the Cleveland order have introduced, not a separate bill, but an amendment to the Appropriation Bill. This amendment, which has now been favorably reported to the Senate, would annul the whole forestry proclamation. Whatever local injustice there may have been in the executive act, we believe that it was far outweighed by the good to the whole country which the act accomplished.

The Exposition just opened at Nashville commemorates the completion of a hundred years of existence for the State of Tennessee. The exact centennial date fell on June 1 of last year, and it was originally intended to hold the Exposition in 1896, but for various reasons postponement seemed desirable. Nashville itself was founded seventeen years before the admission of Tennessee as a State, and on the appropriate date the city, now the thirty-eighth in size in the Union, celebrated its centenary. Tennessee has in the past century increased her population more than sevenfold; it is now at least 1,800,000. The present Exposition is described as being already nearly complete -a novelty, indeed, in great expositions. A beautiful site was selected, and the landscape gardener's art has made of it a wonderfully attractive place, while the architecture of the many buildings has been wisely subordinated to a harmonious and unified general result. Many of the sister States will exhibit liberally, and the general Government has spent $130,000 in providing for a United States Building and filling it with National exhibits. The Exposition will last until October, and during its existence there will be many special meetings and conferences. An interesting feature will be the exhibits of the negro race. The Outlook will print, later, articles from a special correspondent commenting on whatever is most significant in the Exposition.

The question of conferring degrees on women who have passed the degree examinations is now up at Cambridge, as it was up last year at Oxford. English women, who have found that a degree is of great practical value, and who cannot understand why, having done the work

which men do, they should not re. ceive the recognition which men receive, asked last year to be put upon a basis of equality with men at the University of Oxford; and the University of Oxford, after a heated discussion, reported in these columns, refused their request. This question is now up at the University of Cambridge. It was to be expected that Mr. and Mrs. Henry Sidgwick would support the movement. The Bishop of Stepney has proposed a compromise in the form of the founding (by Oxford and Cambridge) of a woman's university, to confer degrees on women who have passed examinations at Oxford or Cambridge of any other English university. This compromise, like many other compromises, would simply change the position of Cambridge from that of a primary to that of a secondary cause, without really shifting its responsibility, and is not likely to be accepted. The report of the syndicate appointed to inquire into the question recommends that the women who fulfill conditions as to residence and as to examinations which are practically identical with those required from men who are to receive the honor degrees, shall receive the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and in due time the degree of Master of Arts, with the further proposal that, after a due interval and upon the evidence of unusual scholarship through valuable or original contributions to science or letters, the degree of Doctor in Science or Letters should be conferred, and that honorary degrees in Arts, Law, Letters, Science, and Music should from time to time be conferred upon women of special distinction who have not met the usual conditions, but who are specially recommended for distinction, as in the case of men. In other words, the syndicate proposes that, so far as honors are concerned, the women shall hereafter be placed on an equality with men at the University of Cambridge, but the degrees so conferred are not to convey to women membership in the University, or the right to participate in the management of its affairs. The matter will be decided by vote some time during the present month.

The French have not been very successful colonists. The race suffers from

Book

It is characteristic of French intelligence to recognize the success of English methods in colonization, and equally characteristic of that intelligence to endeavor to make Frenchmen aware of the causes for this success. This was precisely what was done in educational circles in France at the close of the great war. The superiority of German methods was not only recognized, but, with rare sagacity, an attempt was made to adopt them in France, with such modifications as the situation required. A distinguished American, whose voice in public affairs always carries weight, said not long ago that the crying need in this country was knowledge of the facts. This knowledge it is almost impossible to get, because the newspapers are, as a rule, so partisan or so sensational in their methods that truth is the last thing they present to their readers; and yet truth is the one thing of which the world stands in supreme need. It has plenty of passion, race prejudice, partisan feeling; what it needs is intelligence. A new French journal, which is to be published fortnightly, will present a digest from all the information received during that time of colonial movements and life. It will aim to disseminate exact and trustworthy information about all matters in the colonies, and it will endeavor, through its editorials, to form and lead public opinion. If the new journal succeeds in carrying out what it proposes, it will become educational in a very high degree, and its example may well be followed in other countries.

