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basis freshly composed and authoritatively endorsed this could have been furnished in the creed drawn up by the "Creed Commission" and signed by all its members except two, one of whom was the Home Secretary of the American Board, and as is well known on the ground of dissatisfaction with its eschatological deliverance.

An action of so grave a character can only be justified by a grave occasion and the occasion should pertain to the missionary work. If any doctrine should be stamped with reprobation surely it should be one which might be preached with mischievous effect on the missionary field. But by its But by its very terms and import, the doctrine in question could concern only those to whom the missionary could never come and whom he could never address. To stamp it with reprobation and to reject a missionary who believed it but who by its very terms could have no occasion to use it or only in a very indirect fashion seems to be so far removed from the plain common sense and the gentle charity of the New Testament as to fail utterly of any Christian vindication. The only explanation that can be given is suggested by the expressed desire that the Prudential Committee should "carefully guard the Board from any committal to the approval of that doctrine," which, in other words, means that one of the functions of the Prudential Committee is to look after the special and private theological opinions of its missionaries as related to the interests of general and special orthodoxy-over and above their relations to the missionary

work.

How mischievous and dangerous such a policy would be we need use no words to show. How inconsistent and incongruous with the history of theological investigation in the United States and in our Congregational churches we need take no pains to prove. We New Englanders rejoice in our religious enterprise and our practical zeal and glory in their results as achieved at home and abroad, but we should never forget that the courage and enterprise which have been shown in all the forms of practical and theological thinking have had quite as much to do with these results as the money which we have expended and the lives which we have sacrificed in the missionary field. If we may boast of New England, the greater and the less, the

New England of the West and the East, for any reason, it is for the courage of its practical and speculative thinking within the lines and along the borders of our churches and on the summits of speculative inquiry. We need not say how manfully the expounders and defenders of Christian speculation and Christian exegesis have fought the good fight of faith under the ban of heresy-nor how Edwards laid the foundation of an improved theology by daring to apply to its truths the methods of the new philosophy, and Moses Stuart was bold to introduce to Andover Hill the new German Hermeneutics under difficulties and an odium no less serious than those which have befallen his successors. All that we need to contend for is simply tolerance, and on the ground that the opinions now in discussion do not concern the essentials of the Christian faith, and therefore are entitled to a charitable forbearance by those who reject them.

There are, moreover, higher and more important considerations especially to the Christian minister and these have much to do with the hesitation and slowness with which ready-made and dogmatic assertions in respect to future retribution should be asserted and responded to. There can be no question that a great change has come over the Christian church of modern days in respect to its views of the nature of the retributions which await the rejectors of the gospel and that a more or less pervasive and subtle skepticism contend with more or less well-grounded fears. That this is often the consequence of willful ignorance and thoughtlessness may be admitted without denying that the certainty and seriousness of such retributions are capable of rational vindication. The attendants in most of our churches who recognize themselves as without a living Christian faith would be outraged by such representations of the condition of the lost, as one finds in the sermons of Jonathan Edwards or Jeremy Taylor. They never hear them and they would not accept them if they should. What representations ought they to hear in their place? What theory and conception of the future life of the rejector of Christ ought they to confront in the faithful and rational ministrations of the gospel? We do not wonder that these questions often come home to the heart of the preacher, especially of the young preacher, and that in view of what he knows and what he thinks, he should be moved with conscien

tious impatience by the ready and flippant dogmatism which has nothing better to give than a traditional answer or a solemn and suspicious caution. The reader of the clever novel that makes sport of the exaggerated orthodoxies of other times joins in the laughter at the caricature but finds in the caricature no response to his convictions concerning the moral seriousness and infinite pathos of that other life, in which the tares and wheat are certain to be reaped. Meanwhile the theological adviser of our ingenious youth warns him abundantly of his danger, but fails to instruct him satisfactorily in respect to the errors of the times, or the solemn verities by which these errors are to be confronted and put to shame.

