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The Fundamentals all whether with or without a divine revelation; but ©f course the test and standard would be different with the Jew and the heathen, and the denial of this not only supplies an adequate apology for a life of sin, but impugns the justice of the divine judgment which awaits it—no amount of success, no measure of attainment, in this sphere can avail to put us right with God. If my house be in darkness owing to the electric cur rent having been cut off, no amount of care bestowed upon my plant and fittings will restore the light. My first need is to have the current renewed. And so here; man by nature is “alienated from the life of God,” and his first need is to be reconciled to God. And apart from redemption reconcilia tion is impossible. NEO-CHRISTIANISM A discussion of the sin question apart from God’s remedy for sin would present the truth in a perspective so wholly false as to suggest positive error. But before passing on to speak of the remedy something more needs to be said about the disease. For the loose thoughts so prevalent today respect ing the atonement are largely due to an utterly inadequate appreciation of sin; and this again depends on ignorance of God. Sin in every respect of it has, of course, a relation to a savage; and as man is God’s creature the standard is, again of course, divine perfection. But the God of the neo-Chris- tianism of the day—we must not call it Christianity—is a weak and gentle human “Jesus” who has supplanted the God of both nature and revelation. The element of the folly in religious heresies affords material for an interesting psychological study. If the Gospels be not authentic, then, so far as the teaching of Christ is con cerned, intelligent agnosticism will be the attitude of every one who is not a superstitious religionist. But if the records of the ministry be trustworthy, it is certain, first, that the Hebrew Scriptures were the foundation of the Lord’s teach-
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