Our readers' especial attention is called to the careful and scholarly article by Dr. B. W. Bacon on another page. It is important, not only because it interprets in brief Professor Harnack's last contribution to current theological literature, but also because it corrects what appear to us to be certain curiously incorrect interpretations of this notable volume. Harnack would be surprised to find himself quoted as a witness against Wellhausen, and Wellhausen would be not less surprised to find himself identified as belonging to the school of Baur.

Baur approached the New Testament with a theory-that there was in the Apostolic Church a hot battle between the Pauline and the Petrine factions, and that a large proportion of the New Testament books were written in a polemical spirit, and as a makeweight in that controversy. Wellhausen and Harnack approach the Bible without any preconceived theory, to ascertain, by a critical study of its contents, in accordance with the literary and historical canons applied to the study of other literatures, what are the dates, the objects, and the nature of the various books, and who were their probable authors. Applied to the Old Testament, this method has proved, to the satisfaction of substantially all who employ it, that the Rabbinical traditions respecting the Old Testament are generally untrustworthy and must be abandoned. Applied by Harnack to the New Testament, this method indicates to his satisfaction that the Christian traditions respecting the New Testament are largely trustworthy and may be accepted-albeit he corrects them in some important particulars.

The conclusion that the Christian traditions concerning the New Testament are trustworthy is not in the least inconsistent with the conclusion that the Rabbinical traditions concerning the Old Testament are untrustworthy. Harnack is not an authority against either the literary and scientific method of Biblical criticism pursued by such scholars as Wellhausen, Cheyne, and Driver, or against the conclusions which they have reached respect

ing the date and authorship of the Old Testament books.

Nor is there anything novel in the discrediting of Baur. It would be difficult to mention any thoroughly modern scholar who accepts Baur's conclusions or approaches the New Testament with Baur's dogmatic presuppositions.

The value of Harnack's work lies chiefly in the fact that he pushes the dates of some important events, such as Paul's conversion, and some important books, such as First Corinthians, back nearer to the resurrection of Jesus Christ than they have been heretofore placed, and makes it still more difficult than before to entertain the opinion that belief in the resurrection was the result of a dogmatic tendency or grew up as a myth. The "Watchman " is quite correct in saying that "it is necessary for a tendency to have an opportunity to crystallize, and for a myth to have time to grow." The value of Dr. Harnack's volume is that it affords a new demonstration that there was no opportunity for the "tendency," of which Baur conceived, to crystallize, and no time for the myth, into which Strauss resolved the Gospel narratives, to grow. There is nothing novel even in this conclusion, which the readers of The Outlook have seen affirmed repeatedly in its pages. Harnack's book is simply a testimony from an unprejudiced and competent scholar, who has all his life pursued the scientific method in Biblical criticism, to the fact that there was three or four years less time for a myth to grow than previous scholars had supposed. Harnack's volume confirms the wisdom of applying the scientific method to the study of the Bible, because it shows that this method ratifies the faith of the Church in the great essential facts of the life, passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

An Overlooked Service

In a recent speech at the opening of a free library Mrs. Humphry Ward emphasized a service rendered by such libraries which is very frequently overlooked. When the public library is discussed, its relation to all classes of readers very naturally and properly comes to the front;

it is everywhere recognized as an instrumentality for the general education of the community. If it does no more for a great many people than furnish the means of pleasure and of rest which come through the reading of good fiction, it renders no small service. Of course it does a great deal more than this for the community as a whole; for it not only provides rest and pleasure, but it also furnishes ample and multiplied means of instruction. Very few people realize how much education is effected by good articles of travel or popular accounts of scientific experiment and discovery. But there is a special service beyond these general contributions to the whole community-the service which is rendered in the offering of opportunity to the exceptional boy or girl, man or woman, of unusual intelligence and ability.

