whose spring he has polluted. One often sees in the mountains the bodies of Christians the Koords have disemboweled to learn the food on which they had fed, finding frequently only lumps of withered grass.

The Christian artisan now finds no work in Armenia. For whom should the shoemaker make shoes; the tailor, clothes; the blacksmith, the lockmaker, the cartwright, implements? For the Christian? But the latter is glad if he can only live without shoes, without new clothes, without tools. And as for the Mohammedan, he will certainly buy nothing of the unclean "Giaour;" he prefers to steal it.

If the peasant is fleeced by Turkish officials and completely plundered by the Koords he must actually starve to death, for there are no longer any Christians in ancient Armenia who have anything to spare for others. Even should a farmer at any time have a surplus to sell, and wish to get in return something much needed, he can find no market. The Christian can buy nothing of him; the Mohammedan practically will not, because, forsooth, the Christian is "unclean," and the " pious" Mohammedan still believes in this uncleanness. Centuries of observance have taught him that the only time when the effects of Christians are not "unclean " is when they are secured by theft or murder.

Therefore countless persons wander still further to Russian Armenia. Here also they must get over the frontier by stealth, for this accession of hungering, desperate people is not desired. There, too, especially around Erivan, every place is already overflowing with refugees. The native Armenian population are at a loss where to prepare quarters for the new arrivals, since the houses are already filled up to the roof. So all the stables are packed. The rest camp in the streets or on the fields in front of the villages; and all practice the art, which by long exercise they have brought to astonishing perfection, the bitter art of starvation. And now Russia proposes to force these fugitives to return to their desolated homes, in villages taken possession of by bloodthirsty Koords.

CONVERSION AS A SAFEGUARD AGAINST HEATHENISM.

IT would seem that the success of missions in this practical age leaves quite too little room for the study of the facts and tendencies out of which a proper philosophy of evangelical advance may be constructed. This is especially true of a comparative survey of the early, the middle, and the later periods of missionary progress. We are just now considering as a denomination the reaction in Christian practices which has been developed in India by what is known as "quick baptisms." The existence of idolatrous practices, secretly observed among some of those simple village converts, is to be deplored, but cannot be admitted to be surprising. Superstition is not yet eradicated from the Church in our own land, and its tenacity among these poorly cultured people will render necessary the perpetual presence of a greater force of intelligent teachers than is in prospective command.

A similar state of things is reported from New Zealand, where an outburst of superstition among the Maori Christians is taking place, consisting of the practice of a sort of witchcraft and spiritualism by a set of men called "Tohungas." Those in our India Mission are chiefly the first generation of converts; those in New Zealand are of the second and third generations. Now, this return to heathen customs does not weigh so much against the thoroughness of the original work wrought by the missionaries as it does against the misapprehension which exists as to the necessary inheritance of Christian virtues. The truth remains that these children of converted heathen must themselves be individually converted -if not from heathenism-that they may be kept from relapsing into heathenism, which, after all, is the nature-state of mankind. It is those Maori who know least of the converting grace of God in their own souls that have fallen under the influence of these Tohungas. There is, in fact, no such thing as national or even tribal conversion to-day, any more than there was when Teutonic kings asked for baptism and commanded their riders to be baptized also. That, even, was not without its value, though a singularly mixed theological and ethical communion was superinduced. Kingley, in The Roman and Teuton, writes that "one more living stone was built into the great kingdom of God which was called Christendom;" but he shows how these converts attached their old superstitious notions to their new faith, if for nothing else, yet as expositions of it. The concept of Tartarus remained, and the wail of the tortured might be heard at the mouth of volcanoes; and there was no escape but by the Church, whose priesthood could at pleasure condemn men to suffer those unending pains.

