to war. Of the world, outside of camps, his experience was but slight. He was quite free from malice and somewhat credulous. These characteristics, however, do not explain everything.

I have said that Othello is not of a suspicious nature and that is so true that his mind remains in a state of suspicion for but a short time. At first he does not understand the covert words and allusions of lago, since Othello's own soul is serene and secure; then he takes what was said in the literal sense; finally he comprehends what is meant. Then, with a rapidity of interior revolution which may appear excessive to psychologists of a shallow kind, Othelio passes at once from full and entire confidence in Desdemona to an absolute certainty of her guilt. What does that signify? It signifies only that Othello has not a critical mind.

If Othello had the critical mind. of Hamlet, Iago's plots would have had a very different result. Hamlet would have taken time to weigh the disclosures of Iago; would have reasoned with himself as to the effects, the time, the place, the cccasion of Desdemona's fault; would have waited for opportunity to watch Cassio. Othello is a primitive man, one of those simple and robust natures out of which are made martyrs and heroes, one of those vigorous, inexperienced, and imprudent spirits which identify imagination with the thing imagined, who confound possibility with the fact, are open to every suggestion, and are seized of an idea so thoroughly that they lose not only their free judgment, but their perception. Othello does not meditate on the problem of the world. His soul is entirely occupied with a present reality, and if this reality attacks and overcomes his soul, it has no means of escape.

The psychological laws are strictly observed in Othello. In complicated natures of a conspicuously critical character, the passions are not either suddenly aroused or very impetuous in their action; the affections from which the passions spring are compounded in numerous and varied forms of equilibrium and contrast, and reciprocally impeding each other do not allow any one to rise too much above the others and tyrannize over the spirit. In simple and primordial natures like Othello, the contrary is the case. A passion bursts forth in such a nature like a torrent, subduing the whole man, leaving no space for reflection. The passion acts in the way most natural to the man's previous life. Othello had been accustomed to put to death the enemies of himself and his country. So he kills Desdemona. When her innocence is discovered, he regards himself as his own worst enemy and kills himself. Such is the logic of his formidable nature.

THE

BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON.

GUSTAF F. STEFFEN.

Novel Review, London, February.

HE Norwegian poet, dramatist, novelist, and politician has two claims on the attention of lovers of prominent modern fiction. He is both a poet and a pioneer of modern ideas.

He is a poet with a wonderfully brave and pure heart, with an inexhaustible fund of broad, human sympathy. The inspiration of his patriotic songs and idyllic stories of peasant life is as pure as the sea-breeze and mountain-air of that Norse fatherland he loves so well. His dramas from the heroic epoch of Norwegian history breathe the overwhelming pathos of nature among the fiords and glaciers.

It has been well said by an English critic that Henrik Ibsen is "the poet of doubt "--the poet in whose creative activity doubt and criticism have been the great motive powers. In the same sense it may be said that Björnson is the poet of faith and good deeds. It is his faith in the possibility of making our own lives noble, his faith in our contributing, by positive work, to the amelioration of our common social life, that accounts for Björnson's evolution as a poet. He is an enthusiast, a man

who instinctively believes that human nature is sound in heart and sound in reason, and that evil must vanish, when acted upon in the right way. He cannot live isolated, or separated from his countrymen like Ibsen. Björnson must live with his Norwegian people, and take a close and constant interest in their welfare. There is something about him of the old clansman who would not live separated from his fellows, from his kin. Feeling that nature had made him a chief of the clan, he could not, therefore, remain a mere poet. To him, as he has himself said in some verse, "a poet's vocation is to confer the glory of the ideal upon the belief of those who suffer in times of unrest, and spiritual new birth "; and he soon found that this vocation brought with it the duty of shaping the new faith.

It has been the life-work of Björnson to imbue his fellowcountrymen, by all the means within his power, with a higher intellectual and a healthier moral life; and this patriotic motive, acted upon with unflinching consistency, has rewarded him by making his life a striking instance of mental progress. In his eagerness to give his country the very essence of modern culture he has developed into a thinker of new thoughts, into a prophet with a message to the world at large. Patriotism has made the national bard a pioneer of new and universal i'deas.

