THE RELIGIOUS WORLD.

NEW VIEWS ON THE LORD'S SUPPER.

A LIVELY discussion has been carried on by German scholars

in recent months on the original character and purpose of the Lord's Supper. So varied and general has been the debate, that a review of it will not be without interest. We give a summary based upon a lengthy article found in the Lutherische Kirchenzeitung, Leipsic, as follows:

The discussion was begun by Harnack, of Berlin, who undertook to modify the traditional view of the Supper as well as to recast the history of the rite in the primitive church. In regard to the former he claimed that originally it was not established as a sacrament. Concerning the original purposes of the institution he says that "Jesus designated bodily food as His body and blood, z.e., as the nourishment of the soul (through forgiveness of sins), if that food was received with thanksgiving and in memory of His death. Or, in other words, the Lord sanctified or hallowed the most important functions of physical life by designating its food as His body and His blood. In this way He has instructed His own to employ the support and growth of their natural life as a means for the support of their spiritual life. This they could not do themselves, but He promised that He would be with them with His forgiveness of sins at every meal they would eat which was taken in remembrance of Him."

The modification in the history of the Eucharist as proposed by Harnack consists in his claim that down to 150 A.D. the church used as sacramental elements not bread and wine, but bread and water.

The first claim of Harnack has not been accepted by any other prominent scholar. Jülicher, of Marburg, too, who has come to new conclusions in reference to the Supper, declares that the innovation can not be accepted and that it is a thoroughly modern idea. Both Jülicher and Zahn, of Erlangen, have demonstrated that the water theory is also a mistake, based upon misinterpretation of certain passages in the Fathers in which water mixed with wine, in accordance with ancient customs, was used by the early church in the sacrament. Grafe, too, does not agree with Harnack, but thinks that he deserves credit for having given a new interpretation to the Supper.

On the other hand Jülicher has come forward with two new claims. One is this that the Lord never intended that the Supper should be repeated and that it was not established as a memorial feast. The original report in Mark does not contain the words "Do this in remembrance of me!" It was the need of the church that converted the Supper into a permanent institution, and Paul then formally fixed the innovation in his letter. Against this view both Harnac and Weizsäcker have declared themselves, the latter recognizing in the fact of the extraordinary rapid spread of the Supper in the early church an indubitable proof that it was originally appointed by Christ as a memorial feast.

The other assertion of Jülicher refers to the interpretation of the original words of institution. These he understands to be a parable by which the Lord purposed to teach His disciples that His execution had actually already begun, and that too for their good, and in this way He had relieved His heart of the burden that was oppressing it. It was not possible for Christ to put more into these words than the disciples were at that time able to comprehend. The parable virtually was to say this: Just as I now break this bread, thus too my body shall soon be broken; and just as this wine will soon disappear, thus too my blood will soon be spilled. Jülicher thinks that possibly Christ may also have had this further thought: Just as bread and wine can bring strength only by being broken and drunken, thus too my body can become the soul of deliverance to men only by my death. This second assertion of Jülicher is criticized by Spitta. points out the fact that the disciples could not at all have understood such a parable, as the symbols were not at all of such a character as to suggest the teachings intended.

He

Spitta, in turn, has also two innovations to propose. One is this: that Mark and Matthew, as the representatives of the older view, think only of a common meal without any reference to the death of the Lord; and it was Paul and Luke who added this feature on the basis of the Old Testament Pasch idea, and that this was a misunderstanding fraught with important conse

quences. This view of Spitta's is strongly opposed by Jülicher and also to a degree by Harnack. The other claim of Spitta is this that the Lord in this Supper aimed to represent the joyful feast in the Messianic kingdom of the future. The Lord Himself was not perfectly clear as to the necessity of His death, as is seen from His prayer in Gethsemane, and the disciples thought first of all of apocalyptic ideas. `The repetition of the Supper in the early church is regarded by Spitta as an expression of this feeling of highest joy, but not as a memorial of Christ's death. But this view of Spitta does not find favor even in critical circles. Grafe shows that Spitta does not understand the struggle in Gethsemane, and that his treatment of the sources is not just. Again the separation proposed between the ideas of joy and of the death of Christ; which Spitta thinks could not have been united in the minds of Christians when celebrating the Supper, is discarded by Jülicher, who draws attention to the fact that the death of Christ was par excellence the message of great joy to the church. - Translated and Condensed for THE LITERARY DIGEST.

AMUSEMENTS AND THE CHURCHES.

