The following agreement has been entered into by the above-named organizations respectively:

New York, April 24, 1885. It is hereby agreed between the Mason Builders' Association of New York and the Bricklayers' Unions Nos. 2, 33, 35, and 37, and the Amalgamated German Unions of the City of New York,

First-That the journeymen and foremen who were members of the Unions last summer be reinstated on payment of dues to date, and by the latter, of dues and assessments to date, which shall not exceed fifty

dollars.

Second-That the wages of bricklayers from May 1, 1885, to May 1, 1886, shall be forty-two cents per hour, nine hours on any day; Saturday, eight hours, with eight hours'

pay.

It is particularly requested that all grievances be immediately laid before the Committee in order to avoid all difficulties. (Signed)

MARC EIDLIDTZ, Chairman.
H. OSCAR COLE, Chairman.

The history of the Joint Arbitration Committee from that date to the present time, as shown by their minutes, is both interesting and suggestive. At first the Committee consisted of ten members, five from each side, elected for terms of not less than three months; weekly meetings were held, and special meetings at the call of the chair, three from each side constituting a quorum. Should the Joint Committee be unable to come to an agree ment upon any question, an umpire was to be chosen, whose decision would be binding on both sides.

At the weekly meetings matters of general interest were discussed, and personal grievances were brought up-sometimes those of workmen fined unjustly, as they claimed, by the Unions; sometimes those of the employers unfairly dealt with by the workmen; sometimes those of workmen paid less than Union rates by members of the Builders' Association; after which would follow a general discussion of views relating to the trade.

In 1886, after many meetings and discussions and references back and forth to the Builders' Association and the Bricklayers' Unions, finally, on March 24, an agreement for the year, as to its hours, wages, etc., was ratified, with the important additions that no strike was to be declared until the matter in dispute should

have been submitted to the Joint Arbitration Committee for settlement, and that no member of the Uhion should be discharged for inquiring after the cards of men working upon any job of a member. of the Mason Builders' Association.

During 1886 the number of delegates from each side was increased to six, a quorum being four members from each side. For a lack of business the weekly meetings were discontinued, the Committee meeting at the call of the chair on either side. Complaints of minor importance were duly acted on, the most serious of the year being twice repeated, against a prominent firm for paying less than the A committee regular wages. was appointed to wait on the firm and state that "the Mason Builders' Association cannot support any member in paying anything but Union wages." Thereafter no complaint of the above nature was presented against any member of the Association. The agreement for 1887 was made with but little friction, and was on the same lines as that of 1886.

In March of that year, at the first annual meeting of the National Association of Builders, Mr. John J. Tucker, of New York, spoke as follows: "In our efforts for the better promotion of the interests of all, we have established an arbitration through a conference held with our men, and by that arbitration we cover all disputes that may arise in the prosecution of

our work. For two or three years past that process has been going on, and has worked very satisfactorily to both sides. We have monthly meetings, at which the members on the other side meet with us, and any dispute that may arise during the progress of our employment is brought there for adjudication, and every case that has arisen so far has been met and adjusted without any difficulty on either side, and perfect harmony exists. I look upon the very fact of our coming now to this National Convention as being the commencement of a spirit of unity that is likely to pervade our land, and that the success of the movement will grow; and from it I think you will find that the condition of our mechanics will be very much improved through the incentive that will be given from this body."

In January, February, and March, 1888, there were many meetings of the Joint

Committee to discuss the agreement for the year, which was finally adopted in the old form, with this addition: "Except in case of necessity, no work shall be done between 5 and 6 P.M. on five days of the week, or between 4 and 5 P.M. on Saturday; and all overtime shall be paid at double rate."

The agreement of 1889 was almost the same as that of 1888, excepting that a definition of "overtime" in the case of two gangs of men was adopted. In February, 1890, the Unions demanded wages of fifty cents per hour, but it was not until March 6 that the demand was granted and the agreement ratified. During this year a great agitation arose among the Unions for an eight-hour work-day, and when the time came to meet the bosses in January, 1891, the Union delegates were not prepared to discuss the agreement for that year.

After a number of meetings, the demands of the Bricklayers' Unions (now numbering eight, all being represented on the Joint Committee, with five from each side to form a quorum) were presented as follows:

Eight hours shall constitute a day's work.

Wages, 50 cents per hour.

and, in fact, all great and momentous questions, may yet be settled by arbitration.

