this delightfully innocent professor of theology, " you must either accept the Bible as a supernatural revelation coming from God, or you must pass judgment upon its merits. You cannot do both. If you dare to examine into its merits, you must abandon all hope of being able to accept it as a supernatural revelation coming from God. You must accept it blindly, or you cannot accept it at all, for you can never accept it if you examine it on its merits." Is this defense or attack? It is as if the "Sun" were to say, You must either accept "Hamlet as a work of genius, or you must study it critically; or, You must either believe that the world is the product of a wise and beneficent Creator, or you must study it scientifically. Well might the Bible cry out to be saved from such a friend as this! Take another instance: "If the Biblical story of Jonah and the whale is to be regarded as purely a parable, an allegory, whose actual occurrence was impossible and therefore unbelievable, Christianity must descend from its exaltation as a religion of Divine authority, and drop to the level of a system of religious philosophy or speculation, of human authorship." Well! well! Nothing new under the sun," said the wise man; perhaps not! But there is something new in the "Sun -namely, an entirely new theory of the foundations of Christianity. We are familiar with the theological school which founds Christianity on the doctrine of universal depravity-the awful necessity which demands a divine redemption; with that which founds it on the Incarnationthe supreme life and character of Christ, his own and all-sufficient attestation; with that which founds it on the Law of Sacrifice the universal law of love, leading up to its true culmination in the Cross; with that which founds it on the resurrection of Jesus Christ-a historical demonstration of his divinity and of man's immortality. But to found it on the story of Jonah and the great fish is a novelty in theology. The New York "Sun" is entitled to the credit of having discovered or created an entirely new scheme of apologetics. What a beautiful spectacle this "Defender of the Faith" would present, entering the lists against, say, Robert Ingersoll or Professor Huxley, and, in order to maintain the truth that Christ came into the world to save sinners, falling back, as on the last and fundamental line of defense, upon the vital fact that once upon a time, no one knows when, on the testimony of a writer no one knows who, a great fish swallowed a prophet and vomited him out upon the land again! To this issue at last are led those Defenders of the Faith who refuse to use in the cause of religion that reason with which God has endowed his children. Arbitration The indications at this writing are that the Arbitration Treaty will be delayed by endless talk and emasculating amendments, so that it cannot be acted upon at the present session. The last amendment, if newspaper reports are true, is, as it seems to us, absolutely destructive of the Treaty. It provides that every question which arises under the Treaty shall be first submitted to and passed upon by the President and Senate. The practical effect of this amendment is to make the Treaty amount to this-We agree that we will submit to arbitration every question arising between Great Britain and the United States which we agree to submit to arbitration as the cases arise. It would be a great deal better to defeat the Treaty altogether than to adopt it with any such amendment as this, for the country is aroused and will not be content without a treaty, but it is not yet so much aroused but that an emasculated and even an inane treaty might content it. The first feeling of the ardent advocate of the substitution of Law for War will be one of discouragement at the Senate's haggling over details as though the Treaty were a bargain between hucksters, and at the consequent delay. But though a humiliation, this is not altogether a cause for regiet, for it is not enough for the Senate to confirm this Treaty; we want something much more important than this: we want the education of a public sentiment and the education of a public opinion which, interpreted by the Treaty and made effective in it, will prevent the danger, if not the possibility, of war. And the delays in the Senate give both occasion and opportunity for the necessary public agitation and education. For this we must depend on various agencies. The press throughout the country is doing good service. As an illustration, take the following sentences from the "Engineering and Mining Journal:" "According to these enlightened (Jingo) authorities, arbitration is all right when it is strictly stipulated that it is 'heads I win, tails you lose.' This might be expected of a benighted barbarian of South Africa, but is wholly unworthy and insulting to a civilized people, which we Americans claim to be. The United States should set a better example to the civilized world. What is an arbitration treaty good for unless it covers all subjects of dispute?" This is a pertinent criticism of exactly the kind of treaty a considerable party in the Senate apparently wish to give us. It would be worse than none. The labor leaders are also beginning to take the matter up. War and industry are sworn enemies. A great military establishment and popular sovereignty have never lived long together in the same country. Mr. Samuel Gompers, in the "American Federationist," the organ of the American Federation of Labor, puts this tersely and effectively: "Labor recognizes that peace is as essential to successful industry as is air to