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THE RELIGIOUS WORLD.

CHRISTIANITY PRIMARILY A SOCIAL IDEAL.

PROF. GEORGE D. HERRON, of Iowa College, who has

been assailed in some quarters for alleged. anarchistic teachings, and who is regarded in other quarters as a true Christian reformer and consistent thinker, opens a series of religious essays in The Arena (Boston, November) with an article on "The Sociality of Jesus's Religion," in which he endeavors to emphasize the sociological aspects of Christianity and to show that, so long as in industry and politics our practise departs from the injunctions of our professed religion, we have no right to claim the title of Christian nation. Speaking of the essential mission of Jesus, Professor Herron says:

"In religion as a thing in itself Jesus was not interested; rather, He looked with profound distrust upon what was then, and is now, both officially and popularly, understood by religion. A religious cult was something he could not tolerate; an official religion was to Him a usurpation. . . . The idea of becoming specifically the founder of a new religion was one of the temptations of the devil which Jesus overcame in the wilderness-a temptation to which Mahomet afterward yielded. Jesus never contemplated the organized cult of worship, the great ethnic religion, that has grown up bearing His name. I do not say that this is wholly evil, or that it was not an inevitable historical process in the evolution of the universal society and religion. But it is foreign, and in large measure antagonistic, to anything in the thought or outlook of Jesus.

"The sociality of life was Jesus's fundamental religious conception. The sociality of religion is the revelation of Jesus's religious experience, and is the realization of His kingdom. His teaching did not come into the world as something new, but as an interpretation of that which is eternal in all religion; it came as a program for the simple organization of all religious facts and forces in a redeemed and natural human life. Christianity began, so far as it issued from Jesus, not as a new religion, but as a revelation of human life in a social ideal. The whole law of man's relation to God, the knowledge of which law had hitherto been fragmentary, Jesus came declaring. To reveal the sociality of religion, he taught by deed and word.

In

"The realization of religion in a human kingdom of heaven was the service to which He gave His life a faultless sacrifice. neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament, does the term kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven mean anything else than a righteous society upon earth. Nothing else was either meant or understood by Jesus's teaching to the people, or to His immediate disciples. The term was commonly used to signify a perfect social justice-a justice to be fully realized when the Messiah should come. It was expected that He, whenever He came, or whoever He might prove to be, would bring in a social order so just, so free from oppression and righteous in freedom, that it would prove to be nothing else than the direct reign of God in human affairs."

From Jesus to Athanasius, Professor Herron says, is a long and downward journey. The age that finally relegated social Chris

tianity to obscurity and converted the teaching of Jesus into a formal religion was most licentious, immoral, and wicked. The Nicene council, from which the church received its official theology, was "without sense of right and human honor." At the present day, according to Professor Herron, we cling to official religion and totally neglect the true injunctions of Christ. Indeed, whenever the true Gospel is preached to us, we denounce the apostle as an infidel and revolutionist. We quote from the article:

"We can no longer expect that we, in the midst of this material civilization and its religion, can be in accord with commercial and social customs, political and religious opinions, any more than the disciples who followed Jesus through His conflict with Jewish religion, and then went abroad as witnesses and martyrs in Roman civilization. Christless institutions and interests will hold deadly hate toward the faithful disciple of to-day as truly as

Professor Herron believes that we are nearing, not only the greatest social crisis, but the crisis of Christ's religion. He says: "The forces of selfishness and sacrifice are gathering for their supreme struggle on the field of Christ's truth, while the cross has become foolishness to the church which bears His name. The church has become of the world even as He was not of the world. Things which are an abomination in the sight of God are now no more highly esteemed in the world than in the church, and the church has been reconciling itself to the will of the world rather than vicariously reconciling the world to the will of God."

