similar theories which treat sin as a personal offence to God, and the Atonement as a personal satisfaction rendered to Him, that the logical outcome of them is tri-theism. Dun Scotus did not remove this objection by his view that, though our Lord did not suffer our sufferings pang for pang, what He did suffer was, by the sovereignty of God the Father, accepted as an equivalent for ours. Aquinas held that the sufferings of Christ take effect on us by satisfaction, seeing that the honour of God could not but be satisfied by the greatness of His dignity, suffering. and love. Aquinas defined satisfaction as giving to the offended party something that he loves as much as he hates the offence, or more. But all theories are worthless that in any way imply discord between the Father and the Son. And the case is not improved in the slightest degree when the schism created by sin is represented as being between certain of the moral attributes of God. Justice is not opposed to inercy.

Any theory of the Atonement that is to be entirely satisfactory must distinctly recognize the absolute unity of the three Persons in the Godhead, and the complete harmony of the moral attributes of the Deity. And it must distinctly recognize love as the great underlying principle of the government of God-the motive-power by which its machinery is set in motion. The law of God is the bulwark which infinite wisdom, controlled by infinite love, has reared around the rights and privileges of all His creatures who are the proper subjects of moral government. It is this law that makes sin exceeding sinful. "It is insubordination; it is revolt against authority; it is non-submission to rule; it is the determination of the transgressor, regardless of consequences, to have his own way. It strikes a blow, not only at the authority of God, but at the very heart of God, inasmuch as it involves an invasion of interests which are as dear to Him as the apple of His eye; not merely the physical and material, but the moral, the spiritual, and the eternal interests of innumerable myriads of beings made in His own image, the partakers to some extent of His own nature, and endowed with an immortality of being-creatures, in a word, who are, owing to the greatness of His love, of which they are the offspring, dear to Him above all comparison. It was how to provide for the forgiveness of this sin, so evil in its nature and so appalling in its consequences, without impairing the authority of the law, which is so beneficent in its character and operation, that infinite wisdom and infinite love had to solve; and the solution lay in God Himself voluntarily bearing the consequences of the violation of the law in the person of His Divine but incarnate Son." This article puts the orthodox setting of the Atonement in its modern form; but it may be questioned whether it is possible so to present it as to remove from our minds altogether its unnatural character. The lawgiver suffering the penalties of his own laws in order to persuade himself that he can righteously forgive those who have broken his laws, strikes us as an invented and unnatural explanation.

THE DESTINY OF THE HUMAN RACE. By REV. JOHN MACLEAN, M.A., Ph.D. (The Canadian Methodist Quarterly).—Man is by nature a citizen of eternity, by culture a citizen of the age and the world. There exists a vicarious principle in all kinds of life by which that which precedes in time becomes assimilated with subsequent forms of life. The men of the present age are the possessors of the gifts of the centuries. Consequently, the life of the race, the history of universal man, become subjects of greater moment for the earnest student. Science has not decided definitely in favour of the origin of man from a single human pair, but asserts that it is quite possible, although not probable. Revelation asserts the

common origin of mankind, but does not attempt to prove it. Christianity has from the beginning had a clear consciousness of the moral significance of the unity of the race. The doctrine of the solidarity of mankind is that which gives significance to all moral questions, as well as questions of a political, social, and industrial nature.

The quest for the cradle of the human race has been constant for centuries, and still both scientists and theologians are striving to find the original home of the first families of man. This, and the question of the antiquity of the human race, are shrouded in mystery. The chronology usually attached to the books of Scripture are not to be regarded as part of inspired truth. The first man began his career with the power of speech. The organs of speech must have been formed, and the power to use these organs given. The religion of man is the cry of the soul after the spiritual. The first yearnings of man's spiritual nature were not very intelligible, and his religious ideas were very crude. The race began its career in a semi-savage condition of life, but not with savage instincts. Clothes came into use simultaneously with a knowledge of wrong-doing. The first garments were taken from the forest, and the next from the desert. The race began without any tools, but with the implement-making propensity.

The history of the race is a history of development. It is not, however, one long series of uninterrupted progression, Lut there are stages of advancement, periods of culture, intercepted by stages of retrogression. True development consists in the unfolding of all the latent powers of the race by means of elevation and depression, progression and retrogression. Religion is world-wide in its influence, and men find in this a kindred relationship. Religion is universal. The study of comparative religion reveals germs of truth in all the religious systems. The human race has gained in its development by the existence of these religions. The principles of righteousness and the seed-thoughts of truth which exist in Brahminism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Mohammedanism have been conducive to the interests of humanity and religion; but there is no other religion which so fully meets the requirements of a religion for the race as Christianity does.

