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ever active, and we need not go back to its origin. But we may not go here into details as to the several critical schools. The critics, writing from all points o f view about the Lord’s person and work—historic, philo sophic, scientific, agnostic, evolutionary— each determining by his own pre-accepted criterion what measure o f truth there may be in the gospel narratives, have filled the minds o f their readers with confusion and perplexity. Almost any modern commen tary is an illustration o f the critical spirit o f the times, and o f the perplexity which it brings to the common reader. Foot note—(W e may take, as an instance, Godet on the Gospel o f John (English Trans.) In the first volume o f five hun dred closely printed pages we find two hun dred ancT fifty-five occupied in preliminary discussions quite beyond the reach o f one not especially versed in such themes. The natural effect* is to awaken doubts in our minds, for those must be very serious obj ections which demand such elaborate replies). Nor in saying this do we disparage the service which genuine criticism may give to the better understanding o f the Biblical records. Every kind o f knowledge, geolog ical, archeological, historical, scientific, linguistic, is valuable for the light it may cast on these records, and let there be no suppression o f the light; but it is to be remembered that the real point at issue between Christianity and anti-Christianity is not the verbal accuracy, or the general infallibility o f the Bible. CHR IST IAN ITY LIVES W e can suppose the possibility o f the destruction o f every copy o f the Bible now in existence, but this would not be the destruction o f Christianity. It lives in the living Head o f the Church: and however valuable the sacred words o f the past, their loss would bring no limitation o f His pre rogatives, or o f His ability to manifest Himself to men. Whilst, therefore, gladly acknowledging the aid which criticism, the higher and lower, may furnish to the eluci-
a matter o f faith, but o f intellectual grasp and careful scholarship.” And this is nec essarily the case if, as we are told, we must study all forms o f religion to( learn “the self-evolution o f the Idea” in them, and thus come to the khowledge o f God. If God be a Person, then can we all, learned and unlearned, come into personal commun ion with Him, and know Him as our Father. But this approach to Him is not alike open to all without regard to spirit ual character. As it is in the power o f a man to make himself known to some and not to others, much more is it in the power o f God. Those who dare to rush unbidden into the Most Holy to find Him, will only find thick darkness. To the weary and the heavy-laden, the meek and penitent, the Incarnate Son says: “ Come unto me,” and they shall see His face; but to the proud and presumptuous who say : “Bring Him to our tribunal, and we will sit in judgment on t Him,” He is invisible. The critic who feels no need o f a Redeemer, may scan the pages o f the Evangelist with his microscope, but will find no Son o f God). It is a striking illustration o f the separa tion between the Head and the Church, that after eighteen centuries its scholars are going back to the records o f His earthly life to find out who He w as! If it had con tinued in the heavenly fellowship to which He exalted it, it would be able to tell the world with one voice both what He was and what He is. MAKE L ITTLE OF FACTS There is another school o f critics who come to the Gospels in the Kantian spirit, and who make very little o f facts; the idea is all. Having the Ideal Christ, we need ho more. It is unimportant whether there was a real man corresponding to the idea. It is not, it is said, by His acts as a Media tor between God and us that Christ 'saves us, but as the representative and example o f the idea o f self-sacrifice. This idea once gained through Him, it must be separated from His individual person that it may become universal. He may wholly disap pear from memory; but the idea remains
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