but the intense spiritual faith that dominated his thinking and directed his writing. He was more than ordinarily spiritual in feeling and original sense. He could have developed into a fanatic or mystic, but was preserved from the extreme issue and from incoherency in experience by the solid reserve forces of intellect and will. He had a "passion for symbols," and was ever under restraint in interpretation of the Scriptures lest he might indulge in allegorical meanings and remote conclusions.

As a critic and theologian he occupied the evangelical position, and served as a bulwark against the rapidly increasing rationalistic sentiment of the times. In making this statement, however, we must not be misunderstood. While he was far from according to heterodox criticism the correctness of its conclusions, or the justice of its attack upon the Scriptures, he was not an inelastic orthodoxist, vindicating every peccadillo of expression, or defending even some of its larger theories of belief. In fundamental doctrine he was concretely evangelical, resting his faith on the supernaturalism of the New Testament. He held to the old theology, not because it is old, but because of its historic demonstration and unchanging truthfulness. He was a Christian believer because, to his judgment, the facts of Christianity have no explanation on any other hypothesis than that of a projected supernaturalism in the sphere of the natural. The new theology he rejected because of its lack of supernaturalism. Between naturalism and supernaturalism there is a gulf, deep, wide, impassable; hence, there can be no compromise, no bargaining between them. He accepted the fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and with it the cognate facts and doctrines of the New Testament. Believing in Christ, he experienced forgiveness of sin, and all other spiritual experiences common to Christians. This experience distinguished him from the assailants of Christianity, and gave him an advantage over them which he was not slow to improve. We are indebted to him for the statement that miracles cannot be rejected, á priori; that is, that one cannot decide in advance against the supernatural, and then proceed against miracles because they are supernatural. This dictum disposes of many critics who reject miracles on no other ground than their preconceived and incorrect notions of the supernatural. In common with German scholars he held a too exalted view of the sacraments, teaching that they are efficacious when administered, and act irresistibly, ex opere operato.

As touching biblical criticism, he gave his best labors to the investigation of its more serious problems, working some of them to his satisfac tion, but confessing to considerable perplexity in grappling with others. This is not surprising, as the most conservative evangelical believer will admit that many literary questions, as well as the great supernatural question, cannot be settled in a moment; nor, if at all, without the most consuming carefulness and the employment of the most profound scholarship. Professor Delitzsch was not an exception. Fearing the new criticism, he yet was compelled to accept some of its dicta and data, and did so with a freedom suggestive of a liberal mind. He did not

deny the composite character of Genesis; but he did affirm the Mosaic authorship in general of the Pentateuch. He wrote one commentary on Genesis, but current opinion induced him to write another, which shows that he was pliable, open to new thought, observed the latest criticisms, and conformed to them when established. His Isaiah also, as first written, is on the side of conservative criticism; but revised, it exhibits the influence of rationalistic sentiment. It may be said that in his modification of some views he was not self-consistent; he was vacillating and irreso lute; he was neither independent nor safe as a teacher and expositor. Certainly he did not mean to compromise himself; but he was in a transitional state of mind, and lived not long enough to work his way out of difficulties. He lived, however, long enough to give currency to New Testament religion, and to point the rationalistic teachers of Germany to the supernaturalistic fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ as a sufficient basis for a supernatural religion. If in some respects he were influenced by an adverse criticism touching literary questions, he influenced to a greater extent the negative critics in his defense of supernaturalism, and in resisting the control they sought of religious instruction in the universities. Balancing gains and losses, the former exceed the latter. Evangelical religion owes much to the fidelity of the Professor to spiritual doctrine, and perhaps has lost nothing by the liberalism that in his age he seems to have cherished.