lung-breathing animals; that the spirit of greed for gain and power often seeks to divert the attention of the people from redress of domestic grievances to foreign wars in the Jingo hope of foreign conquests. With this the workers have neither patience nor interest; it is against their humane sentiment, at variance with their interests, and at the thought of it their hearts revolt." He concludes by advocating the ratification of the Treaty in principle, while disavowing the intention of undertaking to determine whether or not it is capable of improvement by amendment. But it is to the churches and the clergy that the country has a special right to look for both wisdom and impulse in this emergency. It is not necessary to be oracular on questions of international law, or assume wisdom on details involved in proposed amendments. The real obstacle to the Treaty is either a provincial nationalism-that is, self-conceit-or hostility to Great Britain, such as is involved in the ancient saying, Thou shalt love thy neighbor but hate thine enemy-a commercial rival being in this case regarded as an enemy-or a mere unintelligent brutalism and inherent love of war. Against these no voice can be so potent as that of the pulpit, and no duty can be clearer than to use that power on behalf of international brotherhood, a generous, not mean or petty, emulation, the spirit of peace, and the substitution of reason for war and brute force. Clergymen who desire material for use in their ministry on behalf of the principles of peace will do well to address Dr. Benjamin F. Trueblood, Boston, Mass., or Dr. L. T. Chamberlain, United Charities Building, New York City. Let us make vigorous war against war, until the whole country shall demand a permanent International Tribunal as a guarantee of permanent peace. Dr. Fox's Letter We call the attention of our readers to Dr. John Fox's letter on another page. It appears to us to confirm our previously expressed opinion that his opinion of what is orthodoxy, even according to Presbyterian standards, does not accord with that entertained in the Presbyterian Church. We do not understand that accepting the Westminster Confession of Faith "as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures " is an acceptance of everything contained in the Westminster Confession of Faith. Even Dr. Fox would probably concede that there are things essential and things non-essential. In our judgment, it is not the Calvinism, it is the Christianity, which constitutes what is essential in that Confession of Faith; and that, in our judgment, was historically determined when the union of the Old School and the New School was brought about. To go back of the agreement then formed, and insist that no man conforms to the Westminster Confession who does not conform to the Old School interpretation of that Confession, appears to us to be a palpable violation of the tacit if not of the explicit agreement made in the reunion of 1869. In our judgment, the Old School interpretation of the Confession is correct and the New School interpretation of Scripture is correct; but which is correct it is not now material to inquire, since the very basis of the reunion was not an acceptance of either interpretation by the joint body, but an agreement to allow liberty for both within the United Church. The Outlook did dissent and does dissent in some very important respects from the theology of Dr. Hall's volume, Does God Send Trouble?" but it would never occur to us to think that to be a reason for not working cordially with him in the same Church of Christ. As little, probably, did it occur to Dr. Hall, the American editor of the "Expositor," that his approval of Dr. Watson, expressed editorially in his notice in that magazine of "The Cure of Souls," was at all inconsistent with the publication in the same number of a severe criticism of Dr. Watson's "Mind of the Master," written by the Bishop of Derry and Raphoe. The Life of the Spirit Not Rejection, but Redemption Self-denial lies at the base of all noble living and of every form of noble activity; and no one attains to supreme moral excellence, or to a high degree of skill in any art or profession, without thoroughly subjecting impulse, inclination, and passion to the higher and finer ends towards which he moves. To excel in any craft or skill involves a clear and definite setting aside of many things which are at moments almost irresistible in their appeal to our desires and impulses; and it is quite as much by what he discards as by what he accepts that the worker evidences his mastery of his materials and his tools. Behind every great career there lies a denial of self of which the world knows nothing, unless it have the wit to discern in the finished product not only the visible traces of skill, but also those invisible achievements of the will over self-indulgence of all kinds which give the heart courage, the spirit poise, and the mind clearness of vision. Behind noble productiveness in the arts there is a heroism of toil and consecra tion of which no trace remains save that perfection of line or form which is the last fruit of victorious striving. In like manner, the life of the spirit, if it be fruit ful, luminous, and progressive, begins and continues in clear sovereignty of spiritual purpose over all confusing or diverting aims and impulses. But self-denial is the beginning, never There the end, of the true life of man. are times, it is true, when to deny is more positive than to affirm, and to protest is the most courageous and effective way of announcing a new truth. The first fol lowers of