WHIL

HILE practically all branches of the Christian Church have long since abandoned the position that gloomy habiliments and an austere and mournful demeanor are the most proper and befitting marks of the true believer, there is a decided difference of opinion on points relating to the kinds of amusement in which a professing Christian may properly engage. Thus some denominations have rigid zules forbidding their members from indulging in card-playing, dancing, and theatergoing, on pain of expulsion from the church. But church authorities generally realize the difficulty and danger of laying down arbitrary rules to govern in all matters of this kind. The question of the amusements proper for a believer to engage in must be left, it is thought, largely to the determination of the individual conscience. The question assumes a new and fresh interest from the methods adopted by what are called the "institutional churches" of the present day to attract young people and the nonchurch-going classes. These methods include the opening of free libraries, gymnasiums, and assembly rooms in connection with provision for games, concerts, and various forms of entertainIt is the purpose of these agencies to draw young men and others away from questionable resorts and under influences. which may ultimately lead them into the church itself. But there are some who declare strongly against the "institutional church" because of these very features. The church, they say, has higher work than amusing young people. There is an interesting passage in The Northwestern Christian Advocate replying to this objection. It says:

ment.

Coming from one of the foremost organs of the Methodist Episcopals, a denomination which has generally held the lines of discipline with a firm hand, these words have a special significance. The same journal proceeds to read its denomination a lesson on the need of adopting some measures to attract and hold the masses, young and old, upon whom the churches seem to be losing their grip.

PROF. W. T. DAVIDSON, writing on Religious Thought in Europe in Zion's Herald, says that "important modifications are taking place in the Christian doctrines of God which will soon bear fruit. The attempt is to render the idea of God less metaphysical and abstract, more truly ethical and spiritual. Especially the view of manifestation of God in Christ is being modified by the conviction that the eternal Son of God in taking our nature came under such conditions that he did truly live, speak, and act with human limitations of knowledge."

PROFESSOR SAYCE AND THE HIGHER

THE

CRITICISM.

HE attitude taken by Prof. A. H. Sayce in relation to the higher criticism of the Old Testament, as defined by himself in the October number of The Contemporary Review (see THE LITERARY DIGEST, Vol. XI., p. 766), is the subject of a paper by Prof. A. A. Bevan in that periodical for December. Professor Sayce having made the statement that if Moses did not write the Pentateuch it would be “something of a miracle," Professor Bevan points out "an important fact which Professor Sayce has ignored," namely, that such eminent archeologists as Schrader, Friedrich Delitzsch, Haupt, Winckler, and Maspero unanimously support the theory of "the critics" whom Professor Sayce "treats with such contempt.' If Professor Sayce thinks that these well-known archeological authorities are in error, says Professor Bevan, he has a perfect right to say so; but it is manifest that, so long as he differs from them, his verdict is not the verdict of "archeology”"it is his own personal verdict, and our respect for it must depend upon the estimate which we have previously formed of his accuracy and discernment." We have thus given the keynote of Professor Bevan's argument, from which we now quote:

"That eminent archeologists should sometimes differ widely from one another will not appear surprising when we consider the nature of archeology. There can not be a greater mistake than to suppose that an archeologist is a kind of deus ex machina, who can step in to decide all manner of questions with infallible authority. Archeology, like all other departments of research, has its limitations and uncertainties, and any archeologist who ignores this truth will inevitably commit serious blunders. Archeological evidence is, from its very nature, fragmentary; the missing links have to be supplied by conjecture. This is especially the case when we are dealing with literary questions. The facts which it is most important for the student of literature to know are often the very facts about which archeology is most obstinately silent. Kings have frequently set up inscriptions to celebrate their victories, but it is seldom indeed that authors have set up inscriptions to celebrate the composition of their books. We possess, for example, thousands of Greek inscriptions and other archeological relics, which doubtless throw light upon many details of Greek literature. Yet how few are the cases in which it is possible to determine the authorship of a Greek book by archeological evidence! Whether, for instance, all the works ascribed to Plato are genuine can never be decided by archeology. Our belief, in such a matter, must be settled ultimately by internal proofs, in particular by the literary style, and it is obvious that here none but a well-trained Greek scholar has a right to pronounce a judgment."

