liberty. Such was the period out of which we have not as yet emerged, the period consequent upon the opening of the world, when Christianity became distinctly and courageously missionary and set itself to the task of saving the nations. And now, while the missionary duty is still unsatisfied, the church is confronted by another duty, not altogether new in the separate and diversified elements which it represents, but new in the fact that these have suddenly become crystallized in one imperative duty which has assumed the name of social Christianity.

Precisely what does this mean? What is the present social need which calls for this fresh adjustment of Christian forces? The new work of Christianity, at least amongst us, is an organic work in society, occasioned by the shortcomings, the failures, the unhealthy and violent working, at so many points, of the social system. Perhaps the most startling evidence of the wrong working of the system is seen in the morbid types of individual life which are thrown upon the surface. They have been to us, until now, strange and unfamiliar types. We have known the poor. But poverty, as we have known it, has meant hardship, struggle, the absence of luxury and comfort, sometimes absolute and distressing want, but, more frequently than otherwise, a stimulus to character and ambition. Now we are beginning to know the pauper, the man not simply poor in his surroundings, but poor in himself, weak, enfeebled, debilitated, devitalized. We have known criminals. But crime as we have known it has been sporadic, liable to break out anywhere under stimulated passion or unusual temptations, contagious but not reproductive. Now we are beginning to know the criminal, the man born to criminality and bred in it, perpetuating himself along that line, and creating a class which is to-day refilling our prisons with criminal backsliders. We have been obliged to import a word into our vocabulary to express this, for us, new phase of criminality-recidivism, criminal backsliding.

The first impulse of society under such manifestations and disclosures is to act summarily. But soon the wisdom of Christ's caution appears, that men have a care lest in gathering up the tares they root up the wheat also. It is seen that the difficulty is organic, inhering in large part in society itself. We study pauperism; but we go only a little way before we find that, if we would analyze the poor man's poverty, we must stop and analyze the rich man's wealth. 66 We are members one of another." We study crime, and as we trace the criminal back into the causes

which are producing him, we are forced to take to heart in its partial truthfulness the saying that "society deserves the criminals it has." And when we turn to the institutions and forces which are naturally corrective of these and like results, to see what is their present working strength, the outlook is not assuring. We turn to the family as the great social safeguard, only to find that the family is beginning to yield under the immense strain which is falling upon it. We see that it has lost much in idea under the growth of individualism, and that it is losing much more in practice under the looseness of social customs. Marriage is no longer a self-protecting ordinance; it has ceased to be "honorable in the sight of all men." We turn to democracy as the great political safeguard, only to find how powerless it is to preserve social unity under the mighty economic forces which are pushing men into social extremes. We see that the same classification or stratification of society is going on here as elsewhere under the reign of industrialism. We find the old class antagonisms revived under new names and in new forms, creating social disturbances over wide areas. As Mr. Howells has recently said, the Farmers' Alliance is the modern form of the Peasants' War. Suppose that instead of our harvests bursting our storehouses, we had the gleanings of the fields of Europe!

Now it is simply impossible, in view of these social necessities, for the pulpit to retire into the old religious individualism, and content itself with exhorting every man to build over against his own house. What has been called "the social compunction," which is everywhere beginning to be felt, will not allow such a reactionary course. The conception of the church is rapidly changing in the minds of those within as well as of those without. It no longer stands simply for the rescue of individuals. It stands, by growing consent, for the improvement, the regeneration of society. It is interesting to watch the enlarging consciousness of the church under this widening of its duty. It is already beginning to feel itself a part of the social order, to know its place in the world, and to rejoice in these nearer possibilities of the kingdom of God. What the church, then, demands of the ministry at this juncture is intelligent guidance. Here and there it may be necessary to confront the churches with facts. But the outpouring of social statistics from the pulpit is quite useless unless the minister is prepared to show their meaning, and to trace results to causes. The people must be trained to think, and to think patiently, before they act. Of course they are not to be

expected to solve social problems. They are not to attempt the work of experts. But they have their own work to do. Experts and specialists must be supported by an intelligent public Christian sentiment, and by practical church coöperation. The new work of the ministry falls alike upon the teaching and upon the pastoral function. The church, that is, must be instructed in its social duties, and organized and led out into them. And the authority of the ministry in this whole matter will depend, not upon what is done over the church, but in what is accomplished through the church. Authority, at this point, I repeat, is not personal, but representative, and will be measured by the ability of the ministry to stimulate, inform, and organize the church, for the work of social Christianity.