It is also more and more obvious that the New Testament itself which seems so plain to the Bible reader and is so plain to him in respect to what is vital to his welfare, opens manifold difficulties to the Bible student in respect to the last things which are comprehended under the second coming of Christ and the events before and after. We need not state what these difficulties are, but it is well known to the accomplished student and interpreter that they raise many more questions than it is easy to answer, and suggest manifold possibilities between which it is not always easy to decide. Some of these exceptional solutions have been accepted with the utmost confidence even by missionaries of the American Board, and been preached with great ardor as the very central truths of the gospel, while they have been rejected, though tolerated, by many who call themselves evangelical Christians. Conspicuous among these theories are those which pertain to the intermediate state as variously held and interpreted. Here also a large and a narrow toleration has been accorded by different schools. The special theory which has occasioned so serious a disturbance in our Board of Missions has found favor with some of the ablest and noblest thinkers in the German evangelical schools, such as Nitszch, Julius Müller, and Dorner, and manifestly relieves the sensitive mind of one class of serious difficulties. To a reasonable mind it would seem to be entitled to that tolerance which the difficulties of the subject matter justify and require. That well read and thoughtful students should often hesitate and delay in forming their conclusions should occasion no surprise and bring

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no condemnation. That they should now and then change their theories with the authors whom they read is no more than is natural. That any greater fixedness or immutability of opinion should be expected of one who proposes to be a missionary abroad than is expected from ordinary mortals is simply puerile and preposterous. That it is bad economy to send inferior men into trying and difficult positions is emphatically true, but when the question comes to be asked by what tests will you try and form your superior men, it is soon discovered that it is not the man who asks the fewest questions or tests the fewest theories that settles upon the strongest faith or faces most readily the martyr's fire. It is also more and more distinctly understood that in the missionary field preeminently it is the way a man holds and exemplifies the faith which he holds that tells most effectually upon the way he defends and enforces it, and this is usually determined by the way in which he gained it; whether it was the product of hard-fought convictions oftentimes slowly won or of dicta tamely accepted and therefore feebly held.

While the signs of the times indicate that Christian missions are full of promise and inspiration, it were a pity that in obedience to a theological theory or the impulses of a narrow intolerance any gifted and zealous Christian youth should be repelled from responding to the call Go preach my gospel.

We cannot but recall the fact that, in the dawn of modern missions, the truth was more and more distinctly seen by prophetic minds, that the new movement of evangelistic zeal would assuredly give to the church a simpler, a more biblical, a more loving, and a more catholic theology, as well as a larger inspiration of the Christian life. This anticipation has been signally fulfilled in our country, and very largely by the agency of the Congregational churches. While other bodies have been rent in twain by the tension of the new theological and evangelical life, these churches have been schooled by their controversies into wiser practical lessons of tolerance and freedom on the one hand, and fervor and consecration on the other. God forbid that we should barter our theological freedom, or our evangelistic zeal, for dogmatic intolerance or ecclesiastical management.

NOAH PORTER.

ARTICLE III.-THE ETHICS OF LABOR.

WE hear a great deal just at the present time about the rights and wrongs of labor. Much has been said and written upon the subject by thoughtful persons from every class of society, and by agitators and busybodies who are too often the very reverse of thoughtful. It is generally spoken of as a social question, and the moral aspect of the subject is by many either forgotten or ignored. Yet this is the most important of all elements; for it lies at the foundation of the subject. The words "rights" and "wrongs," are ethical terms, and whenever we use them we imply that we are dealing with a moral question, whether we recognize the fact or not. Whenever the terms are used in connection with labor and the laborer, there is the implication that labor has a certain moral value or a certain moral relation to society and to wealth. In other words, the amount of labor which each individual must perform in the course of his life and the proportion of wealth that he shall receive in return for his labor are not mere problems of science, to be solved by the skillful adjustment of social machinery, and largely conditioned by the changing relations of society. They are questions of real moral gravity, to be answered by an appeal to the eternal principles of truth and righteousness; and every man will be held accountable at the bar of Divine justice for the way in which he answers them.

The majority of mankind look upon the world of society as a great reservoir from which, by some means honest or dishonest, they are to draw out whatever each one may consider necessary for his sustenance or enjoyment. They never ask who stores the reservoir, or what will become of their fellowmen when it is drained of its contents. Still less do they think that they have any duty in the matter of filling it. They say, "The world owes us a living and we are going to have it;" and they do not stop to enquire what is the ground of this indebtedness or whether it has any limit other than the limit of their own capacity to consume and to enjoy.

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