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keep weather records for the use of scientists in the department of meteorology, as in the case of the Moravians in Tibet and others in remotest stations in interior Africa, China, and the sea islands. Missionaries have also disseminated scientific knowledge in distant parts of the world. Wheaton's International Law, translated by a missionary; Dr. Morison's great Chinese Dictionary; medical writings, like Dr. Hobson's, of Hongkong; revisions of the calendar of the Chinese; and the dissemination of information upon history, geography, and general science would, the London Times says, "alone redeem the work of the missionaries from the stigma of failure." It is something to start whole nations on the use of scientific knowledge, as it is certain to result in an increase of scientific observation and data from the inhabitants of these several countries.

BIBLE TRANSLATION INTO NON-CHRISTIAN LANGUAGES,

THE Hindustani is a language understood by about one hundred millions of people, and hence is the most important language spoken in India. Several editions of the Hindustani Bible have been in circulation, with considerable variation, for some time. It has been desired by many that a thorough revision be undertaken with a view to unification and improvement in idiom. Considerable change has taken place in the Hindustani language within the century, and the qualification of the missionaries for the work of translation has improved. Provision was lately made for this work, and a committee of six translators was duly appointed-three representing the Church of England, two the Methodists, and one the Presbyterians, with whom are associated two native scholars, one a Christian, the other a Mohammedan—as referees in matters of idiom and taste. The Methodist members of this committee are Rev. T. J. Scott, D.D., principal of the Bareilly Theological Seminary, and Rev. Robert Haskins, Ph.D.

A communication from Dr. Scott brings afresh to mind the great difficulty of conveying Christian ideas of ethics and of spiritual life to nonChristian peoples. Missionaries are obliged to use such words as exist, which very poorly convey ideas and sometimes wholly erroneous ideas, in the effort to give new meanings to them; or they transfer words wholly foreign, and patiently wait till the people slowly come to apprehend their meaning. Either method is fraught with dangers, and yet, strange to say, no serious heresy has disturbed any part of the native Church of any denomination in India. But this is not the obstacle to which reference is intended just now. It is rather to the difficulty of conveying spiritual concepts. Dr. Scott furnishes two illustrations, which we quote. He says: "Two cases may be given as illustrating the danger to be avoided of giving encouragement to mischievous ideas already current among the people for whom the translation is intended. In stating the true law of divorce the Saviour met the reply from his disciples that, on such conditions, it is not good to marry,' by affirming that all men cannot

receive this saying save they to whom it is given.' The idea prevails largely in India that celibacy is a peculiarly holy estate, to which special merit attaches, and our difficulty in rendering the phrase, ȧ22' oiç dédorai, 'to whom it is given,' was to avoid giving color to this idea. Again, in 2 Cor. v, 10, it said that we must all be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things done in the body.' The difficulty is in rendering the phrase dià тov owμatoç so as not to encourage the idea that the body is at fault. Hinduism holds the body as the cause of sin. Evil is in matter. Both the old and the new English version render 'dia' by 'in,' but the English revisers put 'through' in the margin, showing what might be an alternative rendering, 'done through the body.' After long and spirited discussion a rendering in Hindustani identical with this was adopted, the committee being divided in the final vote. A preposition that caused the committee a good deal of perplexity was iv. The difficulty often was to decide whether it has an instrumental or locative meaning. In such phrases as ἐν Χριστῷ (2 Cor. v, 17), 'in Christ,' and έv πvɛvμatı (Rev. i, 10), 'in the spirit,' the locative meaning seems clear, but it is difficult to convey any lucid idea to a mind unprepared for it. To the instructed Christian the phrases 'in Christ' and 'in the spirit' have a meaning and unfold a blessed mystic experience, but to the Mohammedan they are unmeaning. He would never think of being 'in' Mohammed or 'in' God; indeed, he does not seem able to think it. As a rule in such cases no attempt by paraphrase or circumlocution was made to avoid this difficulty, but the ability to grasp the meaning was left to the result of experience and the development of spiritual perception in the reader."