During the first two or three years that the plan of arbitration was in vogue, it was only by the greatest efforts that the leaders in the Unions were able to keep the men in line, many of them thinking that the bosses were having the best end of the agreement; but as the years rolled on, and concession after concession was granted, the men became satisfied that they were constantly gaining ground, and to-day no member of the Unions dares to advocate going back to the plans that prevailed previous to 1885.

The gain to the bricklayers since the inauguration of arbitration has been manifold. Then they worked ten hours a day for $3 and $4 during the summer, and anything the bosses chose to pay during the winter. Their money was, in many cases, not sure of being paid when due; they were put upon in every conceivable way, with but little chance of redress, and, in fact, were completely at the mercy of their employers. Now note the change. They receive $4 per day of eight hours, all the year round-even a half-hour being paid for; they feel perfectly secure in regard to their wages; and everything

P.M.

It took several meetings to settle this important subject, but finally, late in March, an agreement was reached whereby the Union carried their point relative to the eight-hour work-day, but gave in on the point of weekly, pay. Thus another great victory was gained without resorting to a strike.

Early in February, 1892, the proposed agreement for the year was read but no action was taken.

The new clauses demanded by the Unions made it necessary to hold many meetings of the Joint Committee before a satisfactory agreement could be arrived at, but finally, on April 7, the agreement was signed, and again common sense guided the Committee in overcoming a threatened danger.

Thus from year to year has this beneficent and salutary work been carried on; and let us sincerely hope that its scope may become greatly enlarged, to the end that all trouble between capital and labor,

guarded by the annual agreement.

During the twelve years that have elapsed since the first agreement was signed many changes have been made, questions of a very grave character have been presented for action, and, although it sometimes appeared as if a determined effort were being made to bring about a disruption of the good feeling that existed between the two bodies, yet in the end both parties would give way a little, and finally the questions at issue would be amicably settled (and that was done without once calling in an umpire). This fact alone speaks volumes for the justice of the men representing the two bodies, showing that men banded together for a common cause can and will do justice one to the other.

The history of the bricklayers for the past twelve years may be that of all branches of labor in our community if they will only adopt the true principle of settling their grievances by arbitration and conciliation.

HE recent publication of Vol. I. of the second division of Harnack's great work on "The History of Ancient Christian Literature," embodying the results of his research into its chronology, is an event which for several reasons calls for more than the usual notice.

In the case of such a master as Harnack, and the principal work of his life, it is hardly needful to say in the usual phrase that in its own department the book is epoch-making. So much might be said even before reading. But in the present volume Harnack has departed somewhat from the limits of its predecessors, and discussed the dates of New Testament writings as well as patristic literature. This enlargement of scope leads him in his preface to a statement of the present attitude of New Testament criticism, as determined in part by his own researches, in contrast to that of the once dominant school of Baur. The statement is so remarkable for its candor, as well as for the significance of the facts stated, that it will bear still another reproduction:

There was a time-the great mass of the public is still living in such a time-in which people felt obliged to regard the oldest Christian literature, including the New Testament, as a tissue of deceptions and falsifications. That time is past. For science it was an episode in which she learnt much, and after which she has much to forget. The results of the following investigations go in a "reactionary" direction still further beyond what may be called the middle position of the criticism of the day. The oldest literature of the Church is, in the main points, and in most of its details, from the point of view of literary history, veracious and trustworthy. In the whole New Testament there is probably but a single writing which can be called, in the strictest sense of the word, pseudonymous -the Second Epistle of Peter.

More than this, he adds: "We are without doubt embarked on a retrograde movement towards tradition;" for "the chronological framework in which tradition has arranged documents from the Pauline Epistles down to Irenæus is in all main points right."

Such statements from such a source are enough in themselves to demand special consideration. But a further reason for special treatment of the subject, in addition to the two preceding, may be found in that which Harnack has been mistakenly supposed to say in contradiction of the fundamental principles of his own work. From various quarters we catch the sound of voices, lifted but yesterday to bewail the seemingly irresistible advance of Biblical criticism, which the perusal of a dozen pages of the present work, or it may be only of some review, has sufficed already to tune to the exultant proclamation that criticism is on the point of surrender to the ultra-orthodox. Startling news (perhaps "delayed in transmission"), the school of Baur is dead! Harnack is seen bowing to the victor's yoke, and behind him comes the long train of humbled and penitent critics, the Old Testament critics no less than the New.