The development of the horrible superstitions among the natives of Hawaii, which the deposed queen fostered, has been the theme of many an article, and on it has been based an argument against the subjection of Christianized Hawaiians and foreign residents to a possible return to national barbarism. While not showing that the American missionaries in Hawaii had not done a great work in the redemption of the people there, it did show that after long proclamation of the truth reversions to the nature-state, which is one of superstition, could not be permanently prevented but by the individual conversion of the younger generations. In short, the conversion of a people is a labor that is never completed. Each child born of native Christian parentage needs regeneration, and the work of missions is consequently unending.

There is therefore no occasion for surprise or discouragement in these reactionary manifestations among large communities brought, as it were, simultaneously into the Christian Church. But while they accentuate the need of caution and the duty of furnishing more preachers than, as in India, we have been able to supply, they especially emphasize the need of prayer that God will truly convert their children and their children's children. Our duty is not done to these foreign communities when they are baptized and counted.

FOREIGN OUTLOOK.

SOME LEADERS OF THOUGHT.

F. S. Trenkle. We choose this author as a fair example of the Roman Catholic writer on the important subject of the Introduction to the New Testament. Romanism does not need much instruction on the subject, since its opinions are formed, and the chief function performed by such writers is to state those opinions anew from time to time in opposition to contradictory views. There is also, it must be said, some room left in the Roman Catholic Church for difference of opinion on points not yet officially settled. For example, Trenkle admits that the epistles of James and 1 Peter betray an acquaintance with the Pauline writings and have reference to them, and that 2 Peter makes use of the Epistle of Jude. But all this does not affect Trenkle's conclusion that the books of the New Testament are one and all genuine products of their reputed authors. In this respect, indeed, the majority of Protestant writers are in accord with him. The significant fact is that all Roman Catholic writers come to the same conclusion. On this main question there is never any difference of opinion. It cannot be that this is in consequence of the identity of their methods of thought. Evidently, it is rather the result of the predetermination of the Church, whose writers feel themselves bound to reach the positions the Church has announced. While the sense of liberty which characterizes Protestantism is sometimes abused by its writers, yet this is better than the hypocrisy engendered by the Roman Catholic system. The strange thing is that Protestants themselves should ever practically bind their writers, under pain of censure or perhaps excommunication, to reach predetermined conclusions. It must be more than a mere oversight, also, in Trenkle, when he makes the Gospel which formed part of the earliest vast Syrian canon mean the gospels (that is, the four), when plainly the Gospel referred to in Trenkle's source of information, the Doctrina Addaei, was the Diatessaron of Tatian. Furthermore, we can but condemn that spirit in Trenkle which could lead him to cover up the fact that there was no uniformity in the New Testament canon until late in the second century. That fact does not in the slightest degree diminish the value of the New Testament documents, and might have been brought out without harm. Conservatism is good, but it can be carried to dangerous excess.

F. Giesebrecht. To those who prize the Old Testament few questions appear of greater importance than its prophetic element. At the one extreme is Kuenen, who denied altogether the divine element in the prophecies and undertook to furnish an entirely natural explanation of

them. At the other extreme is E. Koenig, who denies any and every psychological factor in the prophecies and holds that in the reception of their revelations the prophets were absolutely passive. What both of these scholars deny Giesebrecht combines and affirms, namely, both a natural and a supernatural element in prophecy. Ecstasy, together with visions and auditions, is the natural basis. These, Giesebrecht thinks, are more prominent in the early part of a prophet's career. As he becomes more sure of his relation to God they measurably disappear, and the prophet receives his divine communications with less of outward demonstration. Partly by personal experience, also, the prophet learned the will of God. For the function of foretelling the prophet is gifted with a power of foreboding of which he is unaware. Hence, Giesebrecht concludes that the foreknowledge of the prophet is not in every case the result of divine instruction. The recognition of this natural gift does not degrade the prophets, who are to be believed, not because of individual instances of foretold and afterward fulfilled events, but on account of the large number of men gifted with the faculty of foreboding, and especially on account of their significance in preparing the world for the coming of Christ. The supernatural factor in the prophecies was conditioned by a special communion of the prophet with God, which resulted in a profound knowledge of him. The contents of the prophecies were influenced undoubtedly by this supernatural element; though this influence is seen most clearly in the Messianic prophecies Giesebrecht also believes in a limit to the powers of the prophets. They were not omniscient. Hence, they could and did err, and they had their limitations as to the details and as to the time prior to which they could foretell an event. Perhaps all of us would agree with this author in rejecting the positions of Kuenen and Koenig, and also in the doctrine that there was in the prophecies both a human and a divine element. The question is whether Giesebrecht has given us the true proportions in which the two elements were mixed, and whether the gift of foreboding which he ascribes to the prophets was the real natural basis of their prophecies. Yet he has given us at least a respectable theory.

RECENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

Zur Lehre von der Versöhnung (The Doctrine of Reconciliation). By Martin Kahler. Leipzig, A. Deichert Nachf, 1898. Once more the doctrines of the Ritschl school find an opponent, though Kahler does not antagonize any particular individual, so much as the principles of the Ritschlians. Nor is the work a mere attempt to overthrow a theory which he rejects, for he sets forth very distinctly his own views. These may be summarized as follows: God is the originator of the plan of reconciliation, and Christ is his instrument. God does not require to be turned from a state of anger to one of grace. even in the Old Testament times provided the means of propitiation.

It was his grace which

Still, he could not, without something more than his own feeling of mercy, forgive sin, since there is in the world an unchangeable and inflexible moral order. The violation of this order by man demanded that it should be effectively brought to the attention of man as binding, and also that its sacredness in the sight of God should be demonstrated. Both on account of man and on account of God this moral order is indispensable. True repentance for sin is impossible, unless the validity of the law is clearly attested and man's guilt established. The death and sufferings of Christ had the effect of abolishing the obstacle to fellowship between man and God which human guilt had placed in the way. His sufferings were vicarious. In his death he bore the sins of the race. He died, not for himself, but for the benefit of many. His voluntary vicarious death constituted a perfect sacrifice. By it the purpose of penalty is obtained. God's moral order is brought to recognition, and man's will is brought into harmony with God, who, by the reconciling work of Christ, has brought man into a new relationship to himself. Henceforth it was the privilege of every man to become a child of God, a privilege which did not exist prior to the work of Christ. Kähler has taken pains to base his theory upon a careful study of the Scripture. And we must commend his method of procedure. For he is not content with a discussion of individual passages, but attempts to show that his views are the fundamental elements in the biblical idea of reconciliation. As we have said on other occasions, it is an exceedingly difficult task to state correctly the biblical doctrine of atonement. Every new attempt only emphasizes the profundity of the plan of salvation. But, fortunately, the benefits of the atonement are not dependent upon a perfect theory.

Zur Beurtheilung Savonarolas (An Attempt to Estimate Savonarola). By Ludwig Pastor. Freiburg i. B., Herder, 1898. It was formerly the custom to speak of Savonarola as one of the "reformers before the Reformation." The more recent and exact view denies such a distinction to him, as also to Wyclif, Hus, and others. They were in reality Roman Catholics and remained such, in spite of excommunication and every other penalty, to the end of their lives. They protested against gross evils and abuses within the Church, and they strove to introduce ideas and measures which the Church refused to sanction. But they were not reformers in the sense in which Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and their colaborers were reformers, as anyone may see who will attentively study them in comparison with the Protestants. The fourth centennial of the execution of Savonarola elicited such interest in him as to awaken a controversy among Romanists themselves concerning his relation to the Roman Catholic Church. Pastor decidedly excludes him on the ground that he was disobedient to the pope. In reply to him several other Romanists declare that, though Savonarola was condemned and burned, he was nevertheless a good Romanist. Professor Luotto, an Italian, affirms, on the grounds of an exhaustive study of the writings of the great but unfor54-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. XV.