But Professor Herron does not despair of the issue of the impending conflict. We quote his hopeful concluding words:

"Human life is now so settled in discontent with individualistic principles and competitive practises, so glowing with Messianic forces, so near to breathing the heavenly breath and watchful for the holy city, that it often seems that if the many sons of God now committed to the social redemption could find some way to make one supreme associate sacrifice, fully illustrative of the social law, they might lift the whole organism into a living social vision, so appealing and commanding that it would renew the strength of the common life to enter upon the strifeless progress of the ransomed society."

THE

35

THE" DENVER MESSIAH CRAZE.

HE sensational reports regarding the miraculous powers of the Denver healer, Francis Schlatter, have attracted so much attention that certain religious editors have been impelled to investigate the matter and get at the truth of the apparently authentic tales of wonderful cures performed by the ex-cobbler. At the request of The Lutheran Observer, of Philadelphia, Rev. C. W. Heisler, pastor of the Lutheran church at Denver, has taken pains to look into the matter, and he gives his view in a special letter to that paper. He believes that the incident is a craze," a delusion, and a "senseless fad." The crowds who come to be cured and who depart singing the praises of the healer are simply deluding themselves, as there is absolutely no evidence that a single cure has ever been effected. We quote from

the Rev. Mr. Heisler's account:

"A careful investigation fails to satisfy you that one actual healing has taken place. I looked up the case of a blind man reported as healed. Yes, he thought he could see a little now; he could tell when people passed in front of him. He thought he was getting better every day. On leaving his home, I remarked to my companion, 'You see there is absolutely nothing in that testimony.' And since then I have heard that the man never was totally blind. There are multitudes of people, however, with real and imaginary complaints, especially of a nervous character, who are easily duped. If they had the 'faith,' Mr. Editor, it would do them just as much good to take your hand as it does Schlatter's.

"At first I was inclined to think that Schlatter was a selfdeluded enthusiast, as he seemed to be so sincere. Since visiting him the second time and in the light of subsequent events, I am inclined to put him down as a humbug of the first water, and I

WAS THE WORLD READY FOR CHRIST?

WO teachings of church and secular history, namely, that at for this coming, and that at the beginning of the Reformation the church was prepared to be reformed, have gone from generation to generation and have become traditional. In Lehre und Wehre, St. Louis (No. 7), Professor Gröbner, of the St. Louis Lutheran Seminary, calls these teachings into question and in a most pronounced way declares them false and contrary to the best evidences at our command. Even in the most critical German works these claims are made, altho they are now often put forth in the interests of the naturalizing tendencies of liberal theology. It is doubtless this consideration that has called forth this renewed examination.

The author proceeds to investigate the actual status of affairs among the chosen people to show how little they were prepared for the reception of Christ. The Savior Himself, in His descriptions of the Israelites, shows very plainly that He regarded them as anything but ready for His reception. Only a small band were inwardly prepared. The great mass of the New-Testament Jews had departed from the landmarks of the Old-Testament covenant, and when He who was the fulfilment of that covenant came, the children of that covenant rejected Him. The epithets applied to the people by the Savior very plainly show this. Their stubbornness He constantly rebukes; He warns against their ablest representatives, the Pharisees, while the materialistic Sadducees were still less spiritually prepared for the new Kingdom; and the Samaritans, a mixed and mongrel race, ethnologically and religiously, were equally far removed from the Kingdom. The statements and the experiences of Christ show a clear evidence that the people of God had proved unfaithful to their historic mission, and that the claim that Israel was ready to receive their Lord is historically incorrect.

Nor are

The

The same is true of the Gentile world. In the beginning of the Epistle to the Romans the Apostle Paul gives a description of the inner character of the heathens that fills us with horror. his words exaggeration. A reference to the literature of the time shows that the deepest stages of moral degradation had been reached. The author draws especial attention to Antioch, the city where the Christians were first called by that name. description given of the wickedness of that metropolis by Latin writers is almost beyond belief. And the same was true of all the provincial cities and in a greater degree of the center of the Empire, Rome itself. It is a singular phenomenon, that ludicrous conclusion that such a world should have been prepared to receive a Savior, and that Christianity went out on its way, conquering and to conquer, because the nations wanted it. It conquered only because it was of God. The spread of Christianity is not a normal phenomenon of history, a natural outcome and result of factors and forces at work in the world of that day, but was a miracle resulting from its divine character and innate

power.