Passing from the literature of Greece to that of the ancient East, Professor Bevan finds that the uncertainty of archeological evidence is vastly augmented, and that the total absence of a linguistic tradition constitutes a difficulty which all the ingenuity of decipherers can never completely overcome. He then proceeds to illustrate the ambiguous nature of the Egyptian inscriptions. For example, he says:

"There are hundreds of signs (or, rather, groups of signs) to express syllables, and most of these signs may be read in two or more different ways. Thus one sign stands for ash, rum, or dil, another for su, rug, or kus, another for tar, kud, shil, khaz, dim, or tim, and so on in scores of cases. The same kind of ambiguity belongs to the so-called 'ideograms,' or signs to express ideas. One sign, for instance, means either a brother,' or 'hostile,' or 'sum total,' or 'protect;' another means either 'captive,' or 'land,' or 'mountain,' etc., etc. It will be readily understood that, with such a system, the same sentence is often susceptible of the most different interpretations: but even when an inscription can be translated with absolute certainty, it may still be very doubtful what conclusions we are to draw from it. It is important to remember that archeological evidence relating to the Old Testament depends, in most cases, upon the identification of proper names-that is to say, a person, nation, or place mentioned in an inscription is conjectured to be identical

with some person, nation, or place mentioned in the Bible. But the risk of making false identifications is a very serious one."

Professor Bevan says that the same thing applies to the sacred writings of ancient Egypt, and in his opinion the facts known as to the religious literature of the ancient East tend rather to confirm than to overthrow the theory of the composite authorship of the Pentateuch. He further says:

"Is there any proof that Professor Sayce has ever seriously investigated the matter? It appears but too plainly from his article, as well as from his previous writings, that his knowledge of Biblical criticism is altogether superficial. This is, at least, the most charitable interpretation of the fact that he sometimes ascribes to the 'critics,' as a body, opinions which no critic of repute has ever dreamt of maintaining. Thus in his article (p. 478) he informs the public that the critics believe ‘hardly a fragment' of the Pentateuch to have existed before the time of Josiah. Such a statement implies ignorance of the whole controversy. It is notorious that not only the so-called 'conservative critics,' such as Nöldeke, Dillmann, and Schrader, but even Kuenen, Wellhausen, and Robertson Smith, have invariably held that the greater part of Genesis, as well as large portions of Exodus and Numbers, existed in writing long before the time of Josiah. This is what Professor Sayce calls 'hardly a fragment.' In support of his accusation he offers not a single proof, not a single reference to the works of any writer. Yet before publishing pages of invective against Biblical critics, he ought surely to have taken the trouble to find out precisely what theories have been maintained by the principal critics of our time. . . . To bring forward sweeping charges, without any attempt to substantiate them, is a proceeding altogether unworthy of a scientific investigator.

"Professor Sayce is particularly indignant at what he calls the 'cocksureness' of his opponents, but his own arguments in support of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch do not by any means savor of extreme caution. The reasoning on which he chiefly relies would appear to be somewhat as follows: Literary culture existed in Egypt and some other countries before the time of Moses. Therefore the Israelites must at that time have practised the art of writing. Therefore Moses must have written something. What Moses wrote can not have been lost. Therefore Moses wrote the Pentateuch. Q.E.D. It must be admitted that this reasoning presents the appearance of a rather top-heavy erection. At every point an assumption is made which is, to say the least, disputable. From the fact that writing was practised: among the settled populations of Egypt and Canaan it does not necessarily follow that writing was in vogue among the nomadic Israelites. The Old Testament itself bears witness to the hatred and contempt with which the Egyptians habitually regarded the nomads (Gen. xlvi: 34). Even at the present day it is quite usual in the East to find utterly illiterate tribes living in close proximity to great centers of civilization. But supposing it to be proved (which it is not) that the Israelites in the days of Moses were a 'literary people,' we hardly have a right to assume that Moses. must have been an author of books. As every reader of the Bible is aware, some of the greatest among the Hebrew prophets wrote no books, or, if they did, those books have utterly perished. This was the case with Samuel (who is expressly coupled with Moses in Jer. xv. 1) and with the two great prophets of Northern Israel, Elijah and Elisha. It is strange that Professor Sayce should need to be reminded of a still more conspicuous example which would alone suffice to overthrow his argument. What fact is more certain than that the Founder of Christianity Himself left no writings behind Him? Yet the Jews in the first century of our era were undoubtedly a 'literary people.'"

AT the Norwich, England, Church Congress, a paper was read by Mr. F. C. Burkitt, on the Syriac Gospels, discovered in the convent on Sinai by the learned Cambridge sisters, Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Gibson. Mr. Burkitt maintained that the discovery is of prime importance as a help to the determination of the original text of the Gospel, inasmuch as a careful examination of the peculiarities of the manuscript has led Syriac scholars to believe that it faithfully represents the earliest Syriac translations of the Gospels.