Born in 1832, Björnson is in the sixtieth year of his age. Once to have caught a glimpse of him is always to remember him. He has a huge frame; on his broad shoulders a mighty head, with waving hair like a lion's mane; a steady, penetrating look beneath bushy eye-brows; finely closed lips, the lines of which exhibit a curious mixture of untamed defiance, and frank good nature. With a deep, strong voice and earnest gesticulation, he takes keen delight in defending against anybody and everybody what he conceives to be the truth and the right.

Among Radical politicians and active friends of popular education and Social Reform, Björnson stands in the front rank. He is as much of a Nationalist politician as he is of a National poet. In Norway, to mention Björnson's name, "is the same as to hoist the Norwegian flag." Among his poems and songs-the pride of musical Scandinavia-there is one that has become the National hymn of the Norwegian people. On public occasions it is sung with enthusiasm by the bitterest opponents-the Conservative Bureaucracy. Among the peasants, his birthday is every year celebrated as a National festival.

HYMNOLOGY. Spectator, London, February.

POSSIBLY, among the English hymns, there may be as

many as four or five hundred which deserve the name of

poems.

causes, from

The truth is, that English hymns have suffered much from opposite causes, from the effort to stand on tip-toe in the hope of reaching the height proper to an exalted frame of mind, and from the still more unfortunate ardor of didacticism which has produced probably some of the flattest verses which ever pretended to the name of poetry.

A very great proportion of our English hymns present to our thought the idea of the writers standing on stilts to glorify God. Sometimes they dwell on the idea of infinitude, and make us sensible that they have worn it threadbare. Sometimes they exhaust the resources of imagery to express what imagery will not express, as in Heber's hymn, in which the saints are represented as always "casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea," till the child asked how they got them up again. Sometimes they multiply the "O" till the mind and ear get impatient. "O light! O way! O truth! O life!" and so forth; or, they launch into extravagant metaphor and speak of the Sun, whose chariot rolled on wheels of amber and gold." The great majority of our better hymn

So long Thy power hath led me, sure it still
Will lead me on!

O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone;

And with the morn those angel-faces smile

Which I have loved long since and lost awhile."

For the most part, natural touches like these are conspicuous by their absence from our hymns. What can one human heart have to do with such stilted stuff as this, for instance?—

"Light's glittering morn bedecks the sky,
Heaven thunders forth its victor-cry;
The glad earth shouts her triumph high,
And groaning hell makes wild reply."

It is not "groaning hell," but groaning humanity, that makes wild reply under such screamings as this. What sort of ecstasy 'that is not purely hysterical can be expressed by adresses to the planets such as this,—

Ye planets glittering on your heavenly way,

In shining constellations join and say, ' Alleluia!'" That is ecstasy of the cosmic auctioneer's type. No doubt even the auctioneer's eloquence is not so inflated as Mrs. Barbauld's when she describes the planets as rushing "in wild commotion" to "bathe their glittering foreheads in the ocean," a mode of planetary life as alien to the great poets of Revelation as it is to the modern astronomer.

But if gaspiness is one of the worst flaws in most English hymns, a fatal flatness is perhaps even the worse flaw. Indeed, "flatness" is no adequate word for a good deal of the didacticism of the duller hymn-writers. Perhaps, however, the very climax of baldness and flatness is reached in one of the hymns of Mrs. Masters, which Our new hymnological authority assures us is a favorite hymn among modern Christians. It has always remained in the memory as the hymn concerning religious comfits and religious comforts:

SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY.

W

INSTINCT AND ANTS.

Chambers's Journal, Edinburgh, March.

HETHER there is or is not an absolute difference between instinct and intelligence is a moot question. According to Herbert Spencer, instinct is but one of the first stages in the ascending evolution of the mind, and there is no real difference between instinct, memory, reason, and so on— these names being merely useful as a convenient method of grouping phenomena. Instinct is variable, so is intelligence. The latter, is, as a rule, conscious, but sometimes becomes unconscious; and it is possible that the loftier instincts in the higher animals are accompanied by a confused consciousness. It would be a serious error to believe that all instincts are due to habits acquired in one generation and transmitted by inheritance to another, for some of the most wonderful instincts could not have arisen in this manner, as, for example, those of the working or sterile ant. This is shown by the observations of Sir John Lubbock, than whom no more careful observer of ants ever lived.