Perhaps even those who have taken this view of the book have not overrated its importance; though there should be but little difficulty in showing how completely they have mistaken its significance. In the history of New Testament criticism it is indeed an epoch-marking, though not in this field in any proper sense an epoch-making, book. It comes almost exactly a half-century after the publication of Baur's "Paulus," at a time when his celebrated theory of the origin of the New Testament writings, after experiencing concession after concession from Tübingen leaders and desertion after desertion from adherents, was at last almost universally regarded as belonging to a past stage of the science, a stage of interest chiefly for the equally indispensable and imperishable lessons of method which it taught. It comes as the work of an author now, it appears, universally commended for unequaled learning, impartial candor, and fearless independence ("O upright judge, O learned judge !"); and thus it may well be said to mark a transition from the old criticism to the Its colossal dimensions perhaps

new.

adapt it the better to be the monument of that type of criticism to which Ritschl gave the first incurable wound just forty years ago. But it does not make the new criticism. It does not even enter the field save indirectly, and from the side of the external evidence. On all questions of internal criticism the author refers his readers to the standard works representative of the liberal school of to-day, viz., the Introductions of Holtzmann and Jülicher, accepting the negative results which they, in common with the great body of advanced critics, consider established, such as the unauthenticity of the Pastoral Epistles (in their present form), of all the so-called Catholic Epistles, and the non-apostolic origin of the Johannine writings, including Revelation. To these Harnack only adds what his peculiar method of treatment specially requires. As historian of the first three Christian centuries he is led to a discussion, confined in the main to external evidence, of the date of origin of the New Testament writings. The results which he reaches are as follows: Mark, A.D. 65-70; Matthew (except certain later additions), ca. A.D. 70–75; 1 Peter (mistakenly attributed to the Apostle in the later additions, i., 1, 2, and v., 12-14), A.D. 81-96; Hebrews, A.D. 81-96; Luke and Acts, ca. A.D. 78-93; the Pastoral Epistles (except a genuine groundwork dating from A.D. 59-64, and certain second-century additions), A.D. 90-110; Revelation (edited by John the Presbyter, whom later writers confused with the Apostle), A.D. 93–96; Johannine Epistles and Gospel (composed by the Presbyter), not before ca. A.D. 80, nor after 110; soon after this the editing in "Asia" of the fourfold Gospel in its present form, with the spurious ending of Mark (composed by Aristion); Jude, ca. A.D. 100-130; James, ca. A.D. 120-140 (130); 2 Peter, ca. A.D. 160-175. The Pauline Epistles are of course considered genuine (except the Pastorals), including, without the qualifications made by some critics, Ephesians; though the address (ev 'Epéo) is an example of the erroneous supplementations made by the canon-makers. By an elaborate vindication of the chronology of Eusebius the death of Peter and Paul at Rome is fixed in the year 64, the imprisonment of Paul in Cesarea

in A.D. 54-56 (53-55), and consequently the usual dates for the Epistles are carried back from four to five years. Paul's conversion is fixed in A.D. 29 or 30, as against 31 or 32 as held by Holtzmann, the acknowledged leader of advanced New Testament criticism.

These results may well awaken gratification and surprise by their corroboration of ancient tradition, notably in such an instance as Revelation, where the extreme modern traditionalist has vied with the Tübingen critic in carrying back to an impossible extent the date of the work as a whole, in defiance not only of the internal evidence, but of the explicit and unanimous testimony of antiquity. But the gratification can hardly be less, while the surprise will not be great, in the camp of the most pronounced and uncompromising of modern New Testament critics. Let these results be compared with those even of Pfleiderer's 66 Urchristenthum," or the recent work of Hilgenfeld, still more with such writers as Weizsäcker, Holtzmann, or Jülicher, and one cannot but be somewhat amused at the avidity with which the partially informed have seized upon Harnack's frank avowal that the Tübingen type of criticism is antiquated and untenable, as if it were a repudiation of the methods and results of modern literary and historical criticism of the Bible.

The modern treatment, as applied in the Old Testament by such men as Driver and Cheyne in England; Wellhausen, Cornill, Budde, and others in Germany; and in the New Testament by such men as above mentioned, is as much more formidable than that of a half-century agoas are the methods and weapons of modern warfare. Modern New Testament criticism, though gladly acknowledging with our author its indebtedness to Baur, is no longer bound to his special theory; Old Testament criticism never was. The contrast which Harnack so candidly points out as a retrograde movement means anything but submission. His over-hasty readers are simply blinded by their own eagerness when they discover a white flag on the derelict hulk of the Tübingen theory, and announce the surrender of the enemy's flagship. The attitude of welcome to the leader of a host of penitent critics reclaimed is destined to prove awkward when the extended arms embrace the