A CAREFUL analysis of fifty-nine English clergymen and ministers who were announced to preach in favor of opening museums on the Sabbath gives the following results: 30 Unitarian ministers, 22 Church of England clergymen, 2 Ethical preachers, 1 Scotch clergyman, 1 Congregational minister, General Baptist minister, 1 Theistic preacher, and 1 Positivist preacher,

A

THE CLERICAL MAN OF THE WORLD.

DMITTING that there is a very serious lack of education among the preachers of the present day, Mr. Robert Drail, writing for The New England Magazine (December), declares that a far more important factor in the pulpit problem, and the factor which makes far more than any other for the abiding influence of the clergyman, of whatever school of theology, is not so much his mental training as his unworldliness. Mr. Drail says that the most noticeable change in the ecclesiastical world during the last twenty years has been the rise and the popularity of the clerical man of the world, and it is the purpose of his article to show how dangerously the church is handicaped by these "applauded figures." He sketches the subject of his opposition in part as follows:

"It is in the social world that the position of the clerical man of the world puts him most en évidence. Public dinners and private dinners are not complete without him. He says 'grace,' and tells stories; and in all the larger cities of America the clerical afterdinner speakers rank among the most popular entertainers of the day. During the winter season many men of this stamp are as much engaged and overrun with invitations as the son of an English duke on a visit to New York. It matters little what the dinner is. From the annual meeting of a Boot and Shoe Travelers' League to the Irishmen's dinner on St. Patrick's Day, our clerical worldling is there; and with half a dozen puns, some new stories and clever hits upon the passing topics of the street, the market, the drawing-room, the football field, and the political arena, he holds his own against whomsoever it may be. Nor does he confine himself to these public appearances. He scarce has time to change the evening clothes he wears at the opera of a Saturday night before he must don the cassock in which he appears on Sunday morning. He goes to see Coquelin, Irving, and Bernhardt as a matter of course; and Dixey, and perhaps Théo, as a matter of audacity. He drops in at afternoon teas; and his purely social duties requiring attendance-according to this new code of clerical etiquet-at dinners and dances and weddings, the theater, the horse-show, the football and baseball matches, little time or tranquillity of mind surely can be left for pious meditation."

Mr. Drail notes that there is a singular desire on the part of city congregations to procure young men, and if possible young athletes, to preside over the destinies of their parishes; that halfbacks on victorious footbal lelevens, pitchers on college baseball nines, are advertised to speak at this or that religious meeting. He continues:

"No doubt the younger members of the churches are drawn toward this dashing young ecclesiastical gladiator. Men of the word also are surprised at first, and then rather pleased to find that the complexities of theology and the stern demands of the religious life are not what they had supposed and feared. Surely this first-rate yachtsman, this adventurous hunter, who returns from the wild West with skins and heads, this breezy young wielder of racket and baseball bat, can hardly be the representative of a creed that is very complicated, of a morality that is very restricted or difficult, or of a religious temper of mind that is very ghostly. As a consequence of this personal liking there follows, on the part of this class of persons, a certain allegiance to the tabernacle of the clerical man of the world. The older heads in the congregation find it difficult to concatenate the various links of this chain between earth and heaven; but it fills the pews -and so for the time being, vogue la galère, the man of the world, who has given usually little thought to such matters, fancies that the demands of the religious life have changed, and rejoices at the difference between this young clergyman, who is as much, if not more, at ease in the drawing-room, at the dinnertable, and in the field of sports than he is himself, and the stern and black-broadclothed parson of his boyhood."

It is not easy, says Mr. Drail, to harmonize this clerical yachtsman, hunter, fisher, and theater-goer with that John who had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins, and whose meat was locusts and wild honey. The new-style popular preacher has, he points out, made the impression pretty general

that religious work and religious influence are quite possible to those of avowedly worldly minds and occupations, and "has failed to impress upon his disciples that fundamental prelude to any sort of religious life, that there must be first of all a 'new creature.""

A

A JAPANESE CONVERT'S ADVICE TO
MISSIONARIES.