The Hindustani language differs somewhat in various localities over the large area in which it is spoken, but hardly more than the English language varies in Great Britain. The Delhi idiom was adopted as the best type of the language. The ablest native scholars of that city were secured to work with the committee. The Hindustani as a highly inflected language, having some connection with the Greek on its Sanskrit and Persian side, and some kinship with the Hebrew on its Arabic side, is an excellent medium for a translation of the Bible. Besides being the language of peoples possessing almost all possible shades of moral feeling and religious thought, often, too, coming from the Bible, it is comparatively well adapted to the purpose of the translator.

MONEY AND MISSIONS.

IN considering the opportunities and facilities afforded the Christian Church for the evangelization of the world there is one fact which needs to be accentuated far more than it is, namely, the vast increase in the wealth of Christendom. In an English periodical, Pearson's Magazine for March, 1898, are found statements which ought to attract the attention of the Church. In treating of the wealth of the world the

writer follows Mulhall and Sir Richard Giffen in their statistical summaries. Setting down the wealth of the world at five hundred thousand million dollars, it is shown with tolerable accuracy that three hundred and fifty thousand million dollars are in the possession of Christian nations. That is, two thirds of the entire capital of the world is in the hands of the nominally Christian population of the globe. If one thinks of the power of money in war, commercial enterprises, and other avenues of activity, and for a moment will fancy this condition reversed and the money of the world in Moslem and heathen hands, the formidable force to be overcome in the advance of Christianity would at once appear greatly augmented.

But what is still more noticeable is the fact that of the three hundred and fifty thousand million dollars in the control of Christian nations Protestantism is estimated to be possessed of four sevenths of it. Or, in other words, the Protestants of the world have an accumulated capital of two hundred thousand million dollars.

The fact that God has given this wealth forces on conscientious possessors of it the question as to the obligations of the people in its use. The chancellor of the exchequer of England estimates that the waste in cigar ends alone is just about equal to the aggregate contributed by the nation for Protestant foreign missions. The common conscience needs elevating as to the use of surplus wealth.

THE PARIAH'S FRIEND.

THE work among the submerged tenth, or the fifty millions of the lower classes of India's population, has met with considerable criticism in some quarters. A large proportion of the work done by the Methodist Episcopal Church in the territory of the North and Northwest India Conferences has been among this class of people. Dr. Jenkins, in his speech at the recent Wesleyan Conference on mission work in India, said: "The problem of the Indian pariah is beginning to be understood. Those neglected millions, once deprived of all rank, driven beyond the shelter of law, not counted as a class of the population, the victims of an insolent and oppressive caste, thank God, are now rising into notice. Their rights as citizens are not only discussed and conceded in Hindu debating societies and in native journals, but are demanded and justified by the growing intelligence of the pariahs themselves. This transition -call it translation-of out-castes to the position and immunities of citizenship was not initiated by government; it is a brilliant missionary record. For many years before legislation touched the condition of the out-caste the missionary was the pariah's friend. Missionaries fought single-handed the pariah's battle, and there is no period in my Indian life --if you will pardon a personal reference-upon which I look back with more satisfaction than the time when I joined other men in resisting the infamous assumption of Brahmanisin that the pariah was not equal, and therefore was not entitled, to the privileges of education."

FOREIGN OUTLOOK.

SOME LEADERS OF THOUGHT.