It is worthy of remark that while Professor Delitzsch was critical, observing, and alert in defense of the truth, he did not adopt the methods of Kuenen, Wellhausen, Dillmann, or Renan in the study of the Scriptures. He had a method of his own, and reached his conclusions by none of the processes of the rationalists. We have sometimes denounced rationalistic methods as inapplicable to the study of literature because they antagonize common sense, pure logic, and historic results. Professor Delitzsch is an example of a critic investigating the Scriptures in as scholarly a way and as exhaustively as any destructionist, and yet without, and contrary to, the methods of the latter. It is absurd to claim that the Bible must be torn into pieces, or reconstructed, or destroyed, before it can be understood. With their methods Dr. Delitzsch had no sympathy, nor has any scholar who is not captivated with destructionism.

As a worker the Professor was exemplary. He toiled until commanded to cease; he wrote until his pen dropped from his hand. Only five days before his death he wrote his preface to his last book, entitled Messianic Prophecies in Historic Order. Like Moses, he lived to a ripe age when, with eye undimmed and natural force unabated, his pulse was stilled and he entered upon the inheritance of the saints in light.

48-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. VI.

THE ARENA.

THE LOCAL CHURCH-A WEAK SPOT.

THE Church of the future will exhibit two characteristics-genuine piety and effective organization. The absence of either of these qualities will prove sufficient to damage, and finally, in the increasing competition of the future, to destroy, any Church, whether local or connectional, that fails to possess it.

A few years ago the Rev. Mr. Frothingham closed up his ministry, confessing it to have been a failure, and declaring in his last sermon that the future of the world was in the grip of organization. We are living in a practical age when the supreme test of truth is life. What are we doing to make men better, to make purer homes, a nobler society, a higher civilization? Methodism as a connectional institution is thoroughly organized. Rome herself does not surpass it. But Methodism in the local church is a survival of a past age, when all efforts were purely missionary and evangelical, and the energies of the Church were directed almost exclusively to the conversion of adults. In those days we had few members to care for, few children to train for God, and no constituency in the world that gave us recognition. To-day we are face to face with new conditions. We have a vast constituency. The splendid successes of the past have brought the people close to us, while the proper care of our members and children entails new obligations and duties. Besides, we must recognize a change in the temper of the times which makes the oldfashioned contagious revival a rare occurrence among us. There are revivals still, but they are associated with the most elaborate organization. The Rev. B. Fay Mills, in the late revival in Newark, N. J., caused the city to be districted and visited by committees of all the churches, and sixty thousand invitations were distributed before the first meeting was held. We cannot conceive the possibility of the Chautauqua movement originating among our Methodist fathers three generations ago. The Oxford League, with its articulated intellectualism and benevolent work, is another symptom of our times; nor can we conceive of its existence in the days when Jacob Gruber and Benjamin Abbott went up and down the land like angels of the Apocalypse and scores were slain by the power of God under single sermons. Every age has its own work and must do it in its own way. And we have little occasion for tears because forms and methods, the incidents of the spiritual life, change or pass away, so long as the Church is advancing toward "the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.”

What, then, is the organization of the average Methodist church to-day? This may be learned from our services. Our Sabbath services of worship are generally effective, and our preaching may compare with the best in the land. Our Sunday-schools may also be commended, though there is great room for improvement. Our class-meetings are, for the most part, a feeble survival of a once mighty institution, while the prayer-meeting

still brings comfort and benediction to the elect minority who, week after week, wonder why the others never come. The energies of the local church begin and end with itself, and these energies are directed almost exclusively to spiritual ends. But should not every church be a center of philanthropy to the community? Should it not be a center of intellectual inspiration to its own congregation and to those without? Should it not be organized for missionary work in the neighborhood? If there are Dorcases among our members there must be widows and orphans on the church-rolls, for whom efficient work may be done. The duties of the Church may be gathered from the life of her Lord, for she is more than his witness-she stands to the world in "Christ's stead." Nay, she is he -his body. He went about doing good. Jesus was a superlative humanitarian, and the Church of the future will be that Church which most completely manifests his spirit and continues his work.