VERY interesting little book in its way is "The Diary of a Japanese Convert" (Revell Co.), by Kanzo Uchimura, whose education in English enables him to express himself clearly and forcefully. The history of his awakening to the truths of Christianity, and of his progress in the Christian life, is told in a simple and straightforward way, the style being enhanced, rather than weakened, by occasional foreign idiom. Mr. Uchimura touches upon many vital questions connected with Christian missions in heathen lands, and this part

of his volume seems to offer the best material for quotation. He supposes the asking of the question: "Do you heathens like to have Christianity?" To which he replies:

"Yes, we sensible heathens do; and the insensible ar among

us, tho they throw

many things

stones at missionaries, and do other mischievous things. upon them, as soon as they resume their sensibility, will see that they did wrong. Of course, we do not (By courtesy of the Fleming H. Revell Company.) like that come under the name of Christianity. Hosts, surplices, compulsory prayer-books, theologies, unless they are absolutely necessary to convey Christianity itself to us in our present state of mental development, we do desire to be spared from. We also like to have no Americanity and Anglicanianity imposed upon us as Christianity. I hope none of us ever threw stones at Christ Himself. If we did, we stoned at the Almighty Throne itself, and we shall have the truth itself to condemn us. But chide us not for throwing stones at missionaries who in the name of Christ teach us their own views-theologies they call them and also their own manners and customs, such as 'free marriages,' 'woman's rights,' and others, all more or less objectionable to us. We do this for self-preservation. You who tolerate Catholicism, but not Roman Catholicism, who fling your pulpit addresses and newspaper editorials right at the face of Piuses and Leos for their interference in your school and other public affairs, sympathize with us in our protest against Americanism, Anglicanism, and other foreign isms.

Very faith fully

your Kauzo Uchimura

"Then, when you come to us, come with strong common sense. Do not believe the words of those mission-circus men who tell you that a nation can be converted in a day. There is no spiritual El Dorado to be found upon this earth. Nowhere can souls be converted by dozens and hundreds. The same matter-of-fact world here as there. Men do doubt, simulate, stumble, here as elsewhere. I know some missionaries who preach to us as if we were their own countrymen. They seem to think that the method of Moody and Sankey, that goes so successfully with Americans and Englishmen, should succeed equally well with Japanese and Chinese. But Japanese and Chinese are not Americans, as you well know. They had not their childhood mothered with 'Lord is my shepherd,' 'Now I lay me down to sleep,' and other angelic melodies. They take as much delight in gong-bells as in Estey pipe-organs. They are 'heathens,' and you must teach them ac

cordingly. But some preach Jesus Christ to them, give them a copy of New Testament, persuade them to be baptized, get their names enrolled in church-membership, and so have them reported to home churches, and think that they are safe, and will go to heaven somehow. Perhaps they may, perhaps they may not. Hereditary influences, mental idiosyncrasies, social environments, to say nothing of the same old Adamic propensity to sin in them, are not so readily conformable to the new and strange doctrines that are preached to them. Tho we despise godless science, yet scienceless evangelization we do not put much value upon. I believe faith is wholly compatible with common-sense, and all zealous and successful missionaries have had this sense in abundance."

Mr. Uchimura relates that he knew a Quaker professor in America who, when he told him of the doubts and difficulties which had been overcome in his struggles Christianward, thought it all very strange and very unnecessary, “seeing that Christianity is so simple a thing as to be contained in one monosyllableLove." Upon this he remarks:

"Only a monosyllable, but the universe itself can not contain it! An enviable man he! His ancestors had fought out the battles for him. He came into this world unconscious of struggles, a ready-made Christian. Like as a millionaire's son can not comprehend the miseries and strifes of a self-made man, so this professor and many like him in Christendom can not comprehend what we heathens have to fight out in our souls before we get settled in peace in that monosyllable. I advise such as he to stay at home as professors, and not come to us as missionaries, for our complexities and sinuosities may confound them, as their simplicities and straight-cuttedness confound us. appreciate 'Pilgrim's Progress,' but as for that happy, happy, honey-moon style religion, we know not what it is, but that it is not the Christianity of the Crucified One. Heathenism first subdued in your own soul; then you can subdue it right successfully in us. With your Christianity sifted from your own isms, and your common-sense well sharpened (if not sharp already), and best of all, with devils fought out in your own souls, I see no reason why you should fail to do immense good to heathens. In concluding this part of his subject, the author says:

We can

"We need Christianity to intensify us; to swear fealty to our God, and enmity toward devils. Not a butterfly-life, but an eagle-life; not the diminutive perfection of a pink rose, but the. sturdy strength of an oak. Heathenism will do for our childhood, but Christianity alone for manhood. The world is growing, and we with the world. Christianity is getting to be a necessity with all of us.

