right, pure, unselfish, and industrious life, which alone can enable us to reach highest civilization (which includes all that is implied by the terms "Socialization" and "Christianization") and complete it by including every human being in it.

Christ's final charge to preach the gospel to every creature does not conflict with this view, but harmonizes with it and emphasizes it. He said, "I came not to destroy, but to fulfil." He came not to change the mission of the race, but to help the race perform it. The Scriptures nowhere say explicitly that a knowledge of the historic Jesus is essential to salvation, and the number who think they imply it is decreasing. History does show that there is no complete and lasting civilization which is not prompted and sustained by the motive which a knowledge of the historic Jesus gives. The primal command, "subdue the earth," can never be performed till all know him, even the humblest and most distant. Christ's final and most important charge was auxiliary to his Father's first and most important charge.

If, now, those sayings of Scripture are rightly interpreted, so-called secular business, advancing human civilization, and the institution of the family, taken together, form all that is primarily holy. Statesmanship, journalism, teaching, medicine, law, and the like are industry's professional helpers, and the ministry is auxiliary to the whole, and is holy just so far as it is helpful.

3. The manifestation of God which appeals to business men is seldom emphasized in sermons or prayer-meeting talks. Their minds are fixed upon production of goods or structures transporting goods to where they are needed, purchase and sale, payment and collection of debts. They have in mind only results. Jehovah is primarily a God of results. He created and sustains the material world. He made the human race, with some plan, now unknown to

us, for its career. That plan has been baffled and delayed by the fall, and the time of human history will measure the time of that delay. He is restoring our nature; he is meeting an emergency. The mind of the church is fixed on the divine qualities called into play by this emergency. When we are re-perfected, mercy and forgiveness will be no longer needed, nor the countless ministrations for restoring courage and resolution. In heaven, we will never sin, nor fear, nor waver. We will go steadily on in our career under his leadership; we will be devoted to results. Business men now live for results, and only the God of results can attract them. Consciously or unconsciously, they are co-workers with him in advancing civilization during business hours, though their leisure time and surplus money are squandered in dissipation. Being a God of results, he has, it seems to me, an interest in the suc cess of business enterprises, which contribute to his great end of civilization, of which the church and the clergy are unaware; and so church and clergy give the business man no substantial help in making him acquainted with God as his business friend and guide. For this reason, if no other, a small proportion of business men, even of those who are conscientious, are men of pronounced piety in the current sense. They realize that to obey is better than sacrifice, and to comply with the conditions of honest success is a higher service than participation in religious exercises. Their mistake is in their notion that the latter can be dispensed with. There is also an error on the other side, to-wit, that if a man is religious, it is of little matter whether he be a capable business man. The business man often belittles worship and prayer, and the devout often be littles business capacity. The former error is not greater nor more pernicious than the latter. Each man is half Godly. This may be a partial explanation of why so many men outside of the visible church prosper in the world. If these views are sound, they receive emphasis from the

paradoxical text, "If ye have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give unto you that which is your own." The attainment of earthly civilization by the race is the test as to whether or not the race can be trusted with the opportunities of heaven, whether it can be let into its heritage. Its fitness for that heritage will be determined by results, and not by theories and teachings. It is the business man who is furnishing the needed proof of such fitness, and to him, if successful, belongs the halo. The teachings of clergymen, moralists, and thinkers in themselves give no proof; but, on the contrary, unless business culminates in complete triumph over the evils of nature, will add to our condemnation, either by showing that we knew what to do and did it not, or that we spent our time speculating and talking instead of doing. As evidence on this point, honest business achievement outclasses the ser

mon.

These considerations seem to throw some light on the deplorable lack of sympathy between business and religious circles. One suggestion can be offered which would help to mend the matter. A closer acquaintance with business men can be cultivated by the clergy. Let the minister lay aside his white tie and spend an evening a week at the club as a guest and spectator. It will be much better spent than in writing a dozen pages of a sermon which will be of no use to business men who hear it. Let him invent ways and means to associate with business men in all their moods at work and at play. Above all things, let him lay aside the misplaced halo, and look upon business and business men as sacred. Let this be continued till he has absorbed something of the business man's nature and way of viewing things, till there comes between him and the business man that peculiar feeling which the sociologists speak of as the consciousness of kind. Then the present misunderstanding will begin to wane, and both will join hands to wipe it out altogether.