The same thing is to be said of the Reformation. He who sees in the church councils of that day, or in the spread of humanism, or in the work of the universities, the beginnings of a reformation of the church and the world does not interpret them aright. None of these agencies could or did prepare to a noteworthy degree the work of the Reformation because none of them was based on the Gospel. The Reformation conquered because Luther stood up before the world with the open Bible in his hand. The Reformation, too, was not a natural phenomenon in history, but in its development plainly indicates the hand of Providence.-Translated and Condensed for THE LITERARY DIGEST.

MISSIONARIES IN JAPAN.

E are told by Col. John A. Cockerill, the well-known newspaper man, now in Japan, that two parties are at work in Japan urging the withdrawal of foreign missionaries—the educated clerical Japanese and the resident foreigners who have no sympathy with missionary work. Colonel Cockerill has interviewed a number of persons on the subject, including various foreign denominational representatives, and the opinions thus elicited are published in the New York Herald. The latter uniformly and strongly express themselves in favor of the present system of operation. Leading foreign Christian evangelists believe that if they were to withdraw from Japan, Christianity could not advance there under the teachings of native converts. Some native converts and leaders, however, assert that there is no longer any need of foreign help. One who argues in that way is a Rev. Mr. Tamura, who was partially educated at Princeton College. Accepting him as a fair type of the active, broadminded Japanese Christian, Colonel Cockerill sought his opinion as to the proposed withdrawal of the foreign missionaries, asking him: "Do you believe that Japan can Christianize herself now?" The answer was:

"Most assuredly. We now have 200 ordained clergymen and 300 lay preachers. We have nearly 100,000 professed Christians in Japan. At first, we would need some financial aid from abroad, but in time—a few years only-Japan would support her Christian churches freely, and the growth would be steady. Having adopted Western ideas, Japan must go on progressing. She must have the religion of civilization, as well as its material and utilitarian ideas. Unfortunately, the Americans seem to distrust the Japanese individuality. It will be difficult to induce them to aid us, or to interest them in religious work carried on

solely by us. This is wrong. We Japanese believers in Christ are good Christians in all respects, or we are not. If we are thorough Christians we should be treated in the true spirit. If we are not good enough to be trusted by our foreign brethren, then all the missionary teaching of twenty years in Japan is a failure. If it can be said that Tamura can not be trusted in church management, then Tamura, who was a pupil of the missionaries and the product of the Christian influence exercised in Japan, is a living testimonial to the worthlessness of missionary work and a witness against the whole system.

"If I went to America and studied for a quarter of a century, would I be likely to be placed in the pulpit as the pastor of a great congregation? No, I could not be expected to preach to and teach your people. I might never be fully qualified because of my Asiatic lineage.

"Neither can your people teach ours so well as our natives. If we Japanese educated Christians have grasped the true faith and spirit of Christ's religion, if we have fathomed its beliefs, its dogmas, and its principles, then we are qualified to teach it to our people. If we, after a lifetime of study and devotion, have not become qualified to teach and act as exemplars, then who shall say that a faith so intricate can ever be imparted to the common masses of Japan? Christianity is not so difficult to master as some of our foreign teachers would have us believe. If so, it is too abstruse for Japan. The example of native clergymen must be always more valuable to our countrymen than that afforded by foreigners. We are more closely watched and measured. The Christian faith and life are simple. We Japanese might not be able to carry Buddhism into your country because of its subtleties and mysticisms, but there is nothing in the noble, simple teachings of Christ that the Japanese mind can not grasp.”

Mr. Tamura claims that the foreign missionaries neglect their posts of duty and are almost constantly off on vacation; that foreign preachers do not come into close enough touch with the people whom they are sent to save, and that they do not even try to acquire the Japanese language. He continues:

"One trouble with the foreign missionary service is that no mission board sitting in New York city can make regulations, establish rules, and issue decrees satisfactorily to workers in the field eight thousand miles away. That is wholly impracticable. Another trouble is that people are sent here who are neither qual

UNITY OF THE CHURCH IN APOSTOLIC

WHA

TIMES.