The sterile ants differ greatly in structure and instinct from the males and fertile females, yet, from being barren, they cannot have progeny. Again, the neuters differ not only from the fertile males and females, but from each other to such a degree that three castes sometimes exist. Westwood states that "the inhabitants of the nest have the instinct so to modify the circumstances producing this state of imperfection that some neuters shall exhibit characters at variance with those of the common kind." This credits them with a wonderful instinct, but it is the most probable explanation. Bees have the power, by difference of food and other ways, of obtaining at will from the same eggs either queens or ordinary workers, and it is possible that ants act in like manner.

In them, we have animals so highly endowed that they may fairly claim to rank second to man in the scale of intelligence. They make roads so as to clear obstacles from their path; when necessary they tunnel, and an observer in South America says that he has seen one of these tunnels under a river as broad as the Thames at London Bridge. They possess milch-cows (aphides) which they carefully tend and protect. For the winter they lay up a store of provisions. They engage in sportive exercises, take part in mock-combats, and play hideand-seek. Certain individuals of the genus found in Mexico serve as "animated honey-pots" through having their abdomens greatly dilated.

In some countries ants thatch the entrances to their subterranean houses, thus protecting themselves from rain; while in others, leaves are used to form beds for mushroons, which they cultivate and eat. In Texas, some plant, harvest, and store rice; and on these rice-fields nothing else is allowed to grow. Should the grain get wet, it is brought up and dried.

The slave-making ants have been brought into a state of degradation through their weak nature; for they have lost their power of building, their domestic habits, their industry; and even their habit of feeding, as, when placed in the midst of plenty, they will rather starve than feed themselves.

The different species of ants present different conditions of life, curiously resembling the earlier stages of human progress. The Formica fusca live principally on the produce of the chase; they frequent woods, live in small communities, and hunt singly; their battles are single combats like those of the Homeric heroes. These ants probably retain the habits common to all ants. They resemble the lower races of men who subsist mainly by hunting. The Lasius flavus are a higher type; they have greater skill in architecture, and own domesticated milch-cows; their communities are larger, and they act in concert. They resemble pastoral man, who lives on the

produce of his flocks and herds. Lastly, the harvesting ants represent the agricultural nations.

The mental faculties of animals have been described as instinctive, while those of man have been termed rational. Instinctive actions are mechanically performed; rational actions require a conscious effort of thought, and with thoughtful adaptation of means to ends. That man possesses certain instincts in common with the lower animals is admitted, but that animals possess reason in common with man is warmly denied. Modern discoveries all tend to prove that man is evolved from the animal kingdom. The comparative anatomy, physiology, and psychology of man and the other animals show how closely they are connected in conformation, organs, and functions, palæontology, the transformations and transitions of forms; and embryogeny reveals the lower type whence they were evolved. The gaps between the fossil fauna and flora are important, but proofs are accumulating in support of the theory every day.

The perceptions act in the same way; the imagination and the emotions are likewise identical. The higher animals may be regarded as an undeveloped form of man; while man may be called a complex animal.

NATURAL CHLOROFORM.

THE REVEREND THEODORE WOOD, F.E.S.
Sunday Magazine, London, February.

HE widespread prevalence among the lower animals of

sore puzzle and, indeed, a veritable stumbling-block to many a reflective mind. For it seems to involve as an inevitable inference, the existence of what must almost be considered as an inherent cruelty in Nature. We see animals brought into the world by millions, apparently only that they may leave it by the most hideous and agonizing deaths. Most plainly, thousands die that one may live; most undeniably the ceaseless battle is ever to the strong. And what conclusion can we possibly draw from it all, but that Nature is cruel in permitting and, indeed, rendering inevitable, by the very conditions of creation, a vast amount of terrible suffering, which might conceivably have been prevented.