Now, the good of the community is realized, not only when the community mind is fertilized by access to a free library, but when these exceptional minds are let out of narrow and hard conditions into the freedom and power which come from culture. The community stands just as much in need of the full development of its highest intellect as in the full development of its average intellect. A free library which has helped one boy of genius to find himself and his power has amply justified the expenditure of all the time and money involved in its organization and support. Mrs. Ward recalled a miner whom she had known, who had worked eleven hours a day for eleven days in order to train himself to read a Greek play with ease and accuracy; and doubtless Mrs. Ward could have recalled many other working men and women who have shown the same passion for knowledge and the same power of acquiring it. Any one who knows working people knows with what pathetic avidity they often lay hold of such knowledge as comes in their way, and what strides they make by passionate persistence and self-denial. Professor Huxley more than once expressed his astonishment at the passion with which so many workingmen gave up their scanty leisure to scientific study. The exceptional mind in every community needs to be cared for quite as thoroughly as the average mind, and it ought not to be forgotten by those who have charge

It is the result of serious endeavor, a product of will intelligently directed.

In the religious realm the "will to believe" is an essential factor in all valuable belief. The traditionalism which forbids research and paralyzes the will by giving to the soul a belief ready made is almost as great a foe to faith as the indifferentism which declares that research is useless and ignorance a necessity. The one paralyzes the will by offering the result of thought without the trouble of thinking; the other, by declaring that thinking, however earnest and honest, will bring no result: but both paralyze it. And by paralyzing it both destroy faith. For faith is in the "will to believe" more than in the belief itself, in the high endeavor more than in the resultant creed. All moral beliefs have this "will to believe " behind them, giving them at once their inspiration and their worth.

For it is in the will rather than in the intellect that moral quality lies. He who desires to believe that Love is the Ruler of the universe, and is strenuous to bring his life into harmony with the law of love, is better than he who believes, or thinks he believes, that God is love and does not care whether He is or not. He who desires to find some clearer unveiling of God than he can find in Nature or in the consciousness of his own soul, has a better faith than he who believes, or thinks he believes, that the Bible is an infallible revelation from God, and never reads it. He who feels the burden of his past guilt and the hindrance of his present imperfection, and has the will to believe in a Helper who shall save him from his own undoing, has a truer and more Christian faith than he who believes, or thinks he believes, in the total depravity of the human race and in salvation by grace, but never experiences humility in the one belief or hope in the other. On the one hand, earnest skepticism has in it more faith than indifferent belief; on the other, the moral evil of agnosticism lies not so much in the doctrine that God and the future are unknown and unknowable, as the spirit which is satisfied to leave them so.

The most skeptical man can have the "will to believe." He can wish there were a God of supreme authority, whom he might obey with unfaltering loyalty;

that there were a life of love and service, worth immortality, and that he might make it his own; that there were some sure word of prophecy by which he could interpret the hieroglyphics of Nature and the mystic voices in his own soul; that there were some Helper to whom he could look alike to teach him what life is and to give him power to attain it. And it is this "will to believe" which is the faith that saves.

Trinity and Its Work

The beautiful church which has so long stood at the head of Wall Street in this city, and the ringing of whose chimes has so often welcomed the New Year to Manhattan Island, is one of the few visible links which connect the New York of today with that remote past when it was a provincial town in a small colony. Trinity Church has passed through every phase of our municipal history, has become powerful in activities of various kinds by a long and quiet process of growth, and has come to hold a vast inheritance by virtue of its long kinship to the prosperity of the foremost city on the continent. Belonging to a conservative and historic Church, it represents in a unique way the tradition of religious life in the city. Other churches, born with it, have followed the currents of population, and rebuilt themselves in newer parts of the city; in her different chapels, which are large and splendid edifices, Trinity has moved with the tide, but the mother church stands where it was planted, and there, no doubt, it will stand to the end of time. The day is not far distant when the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, which in some sense is the child of Trinity, and Columbia University, which used to stand almost in her shadow and with which she divided her patrimony, will crown the Morningside Heights, seven or eight miles distant from Wall Street; but Trinity keeps her vigil on the spot first consecrated to her use in the service of Almighty God.

No stranger who sees lower New York for the first time fails to enter the noble structure whose spire has been dwarfed by gigantic business buildings, but whose uses and symbolism still assert an authority and supremacy not to be gainsaid or