Christ, living in a soc'ety saturated with the spirit of paganism, confronted on every side by pagan forms, services, ceremonies, found their first duty in denial and protest. They could not live in amity with a social order which was at once corrupt and idolatrous. In whatever path they trod they found themselves face to face with customs to which they could not conform; every ceremonia' in domestic, civic, or social life presented a sharp and definite issue between loyalty and disloyalty to the Master they served; and to deny and protest were the foremost duties laid upon them-duties which often meant the prison, the cross, or the awful show of the amphitheater. In like manner, when society was full of rottenness and confusion, in the centuries when Christianity and paganism were locked in long and inevitable struggle, thousands of faithful believers found, or thought they found, safety and peace in separation from their fellows, and in lonely places practiced a self-denial which became, to the imagination, a kind of exaltation. But society has passed through transformations which have gone to the very center of its structure; it is now nominally Christian; its formal observances, customs, habits, and standards are all Christian. He who follows Christ to-day does not confront pagan images and rites at every turn; wherever he turns he is face to face with the symbols of his own faith. Self-denial is still the necessity of his soul, but it is no longer the supreme evidence of the reality of his faith. is the beginning, not the end, of his spiritual growth. It is a beautiful thing to keep one's self unspotted from the world; to resist its temptations, escape its snares, repel its attacks, and overcome its obstacles; but this, after all, is only the initial step of a deep spiritual life. man shines like a light before his fellows It No unless he does something greater than resist and escape the evil that is in the world; the great commander is on the defensive only by force of circumstances; his true line is the aggressive. It is his ultimately to lead, attack, and conquer, not to repel. There are moments when his first duty is to hold his own; but the great movements and moments in his career are those which liberate his own powers and give play to his own construct ve and creative genius It is a noble thing to be clean in a society which is full of that which soils and discolors; but it is a nobler thing to carry a contagious purity into vile places and to throw a white light into the encircling darkness. The noblest spiritual growth is not evidenced by that which it rejects, but by that which it redeems; a man of low spiritual vitality may be content to hold his own, but a man of high spiritual vitality is driven by the very force of that vitality to mix with the widest movement of his time and take his stand where the great forces which move men converge. Christ came not, like the master of a lifeboat, to pluck here and there a drowning man from the wide and desolate seas; he came to bring life, and to make it more abundant. He came not to witness to purity and righteousness by rejection and denial; that was the office of John the Baptist, and of all other men of the ascetic type. Christ came to witness to the glory of God and the nobility of his works by redeeming that which man had corrupted, and restoring that which man had defiled. He came to take back from evil uses that which men, in their spiritual ignorance and weakness, had given over to evil so long that they confounded their own use with the very nature of the thing. Christ came, not to protest and deny, but to affirm and reveal. And the true evidence of the noblest following of his example is the demonstration that the world is the Lord's, and the clear revelation of the possibility of redeeming it by making noble use of it. The highest service of such a career as that which Phillips Brooks lived among men is the deepened sense which it gives men of the richness and beauty of life. Here was a man than whom none was more unspotted; a man as clean and white as ever anchorite or ascetic kept himself; and yet a man who kept himself in closest touch with all the great movements; who loved travel, books, art, history, nature; who valued humor, wit, eloquence, culture; a man, indeed, to whom every phase of activity and every kind of expression were precious, because God was in all good things, and all good things revealed him. Here, clearly, the test was not completeness of rejection, but inclusiveness of acceptance; not the ringing note of protest, but the full-voiced declaration of the glory of God in the beauty and uses of the world. In an earlier day and in a pagan society that voice, so full of passionate devotion to the things of the spirit, would have sounded the note of denial; in this day it came freighted with a richer music. For society is no longer in its spiritual childhood; it has come to a certain degree of maturity. Its larger intelligence and its increased strength ought to be evidenced by bolder and fuller use of the things which God has fashioned; by a nobler thought of the world which God has made and redeemed. That he has made the world we are ready to believe; that he has redeemed it still seems incredible. We find it hard to believe that all society and every form of activity are by and by to declare his glory and reveal his purpose. But if this be not true, Christ suffered in vain. It was not for a fragment of life, a broken bit of time, a little section of the race, that he bore the agony of Gethsemane and Calvary. Out of that crucible of suffering