So runs the argument, and the apologist defends the system on the ground that it is a necessary feature of the process which results in the survival of the fittest. But his apology does not go to the root of the matter, nor touch the real point at iscue. For, although it points out the advantages that may accrue to the race by the early destruction of many of its members, it does not explain the necessity of the pain which a violent death would commonly seem to involve. And when we think of the lion tearing the quivering flesh from the still half-living deer, and lapping the warm blood as it flows from its mangled throat; or of the hare or rabbit pierced by the talons of the eagle, or of the python crushing its victims in its iron folds, or even of the ladybird seizing its aphis a minute and slowly sucking its life-juices away; then the horrid cruelty of Nature seems manifest, and no belief in the ulterior benefits involved can render us blind or indifferent to its existence.

We cannot explain the grim fact of all this suffering, as we can a great proportion of that endured by humankind by showing that it is the just retribution for personal or ancestral wrong-doing. And, indeed, I do not think we can explain it at all, unless we approach the matter from a totally different point of view. Instead of trying to account for the existence of this seemingly widespread and terrible suffering, let us boldly ask ourselves whether, under purely natural conditions, it is a reality after all.

At first sight this may seem a preposterous idea to adopt. We are very apt to fall into the habit of estimating the pain inflicted on an animal by a given injury, by that which a corresponding injury would occasion in ourselves; but, laying aside

preconceived ideas, and endeavoring only to ascertain the true facts of the case, we shall find good reasons for believing that the vast differences of nervous constitution between man and animal, are attended with a corresponding difference in acuteness of perception. Even in the human subject pain is a purely relative term. It expresses a very real sensation, but it does not express its degree, and, as far as mankind is concerned, the sense of pain, in the intensity in which it can be felt, depends greatly on the two factors of Civilization and Education. The white man's brain and nervous system are far more developed than in other races, and his susceptibility to pain admittedly greater than that of the negro, or American Indian, or other savage race. The stoicism of the North American Indian at the stake, while unquestionably evidence of fortitude, seems, as a matter of fact, to be quite as much due to dulness of the sensory nerves. And Dr. Felkin who, in the course of a long series of surgical operations performed on patients of all nationalities, enjoyed unusual facilities for forming an opinion, has deliberately expressed the conclusion that the susceptibility to pain of an average European, as compared with an average negro, is as three to one.

Education also greatly increases the natural susceptibility to pain. The agricultural laborer is much less sensitive of nerve than the artisan; and the artisan than the scholar and the brain-worker. And Dr. Felkin, in the investigations above alluded to, discovered that a fair measure of education increased a negro's susceptibility one-third. The price of increased intelligence is increased sensibility to pain. So that an injury, which, to the man of intellect, may mean positive agony, will scarcely be noticed by the ploughman. The actual sensation is localized, but it is the brain, and the brain alone that feels. Now, let us recollect how vast a difference, how wide a "great gulf fixed" there is between the brain and nervous system of even uncivilized man, and the highest of all the monkeys. When the sensitiveness of the white man is to that of the negro as three to one, what must be the ratio to the former, of the sensitiveness of the monkey? of the bird? of the reptile? of the fish? and of creatures lower still?

Ascertained facts, indeed, seem to show us that by the lower forms of animal life, very little pain, as we understand the term, can be felt at all. A crab, for example, will devour while being devoured, and in such cases it is hard, indeed, to insist that pain, in our sense of the term, can be in any real degree endured.

WH

THE MICROBE OF INFLUENZA.

La Nature, Paris, February.

HEN that terrible epidemic of influenza, of which we have had a new edition this year, spread itself over all Europe, the bacteriologists made haste to search for the microbe characteristic of the disease. Its microbian origin was shown, in fact, by all sorts of signs; a rapid diffusion of the malady, contagion, marks of grave infection, and the like. The first results obtained were not satisfactory. In the secretions, in the blood, were found quantities of microbes, but all well-known already, belonging to well-defined species and, for the most part, varieties of the staphylococcus, the pneumococcus, the streptococcus, microbes of suppuration and pneumonia, in which many cases of influenza end.