It may have seemed to you, gentlemen, that in the stress which I have laid upon subjects of present concern in religious thought and life, I have made too little account of that constant and abiding element in Christianity which relates men of all times alike to their eternal destiny. Let me assure you that I have not been unmindful of it as I have written these words. The otherworldliness of religion forms an inseparable part of my religious thinking. But I can see no incompatibility between the eternal interests of men and their interests in time, least of all between the work of the church toward far-reaching spiritual results and the part it may take in fulfillment of its providential place in history. One of the first lessons of the ministry I believe to be that one shall learn not to find fault with the providence of God. It is a matter of surprise to me that preachers are so reckless in their denunciations of their age (it is always so), as if it had no place in the plan of God, and as if his Spirit were not present. I put you on your guard against the superficial and faithless interpretation of your own times. Do not overlook the presence of God, or be afraid to work where He is at work. The church has not often made the mistake of working too far out upon the advanced lines of God's providence. I know the danger of overstepping the lines, from rashness and impatience, or from culpable ignorance. But there are guidances and restraints of the Spirit which have been provided against this very need, and which are always available to those who will heed them. And at the present time I think that you may be sure that you have the mind of the Spirit if, in your critical research into the sources of truth, your chief concern is to find out for yourselves and for others the reality of

faith, and if in your social studies you are equally concerned to gain that wisdom through which you may contribute your part by word or in deed to the improvement of the social order. I commend to you, as something attainable by you all in your studies, the confidence of the great scholar, whose whole life work was cast in the perplexities of critical scholarship, who wrote concerning his last work, "Of one thing only do I think I may be confident, that the spirit by which it is animated comes from the good Spirit that guides along the everlasting way."

ANDOVER.

William Jewett Tucker.

EDITORIAL.

THE RELIGIOUS REASON FOR BIBLICAL CRITICISM.

THE dislike which many Christian people have for the application of critical processes to the Bible is due in great part to their opinion of the motive impelling to the use of those processes. This they believe to be a merely intellectual one. The religious nature, they think, has no want to be satisfied by the critical impulse, and hence gives it no sanction. There is no reason why a Christian man, as such, should be a Biblical critic. The Bible was given to the church for religious uses, and will not fulfill its function unless it be used religiously. Christian scholars, who give their lives to studying it, and to helping the church employ it rightly, should, of all men, give it religious treatment. If in their study of it they maintain allegiance to Christ, they will have the sympathy of the church. But if they profess that in pursuing this study Science is their mistress, Science, who requires her subjects to examine all things in the "dry light" of the intellect, and to bring all sources of knowledge before the bar of the reason, they must expect the church

to follow their labors not with sympathy, but with suspicion.

This objection to Biblical criticism (felt, we suspect, by many who do not give it utterance) has more influence in this country than in Europe, because almost all scholars, pursuing this criticism among us, stand in places of religious trust, and are pledged to do work looking directly towards religious ends.

We purpose trying to show that it is an unfounded objection; that the opinion underlying it as to the motive of Biblical criticism is a wrong opinion; that the critical impulse belongs to Christianity; and that those whose lives are given honestly to applying the principles of critical research to the Bible are ministering to a vital necessity of the church. Scriptural knowledge acquaintance with the religious and moral ideas contained in the sacred writings, and with the historical facts recorded in them is necessary to Christian life; to its normal development and fruitful activity, if not to its existence. As to this, all Protestant Christians are agreed; and it is a doctrine on which especial emphasis is laid by those who hold the view about critical studies which we are discussing.

The religious ideas of the Old and New Testament prophets are so transcendently profound and vital that the church must always turn to them for religious instruction. The history of the Jewish church, the life of Jesus Christ, the rise of Christianity under the leading of the apostles, - in these facts lies a self-revelation of God to which the church must ever turn for living conceptions of his character and his ways with men. Christian faith feeds on knowledge, the knowledge to be obtained here, and here only, assimilates it, and transmutes it into conviction. So Chris