WHAT was the idea of the Church's corporate unity which prevailed in the early period of her history? This question is asked at the outset of an article bearing the above title, by Rev. T. M. Lindsay, in The Contemporary Review (October). After elaborately surveying the condition of the early Christian Church and the work of her apostles, prophets, and teachers from the beginning of Christianity down to nearly the end of the second century, the writer says:

"The final answer, therefore, to the question with which I started will be: That the corporate unity of the Apostolic and Sub-Apostolic Church included a federation of the many hundreds of individual communities organized for the purposes of discipline and administration on types differing more widely from each other than any existing systems of church government, but keeping the sense of the oneness of the Christian Church alive within their hearts by the thought that all shared in the same sacraments, were taught by the same Word of God, obeyed the same commandments, and shared a common hope of the coming of the same kingdom. That they made this unity manifest by mutual help in all Christian social work and by boundless and brotherly hospitality to all fellow Christians. While the picture of this corporate unity was always kept before them in the fraternal intercourse of church with church by official letters and messengers, and was made vivid by the swift succession of wandering apos. tles, prophets, and teachers, who, belonging to no one community, were the servants of the whole Church of Christ and were the binding stones making it cohere together.

"There is a moral for a modern divided church in this picture of ancient far-off Christianity, but like all morals it will probably be most effective if left unsaid."

THER

PROGRESS OR DECAY—WHICH?

'HERE probably never has been a time in the history of the Christian Church when it would not have been possible to adduce a more or less formidable array of facts and figures in support of the contention that Christianity was decaying; that it was, in fact, rapidly nearing the verge of extinction. That such arguments have been made a thousand times in the years past and a thousand times refuted by the progress of Christianity itself and its refusal to become extinct, will not prevent the same argument from being made over and over again in the present and in the future, sometimes sustained by a very plausible course of reasoning. Thus the London Guardian publishes a letter from an American correspondent on "The Outlook of Christianity in the United States." Among other things the writer says, after referring to the many divisions of Protestantism:

"Among all these dissenting bodies there has been during the last half-century a most marked falling-off of attendance at even the Sunday services; and in the great cities, in the best and most densely inhabited portions, consolidations of two or more of these corporations is frequently taking place.

"The foundations of Protestant dissent in America have bcen shaken to pieces, and Protestantism as a religious belief is a thing of the past. The Presbyterians of to-day would have been burned by Calvin, and the Lutherans of to-day would have been vilified by Luther, and yet these are the only two denominations that have made any attempt to preserve orthodoxy."

Commenting on this letter, The Freeman's Journal (Roman Catholic) says:

"Allowing something for possible exaggeration in this statement, it may be asked, What is the cause of this falling-off? There are two principal causes. The first is the disintegrating principle of private judgment, the systematic rejection of all authority save that of the individual mind and will. This is the fundamental principle of Protestantism, and it is at the same time the cancer that is consuming its vitals.

The falling-off is

that has been

foreseen and foretold. The ultimate result of the denial of the

authority of the living Church of Christ, the church in whose keeping he left the deposit of faith and the command to teach and promulgate it, is the denial of all faith, is skepticism or agnosticism in matters pertaining to religion."

Another phase of the same general subject is presented in The Congregationalist as follows:

"In some important respects, Christianity has suffered a marked decline in New England during the last three decades. The Sabbath is less reverenced. Public worship, in itself considered, commands less attention. There seem to be evidences that loyalty to the church among its members has weakened. Family religion, as measured by family worship and the teaching of religious doctrines in the home, has declined. These are among the most conspicuous illustrations of society yielding to the pressure of worldliness and accepting its influence. It is natural, in looking at these signs, to believe that Christian standards have been lowered and that Christian character has declined."