"Her litanies sweet offices of love and gratitude,

Her sacramental liturgies the joy of doing good."

There is work, then, for our legislators in the organization of the local church. And this organization should put work and responsibility more upon the people and less upon the minister, whose stay is limited.

I. Every church should be organized, perhaps some society established, for the Christian nurture of every infant born into the parish. At certain fixed ages these children should have public recognition before the Church, such as the presentation of a Bible on Children's Day when they are five or seven years old. Our present system does not go far enough and is too dependent on the pastor.

II. Every church should be organized for perpetual home mission work. Why not a board of deaconesses in every church to do the work for which Paul commended the women at Philippi?

III. Every church should be organized to represent Jesus in pure philanthropy, such as caring for the sick and the orphan and the poor, and this with little care for parish boundaries. The ideal church will have an effective center of missionary inspiration to kindle sympathy with the kingdom of God in the world. It will have provision for mental culture JOSEPH PULLMAN.

and fostering the talents of its youth. New Britain, Conn.

A DEFINITION WHICH NEEDS DEFINING.

The last General Conference defined a missionary bishop to be "a bishop elected for a specified foreign mission field, with full episcopal powers, but with episcopal jurisdiction limited to the foreign mission field for which he was elected." It at the same time declared that "he is not a general superintendent," and cannot be made such "except by a distinct election to that office."

If this definition settles the status of a missionary bishop, it certainly unsettles all former notions of our episcopacy. The Discipline regards the titles "bishop" and "general superintendent" as synonymous, and

66

all Methodist literature has so employed them. Now, however, we have a bishop with full episcopal powers" who "is not a general superintendent." It follows that a bishop and general superintendent are not the same. There is no question that a general superintendent is also a bishop; and since a missionary bishop, who is not a general superintendent, has "full episcopal powers," we now have two kinds of bishops. We know what these are; but what is a bishop, pure and simple? The two species we can understand. Will some one define the genus?

If a missionary bishop have "full episcopal powers" while he cannot do all that is required of a general superintendent, then we shall have to divide the powers of a general superintendent into episcopal and extraepiscopal powers. The distinction is not one of territorial jurisdiction merely. Were the General Conference held in a mission field, a bishop who is not a general superintendent could not preside. We repudiate a third order in the ministry, and, by consequence, deny that any powers inhere in the episcopacy. No such office as bishop (in contradistinction to general superintendent) ever existed in Methodism, and no grant of powers, therefore, was ever made to it by the Church. Whence came these "episcopal powers," and what are they? I am afraid they are explicable only by the doctrine of apostolic succession, which we deny.

By the definition "a missionary bishop is a bishop with limited jurisdiction," while by clear inference a general superintendent is a bishop with unlimited jurisdiction. Now, if the first is a bishop with full episcopal powers, then the second must be a bishop and something more. What is the use in beating about the bush? Call the one a diocesan bishop and the other an archbishop, and be done with it. The definition describes these two offices, and implies that they both belong to a third order in the ministry. Unless prelatical tendencies are to be encouraged this definition ought speedily to be revised. JACOB TODD. Wilmington, Del.

ANTIQUITY OF SACRED WRITINGS.

This question might be regarded as a purely literary one. Just now, however, it promises to have a wider interest. In the Pentateuchal question it is taking a practical turn. The advocates of the new adjustment will have it that there was the absence of literary qualifications in extreme antiquity. This stronghold of "the destructives" is about to give way under the discoveries of the times, even if before there was not ample proof to ordinary minds of the antiquity of both sacred and profane writings. Ewald tells us writing abounded in all the most an cient nations, and that it was a special boon to the ancient Jews. In this nation "the use of writing is much older than many scholars fifty years ago would allow." "Long before Moses, Semitic writing was in use in the nation of Israel, and that Moses availed himself of it for the service of the nation is now scientifically established; moreover, our exacter investigations leave us in no doubt to-day that subsequently, in the first centuries of the existence of the community, writing was handled with