Bible they mean study of the original text,-the original Hebrew of the Old Testament, and the original Greek of the New Testament. During the past hundred years there has been a great deal of very careful study of these original texts, with a view to correcting errors that have crept into translations, and finding out as nearly as possible what the original writers of the Bible really said.

We have no manuscript of any book of the Bible that comes from the writer himself. The oldest New Testament manuscripts we possess were written three or four centuries this side of the New Testament age and our oldest manuscripts of the old Testament were written a thousand years later than the Old Testament age. This being the case it is not strange that our best manuscripts of hoth the Old Testament and the New differ much among themselves. Indeed, comparing the various manuscripts we possess of the New Testament with one another, we find the variations to reach the enormous number of 150,000, and if we find the variations among our Old Testament manuscripts to be less, it is not because our manuscripts here are better, but only because those we possess of any value at all are so few. Of course many of these variations are very slight, consisting only of different spellings of a word, or different accents on a Greek syllable; but some are important and make a distinct difference in the meaning of certain passages of Scripture.

The scholars who devote themselves to this kind of study,-to finding out what are the best readings, and to securing the most correct possible Hebrew and Greek texts, are called the lower critics; and their work is called, technically, the Lower Criticism; whereas the scholars who devote themselves to other lines of Biblical study, to more purely literary and historical study,-are called the higher critics, and their work is called the Higher Criticism.

I think this makes sufficiently clear what is the nature of the so-called Higher Criticism and how very important in the nature of the case it is, if we care at all to have true and reliable literary and historic knowledge of the book that we love and honor.

This brings me to my second question: How does all the new knowledge which comes to us from this study-from the so-called Higher Criticism-affect the Bible? In other words, what new views of the Bible does it give us? To this questionor to these questions I answer: First, literary and historical scholarship shows us that our Bible does does not stand alone, is not the only sacred book of mankind; it belongs to a family There are many religions in the world, . Most of those which are highly developed have sacred literatures. Sacred books do not come into the world arbitrarily-they come naturally; there are laws that govern their origin and growth. Just as he who would know one science must know other sciences, so he who would know one sacred book must know other sacred books. The best works that are being written on the Bible today are being written in the light of knowledge of other sacred books besides our own. It is mar vellous how much larger this method of study makes religion, and revelation, and God

And

Second, the Higher Criticism shows us that, properly speaking, the Bible is not a book; it is a literature. It is a collection of sixty-six different and for the most part, wholly independent and unrelated books, bound together. their being bound together no more makes them one book than binding together 66 books of your library or mine would make them one. They were written in three different languages, in half a dozen of more different countries, and some of the books nearly a thousand years later than others. They were written by writers of as widely different characteristics and qualification for writing as we can well imagine-kings, peasants, courtiers, keepers of cattle and sheep, scribes and learned men, men without learning, men of widely different views on many subjects, men dif fering greatly in moral character and piety These 66 books differ, too, in the wides degree in their subjects, aims, purposes style, literary quality, moral qulity, reli gious quality. Some are histories,

are partly historical and partly legendary some are poetry; some are predictions o the future, some are sermons, some are col lections of the proverbial wisdom of the time; some are biographical; some ar romances (as Ruth and Esther); some ar

letters or epistles. It will be seen, then, what I mean when I say that the Bible is not a book, but a literature.-an exceedingly valuable collection of ancient Hebrew literature, on the whole the best part of the literature produced by the Hebrew or Jewish people during the one thousand years and more that they lived in Palestine before they were driven out and dispersed over the world.

Third, accurate and careful scholarly investigation makes it clear that every book and every fragment of a book which enters into this literature came into being naturally -from human causes, which in nearly all cases we can trace as clearly as we can trace the causes which produced Homer's "Iliad" or Xenophon's "Memorabilia of Socrates", or Cicero's "Orations Against Catiline," or Thomas Faine's "Crisis," or Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin." We have been accustomed to think of the books of the Bible as dropping, so to speak, from God out of heaven; as coming into existence for reasons that God knew, but not such reasons as have operated in the production of any other books. But all this is a mistake. There never were books in the world whose origin could be more clearly traced to natural human causes than the books of the Old Testament and the New. Scholarship has brought to light those causes, and some of them we shall see as we go on.

Fourth, the Higher Criticism shows us that a surprisingly large number of the books of the Bible are anonymous as to authorship; and not only anonymous, but composites-that is, books not composed by any one author, but compilations, books which show the hand of more than one writer, and often of more than one age, and which have grown by successive editings and successive additions. Today in our Western world a man w rites a book and sends it out over his own name. As a result nobody feels at liberty to change it or to add to it without due announcement of the fact. But with the Hebrews and other ancient Oriental nations it was different. Most ancient writers seem not to have put their names to their writings. Ideas were common property, and writers felt at liberty to add to or change books to an extent that our notions of literary ethics would not justify at all. As a result, we know the names of only a few of the writers of the Bible,