But there is another and much brighter side to the picture, according to the same paper:

"But in other respects Christianity has made great advance in recent years. It has made immense gains in the attention and devotion of young people. It has identified in new ways Christian character with good citizenship. It is more aggressive in its spirit and more inclusive in its aims. There is a much wider interest in applying Christian principles to the solution of problems affecting the present happiness and mutual helpfulness of mankind. Interest in missions has broadened, not lessened. Inquiries concerning the person of Christ and men's relations with Him are more numerous and more earnest than ever before. There seem to be good evidences that the Christian conscience is in some directions not less sensitive, and is more outspoken today than in the last generation."

The Southwestern Presbyterian quotes these passages from The Congregationalist, and comments as follows:

"When we come to calculate carefully and impartially the profit and the loss, it seems to us to be almost all loss and little or no profit. If we understand the Bible, the unit of the visible church is the family, and the earliest and by all odds the best. school of youthful piety and activity is the church in the house. It is therefore questionable whether a church training which cultivates in societies religious precociousness in our youth, under the notion of fitting them for a greater usefulness, is as valuable. to the world and as fruitful of final results as that which is developed under the roof-tree of God's university, the Christian family."

Of the unattached three are of Presbyterian training, have Presbyterian wives, and attend that church, making thirteen; one has similar attachment to the Congregationalists, and one to the Episcopalians and one to the Baptists, which gives the two former six each and the latter two.

A NEW turn to the discussion of the "Woman Question " in the Methodist Church has been given by the election of Mrs. Jane Field Bashford, wifeof President Bashford, of Miami University, Delaware, Ohio, as a lay-delegate to the next General Conference. Mrs. Bashford is a member of St. Paul's M. E. Church, Delaware, and is a steward of the church. She is represented as a woman of great culture and extraordinary intelligence. Speaking of this election the Michigan Christian Advocate says: "This will insure the opening of the discussion in the General Conference as to the meaning of the constitution as it now is, and also as to the interpretation of the action of the conference of 1888.'

IN a recent article on the church prayer-meeting, Rev. Dr. Cuyler made use of the following language: Prayer-meetings never should be ironhooped with rigid formality. They are family gatherings; let every one of the household-old or young, male or female-be allowed to bear his part." The Southwestern Presbyterian quotes this utterance and comments as follows: "Men, women, and children speaking and praying in public!we could hardly believe that this was from the pen of a Presbyterian. minister!"

THE Christian Endeavor movement has received the emphatic indorsement of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. At a recent meeting of the board of bishops of that body it adopted by a unanimous vote the Christian Endeavor Society as its denominational organization. The board went further than this and recommended that in every church throughout the entire country a Christian Endeavor Society be organized.

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FROM FOREIGN LANDS.

E

THE "KAFIR BOOM." NGLAND is at present the scene of financial speculation to a degree hardly equaled since the great South Sea Bubble. The sudden development of the South African gold fields in general and of the Transvaal in particular has caused everybody to make a rush for mining shares. Now, the gold is certainly there, and in large quantities, and the mines are far less likely to give out suddenly where reef-gold is concerned than in the case of the placer-gold which attracted so many fortune-seekers to California and Australia. A good South African mine is likely to pay a handsome dividend for ages to come. But nowhere in the world are to be found more irresponsible prospectors than in the Transvaal, and no one knows better how to "salt" a mine than these people. Hence the utmost caution should be exercised by investors, and this caution has recently left the usually careful English capitalist. An immense amount of money has been invested which will ultimately be a dead loss to the public. Not only that the price paid for some shares is too high, and that some of the mines opened will never pay a dividend; great sums have been given to promoters who are only on the lookout for a mine, and it is even said that there are several companies whose object is to form another company that shall launch subsidiary companies to look out for or prospect mines. The crash has not yet come, but its beginning is already noticeable. The London banks have decided not to honor the checks of French firms whose only capital is mining shares. A slight panic has ensued, and some of the most influential manipulators of "Rand" shares-including the famous Barney Barnato-have spent large sums in saving the market. The Nation, Berlin, a paper which has always favored speculation, says:

