suppositions already noted are fundamental, and all others are in a sense derivative; yet the doctrine of a future life is so closely bound up with our religious consciousness that it seems of primal significance. Has philosophy anything that will help us here? Can it speak an encouraging word? I believe the result of a study of philosophy is very greatly to strengthen our hold upon this doctrine. To begin with, philosophy brings the conception of the existence of the self out of the hazy indefiniteness and uncertainty of ordinary thought and establishes the truth of the conception beyond a peradventure. This continuous emphasis upon personality as the ultimate fact in all experience tends to fix on the soul an absolute value; that is, tends to show that the soul has value as an end in itself and not merely as a means. Further, philosophy, in making clear this conception of the soul as of unconditional value, shows that the soul's perfection is the only worthy final purpose for the universe as a whole. Thus it establishes an inherent probability that the soul survives the body and lives on through all the future. This probability is reinforced by the idealistic conclusion that the world of matter is only phenomenal, the vesture of the soul. But that the good actually do live in evergrowing enjoyment of what God has in store for them, and evilminded also live the unending life of degradation and suffering, philosophy of course cannot prove. Its last word on the subject is, whatever God wills will be.

And now, to bring our subject more closely home, what has the study of philosophy for the preacher? Two points only I will mention. In the first place, it helps to keep the well-springs of originality open. The man learns to do his own thinking and dares to draw his own conclusions. Not that the minister should carry the methods of his study into the pulpit, and there display his critical acumen, but his sermon, as a finished product, should bear abundant evidence that it is a message which he has worked out for himself. Preachers are sometimes a little too fearful of

seeming to be argumentative and heavily intellectual. But I suspect that nowadays there is more danger in the other direction. We are all prone to fall into easy-going intellectual ways. I need not dwell on the corroding effect of such laxity; it is only too

familiar the waning interest in the deeper questionings that disturb men's minds, the willingness to lean heavily on authority, to appropriate homiletical helps, to trust in a picturesque vocabulary, elaborate illustrations, and great show of proof in demonstrating what no one questions. "The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed." The study of philosophy ought to make strongly against such preaching, for it keeps the mind close to the undercurrents of life: it is ever flashing on the mind new and inspiring insights. Thus it helps to make the minister a quickening spirit. His words are with power, and what does the preacher in his dealings with men crave more?-power to lift men out of their groveling selfishness and low-vaulted conceptions of the truth. In the second place, philosophy can be of service to the preacher in enabling him the better to deal with doubts and questionings. It is a well-known fact that, given the requisite endowments and zeal, a preacher can attain to a considerable measure of success though he mix not a little superstition and error with his teaching; but if the time ever comes when he is made to see the difficulties that beset any of his peculiar beliefs, he faces a crisis for which he is poorly prepared. He must spend many a day and night in agonizing thought if he would win for himself intellectual peace and that assurance without which his words are vain. It is when the obstinate questionings will not down, and the man is all adrift, that philosophy can do its greatest work for him. But may not a preacher escape these questionings? May he not get such a grip on the truths taught in the Bible as to have no occasion to doubt or hesitate? I do not see how he can if he seriously undertakes to keep in touch with modern life. Of necessity he must live in the atmosphere of questioning or take to the cloister. But the preacher must not only himself be established in the faith; he must be ready to help another who may be groping in the midst of doubts and uncertainties. With scientific study unsettling the faith of many young people, with charges of heresy calling for adjudication, with Christian Science and the "New Thought" infecting almost every community, it seems impossible for one who essays to be a leader of men in things of the spirit to escape the necessity of thinking his way through the vital issues of philosophy.

In closing I should like to give a single illustration. A certain friend of mine in the theological school found no time for the study of philosophy. He was popular and in demand, so that it became difficult for him to avoid a multiplicity of engagements both social and ministerial. When urged to improve his exceptional opportunities for philosophical study he treated the matter lightly. He was too busy. After graduation, when he went out into the work, success still attended him. His winsome personality and manifold accomplishments attracted a large and devoted following. And he was genuinely helpful. The spirit of Christ shone in his ministrations. Among those who especially enjoyed him was a young scientific student, who in time became a regular attendant upon the church services. As his interest grew he felt a desire to have a talk with the preacher on some of the doubts that were troubling him. Accordingly he called, and in the course of the conversation he introduced the subject of his intellectual difficulties with the Christian faith-difficulties growing out of his reading in Huxley, Spencer, Tyndall, and their like. The pastor exhorted him, pointed him to his Bible, urged him to be more faithful in his religious duties, but proved quite unequal to the task of meeting those difficulties on the intellectual plane where alone they could be effectually overcome. The young man went away disappointed. Not only had his pastor failed in the hour of testing, but the Christian religion had been made to appear something divorced from reason and the intellectual ideals of the soul. The minister himself then began to get glimpses of the yawning depths of doubt. His beliefs seemed in peril, and not knowing how to defend them he did not dare to face the issue squarely.