The race was not destined for solitude. The individual members of the race were born to a community life. The family life is the foundation of society. Man was begotten with social instincts. Political monasticism is as dangerous to the community life of the race and its true development as was religious monasticism. Man is born to be a citizen. Great migratory movements have founded nations in different countries at various periods in the world's history. The colonizing efforts of the old nations have begotten new nations. Empires have been brought into existence by the disintegration of the overcrowded states. In the development of a new nation the influences of environment moulded the characteristics of the people, and gave to them the assurance of supremacy, or withheld from them the promise of power. Geography has modified the religious ideas and practices of tribes and nations. A race of people, a nation, progresses toward unity, strength, perfection, and then it begins to decline. Sometimes the nation may die before it has reached the stage of manhood, or it may linger in sickness, showing signs of decay, and then of recovery, until suddenly it dies a violent death. Wherever the representatives of strong races appear, the weak native races rapidly disappear.

It seems reasonable to assume that the world's population is greater than ever it has been, the natural increase ever accumulating and adding to the aggregate of the race. The checks to the increase of population arise from moral restraint, vice, and misery. According to the Malthusian theory, population tends to increase beyond

the means of subsistence. Were this tendency to continue regularly, the world would in a short time become over-populated; but this movement of population is not constant. There stands an unwritten law of nature in the numerical relation of the sexes. More males are born than females, but there is a greater mortality among the former than the latter, and the equality of the sexes numerically is thus maintained. In this great factor of the world's progress we see a recognition of a leading principle of the Christian religion, that true manhood is not male and female, but is a Divine unity, comprised by the manly and womanly characteristics of the

race.

The movements of population have varied at different periods in the world's history. Feudalism, the Crusades, the growth of the free cities under the power of the trade guilds, have arisen and passed away, thus revealing to us the fact that there are movements in society, literature, politics, population, and religious thought. The movement of the present period is toward the growth of large cities at the expense of the depopulation of the country.

The examination of a single period of civilization impresses the student unduly. An enlarged study will show the falsity of many of his conclusions. A needless amount of ignorant boasting about the superior civilization of these modern times has been made by students of history whose range of vision has been very limited. Modern civilization is not superior to ancient civilization, except in the development of the character of the human race. Every age has its own peculiar characteristics, which belong to one age and not to another. This is illustrated by the civilizations of ancient Egypt and of China. We have changed our civilization, not advanced it. The ages of sculpture, painting, and poetry have passed away, and we have not replaced them. Homer and Virgil, Raphael and Michael Angelo, stand supreme in their respective departments of learning.

Each nation is possessed of its own leading idea, which becomes a potent factor in the education of the human race. Unto each is committed a great work by the Father of the ages. The human race is as a little child tenderly cared for by the universal Parent. It grows toward the perfection of manhood, ever guarded and trained. This universal Parent has raised up teachers for the education of this human child; the nations are his instructors. Unto each nation there is given one lesson to teach. All through the centuries there stands forth one nation training the human race, and when that lesson has been perfectly taught, that national instructor is removed, and another teacher takes its place. There are epochs of history, and there are ideas of the ages. God's method of training the human race is by a national evolution. Look out over the ages, and study the philosophy of history, and there, as in a vision, you will see the lessons which each age and nation has given to the race, and how the character of this human child is being formed, the sum total of all the lessons constituting the education of God's child.

So soon as a nation becomes old and decrepit, unable to perform its allotted work, a young and vigorous nation enters into the breach and begins its own true mission assigned by the Author of destiny. Nation after nation departs, and races cease to exist; and what shall the final consummation be? In the progress toward the ultimate destiny of the human race the mind seeks for a race capable of fulfilling all the conditions of a perfect race, but it fails to find one upon which has rested the hand of promise. The coming race, which shall mould the ideal nation for posterity, must be composed of all the best elements which constitute the true physical, intellectual, and spiritual world. This can only be formed by the unity of the heterogeneous elements of the different nations and races of men. When

this world has done for the race all that can be done, and the conditions under which the course of education has been pursued are no longer suitable for further development, it will be translated to another form of existence called eternity. There, in the eternal land, the race will still continue to develop, and, human no longer being a term understood, it will become a Divine race.

CURRENT

GERMAN

THOUGHT.

THE HISTORICAL CHRIST THE GROUND OF OUR FAITH. By Prof. W. HERRMANN, Marburg (Zeitschrift f. Theol. u. Kir. 1892. No. 3). This Zeitschrift is the printed organ of the Ritschlian school, and Prof. Herrmann is a leading representative of the school. His essay touches one of the critical points of distinction between that school and others, namely, the ground of Christian certainty, and ought to enable us to understand precisely the new position taken up.