ARTICLE VII.

CRITICAL NOTES.

THE THEOLOGICAL POSITION OF THE BIBLIOTHECA SACRA.

SOME Complimentary remarks touching the BIBLIOTHECA SACRA made by Dr. Driver in the Expositor for June, and by Dr. Hastings in the Expository Times for August, afford a desired occasion for a more explicit statement, or rather re-statement, of the theological'position occupied by the BIBLIOTHECA SACRA.

The BIBLIOTHECA SACRA was founded in 1844, at Andover, Mass., by Professors Bela B. Edwards and Edwards A. Park, professors at Andover, with the special coöperation of Professor Moses Stuart, also of Andover, and Professor Edward Robinson, of Union Theological Seminary, New York. These men were then the natural representatives of the moderate New School Calvinism of the time, as well as of the liberalizing tendencies in the interpretation of Scripture which endeavored to keep within "reasonable bounds." While none of them held an ironclad theory of verbal inspiration, they all held with great tenacity to what may be called the moderately conservative view of the Bible, standing over against the destructive and radical criticism which was becoming more and more dominant in Germany and among the Unitarians in America.

From the beginning the BIBLIOTHECA SACRA was conducted with a view not merely to express the opinions of the editors, but to give a fair representation to a pretty wide range of divergent opinions, as held by sincere and able men. The editors have always disclaimed responsibility

for contributed articles.

Experience confirms the editors in their belief that truth is best advanced by free .inquiry; that, however much the cause of truth may suffer temporarily by this means, its permanent establishment is not possible except in the arena of open discussion; for it is evident that the statement of contending theories is best made by their several advocates, and it is only when a theory is clearly and fully stated that either its excellencies or its defects are made adequately to appear.

Still, there is a limit to all things, and especially to the profitableness of statement and re-statement and discussion of conflicting theories; while there are many views of truth which are so shadowy, so dependent upon uncertain data, and so clearly beyond the range of present proba

bility, that it is not profitable to surrender a large amount of space to their presentation. Hence the necessity of some editorial supervision. "All things are lawful, but all things edify not.”

In view of the past history of the BIBLIOTHECA SACRA, it should not have been "unexpected" to the editor of the Expository Times that the BIBLIOTHECA SACRA has published Dr. Morton's article on "The Cosmogony of Genesis, and its Reconcilers" (April and July, 1897); for, in the first place, President Morton is a scholar of the very highest attainments, whose sympathies are well within the range of the main evangelical activities of the world. It is inevitable that the views of such a man should be reckoned with. It is best that the evangelical world should read his views in his own statement of them. Other presentations have been sufficiently abundant in the pages of the BIBLIOTHECA SACRA to make the discussion on the whole fairly complete. The reading public can be trusted not to take the address of the closing advocate for the charge of the judge.

As to the case in hand, it is important to bear in mind that all language, and consequently all Scripture, has to be interpreted. The Bible is what the Bible means. There is always and necessarily a margin of doubt respecting the meaning of language, which necessitates a certain amount of lawful range of interpretation. Even the simple phrase This is my body" divides the church to this day over the extent of the figurative meaning involved in the words. The famous controversy of Luther and Zwingli upon that question led to no settlement of it. The world is still divided into the party of Luther and the party of Zwingli.

But these uncertainties of language have not left the truth altogether in a state of flux. The variety of ways in which the truth is expressed in the Bible leads to a pretty well-defined body of doctrines forming the practical basis of the evangelical activities of the world. The statements both of the extreme advocates of verbal inspiration and of the destructive critics, who, like the cuttlefish, have power to eject around every passage of Scripture the opaque products of their own obscuring doubts, are to be received with caution. The judges always warn the jury against setting up an impracticable standard of proof, and against giving undue weight to "possible," "contingent," "imaginary" doubts. They charge them to be content with that proof which is "beyond reasonable doubt." This phrase "beyond reasonable doubt,” though somewhat vague, does not, however, open the way to unbridled license in the interpretation of facts. The experiences of all men give them a personal standard of judgment which is in the main trustworthy. Practical uniformity in the interpretation of the Bible is obtained by this constant appeal to the Scriptures themselves in all their breadth.

If we challenge the higher critics at any point, it is because not of the breadth, but of the narrowness, of their views. It is on the ground that they have limited themselves too much to mere literary criticism;