From such a pitiable situation, philosophy could have rescued him. It would have enabled him correctly to diagnose the young man's case and then to lead him step by step out into the light and peace of a well-grounded faith. One such triumph is worth all that the mastery of philosophy may cost.

Geo. A. Wilson

ART. VII.-CONVENT LIFE IN OLD MANILA

THERE are not many places in the world where the twentieth century is separated from the sixteenth by a single wall of mud and mortar. The convents of Manila furnish such a spot, and the visitor with a little historical imagination may step into the life of the medieval monastery with all the sights and sounds of the age of Calvin and Knox. Within the Walled City the five larger convents of the Jesuit, Recoletos, Franciscan, Dominican, and Augustinian orders occupy several acres of ground, and their exteriors present a bare and uninteresting aspect that gives little hint of the treasures to be found within. Many Americans pass these buildings daily with no thought of their value to the antiquarian. There is no more valuable introduction to the study of the monasticism of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries than a visit to these institutions, exhibiting today the life of the age of the renaissance. The convents of Manila represent the architecture of three hundred years ago; they contain the books, the paintings, the bells, the furniture, and retain the mode of dress and the habits of life of an age that was in full vigor when Columbus discovered America, and that has elsewhere given place to modern habits of life and thought. To drop back into the past and find it living, and maintaining its daily progression of duties prescribed five hundred years ago, is an experience not to be neglected, and is worth coming some distance to find. The first impression of a visit to one of these monasteries is of surprise and pleasure at the beauty and comfort of the inner cloisters and courts as contrasted with the somber exteriors. The monastic life is turned inward, and the houses were built to shut out the world. The rumble of traffic and the strife of the street never penetrate these shaded paths by the quiet fountains, and if houses made with hands could be so built as to shelter their pilgrims with peace, these eight-foot walls should serve their purpose well. A little monastery life would be an excellent antidote for some of the ills peculiar to the twentieth century. No feverish unrest finds lodgment there. No nervous prostration is written on the faces

of those robed and gowned padres who complacently look out from the upper ventanas at sunset. Here the untroubled and incipient saints could meditate on holy things and plan political coups by which to accumulate property to sell to rich Uncle Sam. Some shrewd doctor will some time recommend convent life as a new form of rest-cure; and then we will spend our vacations going about with bare feet and white robes, which is perhaps as near to an angelic appearance as most of us may hope to come. If, however, we could lengthen our belts to match those of the padres we might be in part compensated.

The visitor is always met at the entrance by the doorkeeper of the order, who in some cases is a lay brother though he looks like a "religious." In fact they all look alike. The individual is hard to separate from the order. He wears the face of a graven image and seems as imperturbable as the Rocky Mountains, but he is a very peaceful and placid sort of man, is well fed and good natured, and gives the visitor an impression of having finished his religion early in the day. There are always men who will go to no end of personal trouble to show the visitor the things that he wants to see provided, of course, that they are on the list of the things that are to be shown. For there's the rub! The paintings, the cloisters, the bells, the books, the carvings, the organs, and the altars are all full of interest and beauty, and are to be seen for the asking, but back of these things that are seen are the unseen things of the inner life and spirit of the church and the order, and this the casual visitor cannot see; never will they be shown. The inner courts and cloisters are much alike. Some are wider and some are higher and some are cleaner, but all have the Roman arch, all show the fine perspective of retreating colonnades, and all are hung with old paintings of saints and martyrs. The paintings are a various lot. The oldest of them are almost completely obliterated by the scars of time, tropical heat and moisture being very destructive of pigment and canvas. Colors are faded to an indistinguishable brown, and, as for dates, there are none. No brother knows how old they may be, and none ever thought to inquire. Sufficient unto the day is the statement that they represent the great souls that have served the order. Some of the