REAL DANGER FROM THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

THAT HAT the dangerous feature of the Roman Catholic Church to-day in America is not of its being a great "Babylon" but a "Tammany," is believed and was announced by Rev. Brooke Herford in the Dudleian lecture of 1895 at Harvard University, published in The Unitarian (November). The lecturer declares that "it is always a mischief when, in a great free self-governing country, any considerable portion of the people are withdrawn from the natural sympathies and free mental play of the community into a close-bound corporation claiming a separate and imperative allegiance of its own." He continues:

"In any great crisis of national liberty such a claim would probably snap like a reed before the larger love of country. Such crises, however, seldom happen.

But still, in our calmer times

there are a hundred problems that keep rising up, in which the free, intelligent thought of every citizen is needed for the national welfare. And it is a mischief not to be lightly thought of when some foreign and extraneous authority claims the word, the vote, the action, of a whole great party of the citizens, and this based on a still larger and vaster claim-still silently maintained everywhere, and enforced where the church has power-of a divine and absolute authority over all souls. Here is the danger, the mischief, which the Roman Catholic Church is to-day, as really,

tho not as obtrusively, as two centuries ago. And all the more because it can not now be met by any policy of repression or exclusion-we do not want it met in such ways, we utterly repudiate them all the more does it need meeting by the searching examination of its special claims, and the earnest but clear pointing out of their results in action and policy.

"Do I say all this in any spirit of hostility? Not for a moment. There is need, in this confused and doubting and struggling modern life, for all the forms and ways in which the great spirit of Christianity has embodied itself among men. If any one would see how great-to the simple student of history and of man -may seem the work that the Catholic Church has done, and might still do, let him read the essay of James Darmesteter, the Jew, on 'The Religions of the Future,' and the possible destiny of the Catholic Church, if this 'admirable instrument of unity and propaganda,' as he calls it, could rise to its true height. If the church misses its opportunity,' he says, in closing, 'if, in the name of an immutability which is simply a fiction of dogma, contradicted by its history from the very beginning, it opposes the summons of the future with a non possumus, the necessary work will be done otherwise and with greater difficulty.'

"It is in that spirit that the best modern Liberalism owns the possibilities of the Catholic Church as a venerable and marvelous human institution. But the same Liberalism just as earnestly and emphatically rejects its fatal claim of being the one only divine institution, the infallible representative of God. It is a claim which has all along been fatal to the highest spirit of truth, and the fancied authority of which has encouraged tyranny and spiritual oppression. Whether the needed reform is possible, who can tell? But, meanwhile, not its enemies, but its best wellwishers, are those who would try to clear it from such exceptional and tremendous claims, and to set it free, in wholesome human liberty and in frank and manly truth, to do its part in the further religious development of man."

RELIGIOUS NOTES.

A UNION of the Christian (Disciples) and the Congregational denominations will be brought about, it is believed, in the near future. Rev. Dr. Gladden, of Columbus, Ohio, suggests in The Independent that Ohio is a good State in which to begin operations. It is the State in which the Christians are the strongest, and the two denominations are almost numerically equal there. A committee representing both bodies has arranged for a "joint conference of Congregational Christians to be held near the center of the State in 1896. Next year will be the centennial of Congregationalism in Ohio, the first church having been formed in Marietta in 1796. versalist brethren so wrought up over the subject of higher criticism. The early Universalists, like the early Unitarians, loaded their guns with Biblical proof-texts; and the Universalists have not yet been delivered from the strained view of Biblical interpretation which marked both sides in that period of controversy. But, unless the conservative Universalists wake up, their Calvinistic brethren, under the lead of Dr. Briggs, will be far ahead of them in a scientific interpretation of the Bible."

THE order of King's Daughters, organized nine years ago in New York city by ten women, now has a membership of four hundred thousand. One of its rules is "to perform all services as silently as possible," not to talk about them unless it is necessary in order to stimulate others to do likewise, to forget the good done as quickly as possible, and move forward to the next opportunity. The President of the order is Margaret Bottome and its General Secretary Mary Lowe Dickinson.

IN an article in the December Forum on "The Pilgrim and the Pilgrim Heritage," President Hyde, of Bowdoin College, presents a table giving the results of a recent canvass of a portion of Plymouth county, Mass., in which the religious preferences and habits of church attendance of 5,875 families were given. His conclusion is that the Congregationalists have retained but little more than one fifth of these families.

A WRITER in The Home Journal says: "The old-fashioned habit of saying grace before meat is not dying out. In some families the custom of saying a silent grace is observed, but to my mind the old-fashioned method of asking God's blessing on the food which we are about to receive. while all stand reverently, is the most proper way in which to observe the