In 1890, however, Mr. Babes, Professor at the School of Bucharest, discovered a particular microbe, which he called a transparent microbe, on account of its special reactions, and which appeared to be the specific agent of the malady. A little later, Teissier, of Lyons, found in the waters of the Neva a streptococcus analogous to that discovered by some German observers, and which seemed to reproduce in animals inoculated with it the principal symptoms of influenza.

These researches, made in different places, have not remained unfruitful. Guided by the first unsuccessful experiments, eliminating the causes of error which misled the original observers, two German physicians, Pfeiffer and Canon, each

working without communication with the other, found either in the spittle or in the blood of contaminated subjects, a microbe which appears to be the true microbe of influenza. In thirty-one patients, ill with this malady, Pfeiffer examined the bronchial secretions, and recognized a bacillus, having the form of the piece of wood, sharpened at both ends, sometimes called a cat, which boys, by striking at one end with a stick, make jump into the air. This bacillus, very slender, is so much the more difficult to discover, because it is with difficulty colored by the ordinary reactive agents employed in histology. Canon, on the other hand, in examining the blood of influenza patients, found a microbe, always of the same appearance, and which has never been found in the blood of healthy people or those suffering from other maladies. This microbe showed the same characteristics as the one described by Pfeiffer. There was then a complete agreement in the researches of the two observers.

These facts have just been confirmed by the personal experiments of one of our most distinguished savants, Professor Cornil. Some blood is taken, by pricking the finger, from a patient attacked with influenza. With this blood is inoculated a vein in the ear of a rabbit. After some days the blood of this rabbit contains quantities of a very small microbe. To show the difficulties of this experiment, it may be mentioned that the length of the bacillus is about one twentieth the diameter of a drop of red blood. By putting this bacillus on gelose,* you obtain a complete culture of it.

A monkey, inoculated in the nasal chambers with the products of such a culture, had signs of fever, an inclination to sleep, a diarrhoea, and a general condition resembling the symptons of influenza.

From a communication by Mr. Cornil on the subject to the Academy, it appears that this microbe seems absolutely identical with the one described by Mr. Babes, and to this savant belongs the priority of discovery.

What advantages medicine may derive from the knowledge of this bacillus from the prophylactic point of view and for the treatment of influenza, it would be, at present, difficult to show. In order to combat an enemy, however, it is of no slight importance to know who he is, and it is fair to presume that in coming years, we may prevent in great measure the reappearance of a curse which has made as many victims as grave epidemics of cholera.

THE TRANSMISSION OF RADIANT ENERGY.
SEVERINUS J. Corrigan.

Astronomy and Astro-Physics, Northfield, Minn., February. N investigation into the laws of the transmission of radiant A energy, apart from leading to conclusions capable of mathematical expression, suggests also some ideas of a purely speculative nature; for instance, it seems unnecessary to assume the existence of any other than a gaseous medium for the transmission of radiant energy, in other words, there seems to be no necessity for the hypothesis of the existence of a special medium such as ether." There is no reason to suppose than an absolutely perfect vacuum is ever procurable, for the mass, and, therefore, the density and the pressure of a gas can be reduced toward infinity, yet there will always be a finite quantity of gaseous matter remaining, and the dimunition of the quantity of energy transmitted from a given source in a given time is very, very far from being proportional to the reduction of pressure or density:

Thus, if a body be emitting a given quantity of heat in air at a normal pressure, it will radiate at a pressure of 1/1000000 Of an atmosphere a quantity equal to '/22 of that given out at the

* Gelose is a vegetable product, obtained from the gelatinous part of certain algæ, found in different countries in the extreme Orient, as for instance, Cochin China. ED. THE LITERARY Digest.

normal pressure; while if the reduction be carried to 1/1000000000000, the quantity will be 1⁄46, a very large amount when the enormous reduction of pressure, or density is considered; matter so tenuous could not offer any appreciable resistance to bodies moving through it, and yet it would be capable of transmitting comparatively large quantities of radiant energy. That the relation between the pressure and the quantity of energy or heat radiated, as shown by experiment, follows so closely the law expressed by equation is, I think, conclusive proof that the transmitting medium for radiant energy, or heat, is a purely gaseous one.