there issued a power vast enough and deep enough to redeem all time, all men, all life. Slowly out of that inscrutable experience, and as the result of Christ's whole teaching, there dawns the vision of a world which is the Lord's in the fullness thereof; a world in which every activity, art, science, knowledge, culture, reveal the presence of the Lord and show forth his glory. The old struggle against temptation within and without goes on as it went on when Jacob sinned and was sorrowful, and Peter denied and repented in the bitterness of that awful morning when his Lord was led to the crucifixion. That struggle lies in the experience of every man, and will be renewed in the unfolding of the life of the spirit to the very end of time. In the world there is contention, confusion, wrong-doing, and the tragedy of unrighteousness working out its ancient fruits of misery, remorse, and death. And yet, in spite of all these things-rather, through all these thingsthere slowly dawns in the religious consciousness the meaning of the great declaration that the world is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof. As the Christ was veiled in the garments of the human child, and the glory of the Highest hidden in a manger, so the thought of God is written in every normal work of man's spirit; in every form of activity through which he pours himself upon the world; in every art whose tools turn to the uses of beauty in his hands; in all knowledge, training, skill, and enlightenment. Through all these things God speaks, for these are the voices of man's spirit; voices often confusing and discordant, oftener pathetic and appealing; but always voices of that spirit which has borne so many burdens, carried so many crosses, worn so many crowns of thorns, drunk so many cups of suffering. The tragedy, the aspiration, and the divine sonship of man are in his works as truly as himself; God made him what he is, and his works are therefore the disclosure of God's purpose. Not until we read all true human activities and achievements in the light of this thought do we understand how the world is the Lord's, nor why Christ came not to deny and reject but to redeem and glorify. The Spectator The Spectator has recently had evidence of the enlightening influence of travel. For years he has had occasion to walk, to drive, and to wheel over a certain piece of country road, a piece of road as bad as a combination of mud and sand and sods and loose stones can make a road. Last summer he found this piece of road not only good, but excellent and improving all the time, until in the autumn it was as good a dirt road as any one could want. The other day the Spectator chanced to meet the overseer of the "deestrick "the same overseer, by the way, who has had charge for twenty-five years past. "I wish to congratulate you, Mr. Overseer," said the Spectator, "on the good road you have made. It is fine, fine!" The rugged face of the overseer was wreathed in smiles, and his cheeks glowed with pleasure. Then, as he spoke, his look became serious. "Well, fall I took a drive down to Blank"-naming I tell you how it was, Mr. Spectator. Last a large town sixty miles away and three counties off" and I seen some roads that made me ashamed of the old mud-holes up here, and I says to myself, If ever I work the roads of my deestrick again, I will have good roads too.' So I asked 'em how they did it, and, by George! they tell me that they didn't do nothin' but keep the stones outen the road, keep the sods off, and open up the ditches so as the roads wouldn't wash. And that's all I done this spring; but I kept on a-doin' it, and though we had the worst washes this summer I ever see, the roads in my deestrick have been better than they ever was afore. Next year," he continued, "I mean to tell the Town Committee that I will take a mile more of road, and don't want no more money than I been gettin'." Now, on this little excursion from home, this honest old farmer had learned the real secret of road-making, and he had had the sense to apply it when he resumed work in his "deestrick." Water is at once the most destructive and the most beneficial force that the road-maker and the road-repairer has to contend with and to count on. If it be harnessed, so to speak, it can be made to keep the roads clean and smooth and hard; if it be uncontrolled, it is sure to wash the roads into ruts, and make them all but impassable. Drainage is the most essential feature of a road, and in most instances this is simplicity itself. In the Spectator's experience he has rarely come across a country road-maker who did not believe that the sods taken out of the side ditches should be put into the road to be ground up into dust by the wagon-wheels, converted into mud by the rains, and finally washed back into the ditches again. This process of road-repairing does no good at any time, as the road so worked is usuallyindeed, in nine cases out of ten-better when the repairer puts his hurtful hand upon it than at any other time. It is so easy to make a good dirt road and to keep it in order that it seems ever a wonder to the Spectator that in this country, where the people plume themselves upon their ingenuity and adaptability, they should keep on being stupid on this very important matter of road-repairing. The Spectator knows from actual experience that in the average country neighborhood the roads can be kept in most excellent order ten months in the year with the money that is now spent on them. If elementary instruction in drainage could be given to the overseers of the roads, then the powers of nature, now |