J. Rülf. taking a leading place in the general thought of the world. Rülf has undertaken nothing less than the erection of a new system of metaphysics. The last of the four volumes devoted to the exposition of this system has but recently been published, Wissenschaft der Geisteseinheit (Science of Unitary Spirit). Leipzig, H. Haacke, 1898. The entire system is called the science of the unitary idea, and is in reality a system of monism. The single idea which includes all others is that of force. This is the substance which remains constant in the midst of change, and which causes all beginnings, controls all becomings, and determines all endings. The concluding volume undertakes to prove that all force is spirit, that all spirit is force, and that all forms of spirit and of force are one and identical. Force and matter are one and the same; hence, body and soul, nature and spirit, are identical. Spiritual force is nothing but conscious force. Spirit is either individual, distinguishing itself from other individuals, or personal, in which case it is possessed of self-consciousness, which the individual spirit lacks; or universal, which is nothing but a personal spirit-with the consciousness that in it all spiritual life is congregated and unified, that as the world belongs to it so it belongs to the world, that this world as a thing of force is also a thing of spirit, and that all is one force and at the same time one spirit. This universal spirit is God-not the world-order, but the absolute personal spirit-in whom man and every creature, organic and inorganic, finds its significance, reality, and permanence. This is a very brief summary of an extensive and really great system. Critics have already pointed out that Rülf has merely modified the system of Hegel, and that therefore he cannot expect to realize his hope that his system shall regenerate philosophy and the philosophical world-view. His critics may be right. Indeed, we have no doubt they are; but, though not all shall be accomplished which Rülf hopes, it does not follow that nothing shall be achieved for the solution of the great problem with which he has so vigorously wrestled. Monism in philosophy is not new, but he has given us some new points of view. If he has not always gone to the depths of the problem he has at least done as much as the majority of the best thinkers have done.

Seldom, as here, are we able to name a rabbi as one of those

R. Schaefer. The Lord's Supper, which has recently been the subject of so much literary strife, is made the theme for a study by this student, who reaches a good, old-fashioned, orthodox Lutheran conclusion. He

discusses, first, the question of the origin, and, second, that of the significance, of the supper. He reaches the conclusion that they are wrong who believe Jesus did not intend the institution of a sacrament, to be continued through all time; but that, in connection with the passover, he established a festival which was to take the place of the old Jewish feast. The Lord's Supper sprang from the institution of Jesus, not from any felt need of the early Christians for such a memorial. The disciples repeated the meal because Jesus provided for its repetition. They fully understood him. Every attempt to explain the origin of the Lord's Supper, apart from a provision of Jesus himself, leads to insuperable difficulties. The recognition of it as his institution makes all clear. In the second part, after a careful and extended examination of the words of institution found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul, the author concludes that if—as all the reports of the establishment of the Lord's Supper testify-Jesus spoke of his own nature as body and blood, it follows that the institution has to do with realities and with a real partaking of the real Christ, and not with symbolic acts or a mere ideal appropriation of Christ. Schaefer thinks that the language of Paul teaches the same thing. But this is in reality the doctrine of consubstantiation. Speaking of the report in Mark he says that the words mean what they say, that Jesus passed around to his disciples his real body and blood, and that by faith the disciples received the same. There is always a suspicion in our minds, when anyone takes up a matter afresh, and comes to conclusions so perfectly accordant with those of the Church or party to which he adheres, that he was determined to reach those conclusions before he began. Particularly do we so suspect when, as in this case, the orthodox opinions reached are erroneous from our standpoint. What necessity there is for insisting on the literalness of the words "body" and "blood," unless that necessity arises from dogmatics, it is impossible to say. When Luther and his followers so insisted, for professedly dogmatic reasons, they were in some measure excusable. When, however, a modern scholar, who professedly pursues a critical method, allows himself to interpret as literal that which can be literal only on the supposition of a miracle, and yet fails to point out how his documents indicate any intention to record a miracle, he vitiates his entire conclusion. Schaefer carried his love of old Lutheranism too far.

Paul Volz. If anyone imagines that the labors of Old Testament criticism are not as zealous and numerous as formerly he greatly mistakes the facts. Phase after phase of the Old Testament is studied with commendable diligence, if not always with unquestionable results. Volz has chosen for the subject of a recent investigation the preexilic Jahweh prophecy and the Messiah (Die vorexilische Jahwehprop hetie und der Messias). Göttingen, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1897. He states and defends three propositions, (1) that the Messianic idea is foreign to

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