The idea is also suggested, that what is called space is not void, but that it contains gaseous matter in a state of extreme tenuity, the atoms composing this matter being in rapid orbital motion and transmitting energy, thermal, luminous, electrical, and chemical; that from these like atoms are formed all the bodies of the universe, chemical and other characteristics depending upon the grouping and motions of the atoms; we know that all forms of matter can be reduced to the gaseous by the application of a sufficient quantity of heat, or force, and that, therefore, if the original "energy of motion" of the atoms of the gas be lost to them, by transference to the atoms of other bodies or masses, the former will cease to revolve and will become the constituents of solids. The revolution of the atoms can, I think, be regarded as the knowable fountain-head of all energy, or force, but the answer to the great question, "Whence have sprung these atoms and the forces by which they are impressed, which put them in motion and caused them to revolve?" is known only to Him "without Whom was made nothing that was made." But it does not necessitate an undue strain upon either the imaginative or the reasoning faculty, to conceive that space is filled with these revolving components of the molecules of a gaseous mass; to see, mentally, portions of them parting with their motion or heat, thus, eventually approaching the solid state, and forming stars or suns, planets and satellites, the revolution of the atoms being resolved into a like revolution of the resultant bodies around "centres of gravity"; in other words, it is neither difficult nor unreasonable to regard the "nebular hypothesis" as, in the main, true: but, to a knowledge of the absolute nature and origin of matter and force, we cannot hope to attain until the finite can comprehend or encompass "The Infinite."

HYPNOTISM.-Science long ago kicked Mesmer and mesmerism into the limbo of charlatanry. But the ghost of Mesmer has revisited us, and what science in general scorned as mesmerism, medical science in particular has begun to coquet with as hypnotism. There was something in mesmerism; there is much, we are told, in hypnotism. We are bidden to forget the cheap "Professor" and his victims in corduroy, and to consider the possibilities of the new "treatment by suggestion," as beginning to be adopted here and there by the leaders of the medical profession.

One of them, an indubitable M.D., has written great things about it in a mothly Review. We are assured that in the hands of an experienced physician, hypnotism is devoid of danger, and a more powerful and much more kindly anæsthetic than chloroform. The subject is immature (in England; they know all about it in France), but there may be curious developments in store for us, Granted the existence of the hypnotic power, whatever its nature may be, it is obviously desirable that the doctors should have to do with it, and not the peripatetic professor. Meanwhile, the lay mind is rather stirred about it, and anticipates surprising things. The operator "suggests this or that to you (it appears not to be necessary that you should be deeply tranced during the process), and forthwith you. accept and act upon the suggestion. You have the toothache. Your doctor hypnotizes you, and assures you that the pain has ceased. You wake without a twinge.-Leisure Hour, London, February.

RELIGIOUS.

ARE THERE ERRORS IN THE BIBLE? REV. J. J. LIAS, M.A.

The Thinker, London, March.

N the present paper I shall confine myself strictly to the

In the present pen whether error of any sort is possible in

the Bible. In a future paper I will attempt to discuss the particular kind of errors, alleged to be found therein. In a third I will endeavor to indicate the effect of such alleged errors, if found, upon our conceptions of the authority of Scripture.

Our view of the possibility of error in Scripture will depend to a great extent on our view of the nature. and limits of Inspiration. Until very lately it was an accepted principle in all Protestant communions that the doctrine of Inspiration involved the belief in the necesssary and complete infallibility of the Scriptures on every point. The difference between the inspiration of the Scriptures, and that of other writings, so far as these last could be said to be inspired, was held to be, not a matter of degree but of kind. The Scriptures were regarded not merely as the channel through which Revelation was made, but as the revelation itself. This view was the result of the Reformation. It gradually grew up in the Protestant Churches. At first they were content to say that the Scriptures contained God's revelation to man. But the necessity for some infallible authority to which it would be possible to appeal in controversy with Rome gradually crystallized Protestant doctrine into the shape which has just been described. Protestants were compelled to have an infallible guide as well as Romanists, and they fell back upon Scripture as interpreted by the individual conscience. But as the individual conscience was clearly not infallible, it was found necessary to maintain with the utmost stringency, the absolute infallibility of the Scriptures. The Roman Catholic view is clearly untenable. Nevertheless the substitution of individual for corporate authority in the Church, which is the Body of Christ, must be admitted to be a serious mistake. No sane person can suppose the verdict of the individual conscience to be in itself infallible. Though it is of necessity the guide which each man, for himself, is bound to follow, he is equally bound to recognize the fact that he is liable to error. He must, therefore, exercise the most scrupulous care to test and verify the soundness of his own conclusions, and to correct them, if necessary, by further information, and very often by the authority as well as by the arguments of other men. But if we can hardly trust the uncorroborated voice of conscience, even in our own case, for a community the verdict of the individual conscience is, of course, quite useless as a guide. The attempt to set it up has naturally led to the divisions of Christendom which we have so much reason to deplore.