"Since the great Krach which followed the boom after the Franco-German war, nothing has electrified the public as much as the South African gold-fields. The present boom is a strong argument in answer to those moralists who would exclude all speculation from the stock-exchanges. For these gold-fields represent real value, and however much some mines may be overrated, in the majority of cases there is a solid basis for this speculation. In 1888 the Rand mines produced gold to the value of $4,000,000 only; in 1890 this output was doubled; in 1894 it had risen to $36,000,000. The statistics for 1895, as far as they are published, warrant the assumption that yellow metal to the value of $41,000,000 will be extracted during this year. Such fabulous results could not be obtained without good work. Much of

[Nov. 9, 1895

this result is due to the rapid advance of science, enabling the companies to extract almost every vestige of the precious metal from concentrates and tailings.

"For a while England alone benefited by this extraordinary chance to make money, but soon the Dutch and the Germans acquainted themselves with the facts through special emissaries sent to the Transvaal, and obtained a share of these riches.. But wild speculation did not begin until Paris entered into the schemes. The Babylon on the Seine is filled with men from all parts of the world, rolling in riches, yet thirsting after more; these began to gamble with the new values, and the public became fascinated. The stories of great fortunes, quickly made, intoxicate the public. Of course it must all end in 'howling and gnashing of teeth,' but the time is not yet. Meanwhile all other gold-producing countries are stirring, and new mines are opened everywhere. Even in Europe there is increased attention to the old mines, supposed long since to have been exhausted. The public want something in which to invest their money; and the public are accommodated."

"Pluto," in the Zukunft Berlin, fears that the Germans will get the Kafir fever just in time to share in the crash. He says:

"Envy leads some of the older firms to enter into a business against which their experience warns them, and they come just in time to partake of the crash. Two reasons exist against the speculation in South African shares. The English are fairly stunned by this unexpected boom, and can not judge clearly. Those who trust the prudence of their English agents are therefore likely to make mistakes. And altho the development of the mines may be really as great as is claimed, a temporary weakening of the market will hurt those who have bought at high prices and can not wait until a short panic is over."

Sharp criticism of the ventures offered to the public is not altogether wanting, but it must be sought for. The Pall Mall Gazette, here and there, picks out a company supposed to have been started on anything but a solid basis, and analyses its makeup without troubling about the loss of advertisements. Then there is The African Critic, Henry Hess's paper, a financial sheet as uncompromising as Money or The Economist. But The African Critic has no large circulation and may collapse from want of advertisers, for Mr. Hess refuses to be influenced by the fact that a company's prospectus appears in the advertising columns of his paper. The great legion of financial papers, however, have been called into life by the boom only, and only serve the purposes of the promoters. The Whitehall Review, chiefly subscribed to by officers and officials, both active and pensioned, warns its patrons as follows:

“The Blackmailer is, for the moment, king. At least a dozen rags, purporting to be financial journals, fatten on the company promoter. If the latter, who is generally of shady antecedents, does not give a £20 or £30 advertisement, the organ of light and leading so flouted comes out the next day with a sensational article, and a still more sensational poster, something in this way: THE GREAT BONUM MINE, LIMITED. AN IMPUDENT PROSPECTUS. SOME STARTLING FACTS ABOUT THE PROMOTERS.

If, on the contrary, the financial blackmail journalist gets his check, he will insert an unblushing and generally ungrammatical puff of the Great Bonum Mine, and his leading article and poster will deal with the iniquities of some other company, the promoters of which have not paid their price. . . . The insertion of the prospectus of any venture in these rags is a pretty convincing test that the promoters of that company are afraid of exposure. Of course the prospectus of some other than swindling companies appear occasionally in these organs of blackmail. In that case be assured that the venal advertising agent has included such a paper in his list in order to grasp at a higher discount than is allowed by a respectful journal. A good many of the bogus financial papers which now flood the city are bringing in fabulous sums to their proprietors. If justice were meted out, most of these gentry would be in the dock on charges of obtaining money by threats."