AT HOME AND ABROAD A " L O O K O V E R T H E F I E L D
IIIIMIIIIIIIII....... A CGORDING to Bishop Hartzell, Meth- odist bishop of Africa, King Albert of Belgium had proved himself a decided moral herq many months before war broke over his land. He had taken hold of the administration of Kongo Free State, where his rapacious old uncle had cultivated cru elty toward the natives is a set policy of business, and replaced the mischievous Leo pold regime with the rule of fairness and right. Says the bishop: “The old Kongo with its atrocities—the half of which were never told—is past and gone forever. A new era has come—an era of peace and justice and commercial and moral outlook.” And he gives all the credit to “a wise and heroic king.”— Continent. Religious work of all the stations (Afri can) goes on encouragingly, despite the war. At Metet 200 people confessed Christ in the last three months of 1914. At Elat, at communion on the first Sunday of Jan uary, the audience numbered 7,700, and 453 catechumens were baptized. Rev. Melvin Fraser reports that his theological class of fifteen young men has gone on undisturbed in its studies, and thirty village schools are now running in the Elat field. Rev. Wil liam Dager taught a Bible readers’ class for seven weeks at the first of the year, with 115 workers enrolled. It ought to be much more generally- known than it is that John’s Gospel as quoted by early fathers such as Justin, Ire- naeus and Tertullian -must have read, in ch. 1 :12, 13, “to them that believe on his name, who was born (not “were” born) not of blood nor of the will':of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.?- This implies virgin birth.
T H E authorities of Princeton University A turned their backs on Mr. Sunday and, according to a Princeton “Alumnus,” wel comed President Fitch of Andover, who taught the students of that one-time back bone of orthodoxy, Princeton, the following, among òther things: What is the seat of authority in reli gion? “First. The Church has crystallized the cumulative religious experience of two thousand years. Second. The Christian Scriptures re cord the religious experience of the race which had the religious genius. “Third. A man’s own conscious religious experience. This third approaches absolute authority.” What is the proof of the authority of the Bible? “I believe in the inspiration of the Bible, because it inspires me. Authority resides in its obvious excellence.” The Virgin Birth. ■ “One verse in one Gospel refers to it. As a doctrine, it dates from the third cen tury. The doctrine of the Virgin Birth was an attempt to explain Jesus to men. It is no longer a doctrine. It is a dogma only.” The Divinity of Jesus. “Jesus revealed perfectly the character of God, but his thought was conditioned by the limitations of his time.” ■The Natural and the Supernatural. “The world is one, which means Monism. There can be fip distinction between the natural and the supernatural. Everything in the world is an expression of God.” Does Jesus differ from, us in kind or in degree only? “The difference is of degree, and not of kind between Jesus and any man.” - Do you believe in the Trinity?
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