and a large number of the books show that they have come from more sources than one. Thus the Pentateuch (or the Five Books of Moses, so called), we find, was not written by Moses, or by any single author, but was many centuries in coming into existence. Many of the prophetical books show additions by later hands. The Book of Isaiah comes from two, (if not from three or four) different writers, living more than 150 years apart; and the Book of Zechariah contains matter from three different prophets. The Book of Psalms is the national hymn book of the Jewish people, which was more than 500 years in growing. It contains five distinct collections of hymns, which were formed at different times, in some cases probably a probably a century or more apart. But at last all five were brought together to form the book as we now have it. Nor do many, if any, of the hymns come from David. Few were written within two or three centuries of David. Some were written as late as a century or a little more before Christ. Thus we see that the history of Israel for more than half a thousand years was rich with spiritual singers. The Book of Proverbs bears the name of Solomon. It may have begun in a small way with him, but certainly it was several centuries in coming to be what we now have, namely, a collection of the aphoristic wisdom of the Jewish people.

The Gospels grew, and show layer after layer of added material. The Book of Acts and the Apocalypse (or the Book of Revelation) both show imbedded documents, and more than one revision and addition.

Fifth, Biblical scholarship makes clear to us that the books of the Bible are not chronologically arranged; I mean, they do not stand in their places in the order of their composition. This is important to be borne in mind; otherwise we shall be confused when trying to trace the order of events in Jewish history, and the development of the Jewish religion, and civilization.

Genesis, which stands at the beginning of the Old Testament, is really one of the later Old Testament books. So with the books which immediately follow Genesisthat is, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. They are all late in date. The prophetical books stand well on toward the end of the Old Testament. Naturally, therefore,

we think of them as late in origin. A few of them are, but some of them are

the very oldest books of the Bible. In the New Testament the Gospels stand first. But they were not written until after the Epistles of Paul. And one of the Gospels, that connected with the name of John, bears evidence of being one of the latest of all the New Testament writings, not having come into existence probably until well on into the second century.

Now, of course, from books all jumbled together like this, as regards their age, it was impossible to obtain any correct conception of the historical sequence and progress of the people or the religion with which they deal, until we could get the jumble straightened out, and could discover the relative dates of the books. At last, however, thanks to the patient and persistent labor of the scholars of the past fifty years, we have found out, approximately at least, the dates of most of the writings of the Old Testament and the New. As a result, we are at last able to trace with much clearness and with substantial certainty the progress of the Israelitish people, both in civilization dasa in religion, from their low condition n portrayed in the books of Joshua and Judges, when they had just arrived in Palestine, a band of only recently liberated slaves from Egypt, on and up through the various stages of their development, until they reached their final maturity.

Sixth, Biblical scholarship shows us that not all parts of the Bible have equal value: indeed that different parts have different historical value, different literary value, different moral value, different religious value. And this means that the modern doctrine of the Bible's infallibility, inerrancy, perfection in every part, is not supported by scholarship.

The Bible nowhere makes the claim of infallibility. Even if it did, the facts as scholarship brings them to light regarding the origin, growth, preservation and contents of its various books, would not sustain the claim. Even if any one book of the Bible made the claim of inerrancy, or of being God's perfect word, as possibly the Apocalypse or book of Revelation at the end of the New Testament may be said to do, this would apply only to that particular book, not to the Bible as a whole or to either Testament as a whole: for each book

of both testaments was written absolutely by itself, with no reference to any other, and there was no gathering of the books together into a collection or canon until long after each separate book was written. So that no claim, of any kind, that any book may make for itself, can justly be extended to cover any other book, much less all other books, in the Bible.

The fact is, our modern idea of the absolute infallibility and perfection of the Bible in all its parts, is something which was unknown to the ancient Jews, unknown to any Bible writer, and unknown to the early Christian Church. It did not come into existence until after the Protestant Reformation of the 16th Century. The Roman Catholic Church did not hold it. and does not hold it now in any such rigid form as Protestants have taught it. It was not held by Luther or Calvin. It rose during the century after the death of these two great reformers. The cause that gave rise to it was the need felt by the Protestants for an authority-an infallible authority-to offset the infallible authority which the Catholics claimed to possess in the Church. The Protestants having denied that the Church was infallible, were seemingly left with no infallible standard at all. In self-defence, therefore, they seemed compelled to set up the Bible as such. This they did; and from that time on the absolute and infallible authority of the Bible, appears as a central doctrine among Protestant churches. This was its first appearance as held by any considerable body of churches in Christendom.

Seventh, the larger and better Biblical scholarship of our time shows us-what it is immensely important for us to understand-that the Bible is the literary record of a great and remarkable Evolution, the evolution, through the period of a thousand years, of the civilization and especially the religion of the Hebrew people. The world has no other record of a religious evolution so important as this.

The Hebrew people did not begin their career high up, but low down. Their early conception of God was crude. Their moral ideas were imperfect. Many of them were idolaters. Intellectually they stood upon a plane not so high as that occupied by some of the peoples around them. Morally they were probably a little above their heathen neighbourw but not much.

Now from thiss, oc londition they rose,