The mistake made by the Reformed Churches is becoming yet more evident at the present time. For the doctrine of the Infallibility of Scripture is being everywhere energetically attacked, and is daily becoming more difficult to defend. Our present position is one of great peril. Men find the ground

We proceed, therefore, to inquire on what foundation the doctrine of the absolute inerrancy of the Scriptures rests. Not on the authority of Scripture itself, for inerrancy is nowhere predicted of it. There is no assertion whatever concerning the inspiration even, to say nothing of the inerrancy, of the New Testament, the most important part, be it remembered, of the Bible. As to the Old Testament Scriptures, they

are said to be "given by inspiration of God," to "testify of Christ," to "make men wise unto salvation," and the like. But this could be said of many books in which the divine inspiration was blended with an element purely human. The way in which the Old Testament Scriptures are quoted in the New Testament is, it must be admitted, an argument which goes much further to establish their inerrancy than any of the passages just mentioned. They are cited usually as absolutely decisive on the points to which they refer. They were evidently regarded with the utmost reverence. Anything like an imputation of wholesale error or inaccuracy, to say nothing of "pious illusion," or downright imposture or fraud, is altogether alien to the whole spirit of the New Testament-we might go so far as to say, to the spirit of Christ Himself. But we may reasonably doubt whether even this is tantamount to a declaration that they were absolutely free from error on every point. Indeed, the testimony of the Gospel may be cited in the opposite direction. In the Sermon on the Mount our Lord directly opposes His teaching to that addressed to them of old time. It is true that, in some cases, He simply extends the scope of the ancient command. But, at least, He formally repeals the law of retaliation, abrogates the law concerning the Passover, and substitutes Baptism for Circumcision. Thus we find that the idea of absolute infallibility and inerrancy, even in matters of religion, was never supposed to attach to the writings of the Old Testament, and never claimed for the New.

If we turn to the official documents of the Christian Church, we find that the doctrine of Inspiration of Scripture found no place in them in early times. It was not until after the Reformation that the inerrancy of Scripture was formulated into a doctrine. The earlier Reformed Confessions of Faith made no allusions to it.

The fact is that the credenda, required in the early Church, was a simple profession of faith in Jesus Christ, and of acceptance of the principal features of His teaching. The idea of requiring assent to a large and unsystematic body of Apostolic literature is of entirely modern date. And we value the Scriptures, not because every word, contained in them, is necessarily to be believed, in order that we may be saved, still less because the Church propounds them to us as the infallible counsel of God, but because they testify of Christ.

REVELATION THROUGH NATURE. HENRY WOOD.

Arena, Boston, March.

"Earth's crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God But only he who sees, takes off his shoes."

of

arbitrary boundary exists between them. Truth is a perfect whole. Any distortion or suppression of it, however, narrowly localized, involves general loss. The scientist, while studying forms and laws, may be color-blind to the presence of an infinite spiritual dominion. If he dissociates nature from her vital relations, his accomplishment can be but partial. So far as he fails to recognize her as a Theophany, he misses her true significance. Likewise the theologian, who has eyes only for the supernatural, fails to find the vital supports and relations of his own chosen realm. Each thereby makes his own system incomplete and untruthful. Nature and Spirit can no more be divorced than a stream and its fountain. The attempt to