The introduction of the essay seeks to show the necessity of a new doctrinal authority in place of the Protestant one of Scripture. The fact that Scripture has come under criticism unfits it to be a final authority. The final court of appeal should itself be above all challenge. It is useless to object to the work of the critics, and, if it were not useless, would be wrong, because Protestant Christianity desires above all things to know the truth. What the results of criticism are is of no importance; the mere fact is enough. "We need not dwell on the particular results of historical investigation. The decisive point is the fact that it is applied to the Biblical books at all. For directly this is done something is attempted in regard to these books which is absolutely inadmissible in regard to the authority in matters of faith. That to which the obedience of faith is due must be unassailable and immovable. If, then, I were bound to say that such obedience were due to Holy Writ, I should fight against historical investigation, which claims to judge of Scripture, as against the devil.” If it were our place to criticize as well as report, we should remark on the singularity of this position. It is assumed that criticism has, and must have, unfavourable results, but it surely is not so. Suppose the results favourable, or generally so. Criticism refers at most to the historical elements of Scripture. Besides, if the mere fact of criticism disqualifies, what is there that is not criticized? The authority substituted by the Ritschlian school is certainly criticized. It may be our misunderstanding of the essay, but in some parts the writer seems to argue against all authority whatever. Any appeal to authority as a ground of faith is characterized as a return to the "Catholic" position. To cling even to Scripture in this character is the same. "Catholic Christianity needs the view that the Bible is the authority of religious doctrine. . . . . The thought is logically carried out, that the authority of dogmatic teaching must be secure. To this end serves the supposition of an authoritative version and edition of Scripture, and finally of an infallible expositor."

Yet the writer's intention cannot be to reject all authority; because, after insisting on free, individual conviction as belonging to the essence of Protestantism, he goes on to contend that a supreme authority is necessary, and proceeds to say what it is on the new lines. "The evangelical faith, which from the first has repudiated the notion of an externally binding authority, can as little dispense with

authority as the Catholic faith. For how, then, would it be obedience? Then arises the question, how this can be possible in the case of a faith which is personal faith or disposition. Unconditional obedience to a law of religious doctrine does not square with the nature of such a faith." It might seem as if the only obedience possible were that due to the moral law, which commends itself at once to the natural conscience. The upshot of the argument seems to be that obedience is also due in matters of faith to revelation, but the only revelation acknowledged is that which incontestably proves itself such to the heart. "Only that man is religious who is raised by Divine revelation to intercourse with God, who therefore learns from revelation that God cares for him, and draws from it the courage to seek that fellowship with God which gives him rest. According to the principle of orthodoxy, the revelation was Holy Scripture itself, which presents religious ideas with Divine authority. According to the Rationalist principle, the revelation was the reason itself from which the religious ideas proceed. But for the really religious on both sides, the revelation is necessarily the fact in which God's intervention in their own life was made clear, and which from that moment governed their thinking and acting." What, then, is the final authority, the one Divine revelation, according to the Ritschlian doctrine ? "We assert, this miraculous revelation for Christians is the historical manifestation of Jesus." This takes the place both of the Catholic and the old Protestant doctrine. The essay leaves no doubt on this point. The personal life and character of Jesus Christ are self-evidently Divine. There is no need of proof. Indeed, they are never recognized as Divine on the ground of evidence; they are seen to be such. If faith is absent, the only way to create it seems to be to gaze at the figure of Christ until the knowledge comes. Such, very briefly and baldly, is the position taken. Many doubts of course arise, especially in view of all the exposition given. How much, we may ask, does the "historical manifestation" of Jesus include? It seems that it does not include the miracles. The Divine revelation in Christ is evident without these, although, as is expressly admitted, they may be accepted and profitably used afterwards. Many will certainly think that the miracles are part of the means by which the character is delineated. Besides, is not the same criticism, which robs us of the miracles, applied to the life and teaching? However, it is our business simply to expound; or, rather, putting aside details, let the essayist be his own expositor.

But

"We have to see how we can apprehend Jesus Christ as the fact operative in history which convinces us of God's working in us, and which cannot again be wrested from us. This fact cannot be drawn out of the New Testament tradition by historical art. It must rather be obvious in this tradition itself to every one who in intercourse with good men has awakened to desire after God. Only if this is true of the historical person of Jesus, has it the value for the life of faith which we seek in it. now in the New Testament Christ is preached as He appears to faith. Consequently this preaching, if we trust it, cannot alone secure against the doubt, that we are building our faith on something which is perhaps not historical fact, but the product of faith." A twofold reply is given with much force. "We may say to ourselves first that the mighty faith, speaking to us from the New Testament, does not look as if it sprang from illusions. It must be the work of the overpowering impression made by the person of Jesus on the men about Him, so that these men were compelled to think of Him as the New Testament writings teach. I do not question that there are moments when this consideration will dispel the doubt. Every Christian proves this if he only lives in active fellowship with Scripture. Secondly, we say that the Biblical picture of Jesus is so true to life, so consistent in its different presentations,

.