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fact . . . that as we go back to older and older representations we find the human element fading visibly away, the divine element coming more and more to the front until in proto-Mark we behold manifest God." Thus also Kalthoff: "The synoptic Christ in whom modern theologians discern the features of the historic Jesus differs not a hairsbreadth from the Christ of the Fourth Gospel, and what the champions of liberalism think they can distill as an historical extract has only the value of a monument to sophistry."

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They recur continually to the charge that the "explanation" the liberals give for the origin of Christianity does not really explain, for the more they reduce the figure of Jesus the more impossible it is to account for the character and power of the religion to which his name is attached. It is asserted: "The elimination of many miracles does not matter at all; it only makes the One Miracle more stupendous. .. The fact of the primitive worship of Jesus and the fact of the primitive mission to the Gentiles . . . have never been explained in any feature by the liberal notion of the purely human Jesus. . . . It is impossible to understand the conversion, activity and doctrine of Paul in terms of the human personality of Jesus. . . . No wonder that Wrede and others have thought Paul rather than Jesus the founder of our religion. If by the Jesus he means only the magnified man of modern criticism, the inference is inevitable, and the judgment of Wrede does not seem strange." We will not be suspected of accepting the conclusions of these new radicals, and we are not concerned to defend the language of their assertions nor the reasonings on which they are based. Like the older school which they criticize so severely they will not admit the possibility of the miraculous, and so they refuse to recognize the historicity of the supernatural facts which at the same time they clearly see from an integral part of the New Testament. They perceive the irreconcilability of the Gospels and of primitive Christianity with the supposition of a purely human Jesus, and they solve their difficulty by denying to Him any historical existence, and by seeking the source of

His religion and worship in an imagined cult of an ancient saviour-god. We do not propose to follow them into the tangled wilderness of argument and supposed proof. But, by their boldness and frankness, they have cleared the air and made plain the real issue. They bid us choose between an honest acceptance of the documents and of the Catholic faith, or an honest rejection of both. They make us see that there is no place for the halting stand of liberalism. For the old alternative: Aut Deus, aut non bonus, they have substituted another: Aut Deus, aut nullus. We can accept the dilemma, for we have made our choice.

W

BY THE REV. J. G. H. BARRY, D.D.

́HEN I had finished my business with Carew and came out into the street already lighted, though the winter

dusk was just beginning to fall, I found on looking at my watch that I had missed the last train that would take me West. It was rather provoking, for if I had realized the hour I might have pushed Carew to a conclusion a little more rapidly. However, a night in Oak City was not a tremendous misfortune, so I sent off a telegram and soon made myself comfortable at the hotel. The hotel was new and well appointed and the dinner good and I rose from it fairly well satisfied with the world to confront the problem of what to do in the evening. There were, of course, the "movies"-the ever-ready refuge of the stranded American; but I did not feel that that was quite what I wanted tonight.

Oak City is one of those American towns that have rapidly passed from the state of isolated villages to that of a nervously self-conscious city through the coming of a railroad and half a dozen manufactories. Everything about it was new and prosperous and incredibly ugly. The latter feature did not figure in the circular published by the Oak City Business Men's Club to spread abroad the virtues of the town. I was idly turning over this circular when I was struck by the sentences, "Oak City possesses thirteen churches all of which offer an hospitable welcome to the stranger within our gates. From their pulpits he will be addressed by ministers who stand at the very head of their profession, and by their members he will at once be made to feel at home. The Oak City churches like every other institution of our up-to-date city carry the motto: 'You need Oak City and Oak City needs you.'"'

Churches-that was an idea. We must be one of the thirteen kinds undoubtedly. I wondered who the rector might be. I went over to interview the clerk. "Yes," the clerk said,

"there is an Episcopal Church. Rector? Rev. Earnshaw." "Rev. Earnshaw," the clerk volunteered, "was a hustler"; and for further information referred me to a list of services which I at last discovered, where one usually discovers such lists in hotels, in the last place one would think of looking for it.

Earnshaw. I wondered if it could be possible that he was the Earnshaw who was my contemporary at Berkeley. It certainly was the Rev. James H. Earnshaw, the notice said. The Church of the Holy Communion. By the way, I wonder why those who name churches have confined themselves to one sacrament in the pursuit of a name. One never heard of a Church of the Holy Baptism. Considering the state of the Anglican clergy throughout the world one would rather have fancied that there might have scattered over the land many Churches of Holy Matrimony. But to return to Earnshaw's notice. I read that there would be Holy Communion on all Sundays at 7:30 a. m. and in addition there would be Holy Communion at 11 a. m. on the First Sunday in the month. There would also be Holy Communion on Saints' Days at 10 a. m. On all Sundays there appeared to be Matins at 11 a. m. There was Evening Prayer on all Sundays at 7:45. And at all services strangers would be welcome. It was undoubtedly the Earnshaw of my seminary days. I decided to look him up.

I learned from the clerk that the rectory was next to the church and about half a mile off. I didn't trouble to telephone as it would be a pleasant walk whether I found Earnshaw in or not. On the way I tried to recall some mental picture of Earnshaw. We had never been intimate, but in a small seminary like Berkeley one knows every one. I gradually drew from the recesses of memory a tall, heavily set man, with a rather aggressive manner and uncontrolled voice. Always good-natured, I remembered, and quite as ready to laugh when the joke was on him as when it was on someone else. Curious scraps came up from the under-world of the subconscious. I remembered an evening when he read the lessons in Chapel and made St. Paul say that "He that desireth the office of a bishop desireth a

good thing," to the great joy of the listeners. I remembered that it even evoked a smile from Dr. Binney. I tried to place Earnshaw theologically, but failed. I reflected that I had most likely failed because Earnshaw failed to have any theological place. I could only recall hearing him assert in a challenging voice, "I am a Prayer Book churchman," with an accent that made the rest of us feel that in his estimation we were not.

By this time I had reached the rectory door, and was at once ushered into the study of the rector. The tall, grey-haired, smooth-shaven, square-jawed man who came forward to meet me was easily recognizable as Earnshaw of Berkeley. I started to recall myself but he interrupted me by recognition and a most cheerful welcome. I felt that we must have been much better friends than I remembered, he was so delightfully cordial. He waved his hand toward a corner from which emerged a very youthful looking person in very new looking clericals, and named, "Mr. Ward, my new curate."

Earnshaw's study as I gradually took it in, not all at once but in the course of the evening, was perfectly expressive of the man. No one would have thought of calling it a study except that such is the traditional designation of the workingplace of the clergy. Office would have expressed its character better. There was a huge desk, littered with papers. There were stacks of files of all sorts which suggested the worship of that modern deity, Efficiency. A note of domesticity was struck by a table on which some sewing had been hastily abandoned, and under which one discerned some toys, evidently the possession of a small boy. I inferred that the owners of them had fled precipitately at my ring. There were books, I finally discovered, in a set of shelves in one corner of the room. "Do you recognize them?" Earnshaw said, as I took one up with an amused smile. Did I recognize them? I should think so! It was the typical book-shelf of a Berkeley man of our time. The three-volume edition of Hooker bound in blue. Pierson on The Creed, a good match in binding. "Good solid stuff," Earnshaw commented as I handled the old friends. Then a thick black

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