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And again it is written.

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against me is on my side. ... He that doeth the will of my Father who is in Heaven, the same is my brother, and my sister, and my mother." So spake and proclaimed again and again this great Religious Eclectic of nineteen centuries ago. As the invisible Spirit of Truth, during all these centuries He has been speaking and proclaiming the same thing-" My doctrine is not mine. The words which ye hear are not mine" but His "who sent me," and who" has not left Himself without the same witness in any nation or among any people."

What, then, are the Original Sources of Christianity? All the Holy Teachings of all the Religions of the World. Everything in all Holy Books or Holy Traditions of Mankind which was genuinely good, and beautiful, and true, the Divine Jesus seized upon by a sort of omniscient faculty of mind and soul; appropriated it—in the name of the Common Heavenly Father-and wrought it into those Teachings which constitute the sum and substance of his Everlasting Gospel. There is nothing new under the sun. All Truth that is necessary to man's spiritual elevation had been revealed by the Holy Spirit, and spoken by the holy prophets and sages of all nations before Jesus came. Not a Truth, nor a fragment of a Truth, entirely new did he utter or profess to utter. All that he said had been said, in other ways, before. "Search the Scriptures" of every Ancient Religion that has survived till now, and you will find it all. "These are they that testify of me." Christianity itself was Universal Religion renascent. Jesus was "its resurrection and its life." His mind was the crucible and his soul the alembic, in which was fused and from which was distilled in new form, the Eternal Truth of God; which Truth had been a common Deposit" of all the Great Religions,-a "Faith," not once," but ever and forever, “ delivered to the Saints."

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So we arrive at the fact, which needs to be constantly repeated, that Christianity is a Religion, the Religion of Eclecticism; and Jesus its founder, the great Religious Eclectic of the World.

XII.-WHAT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES?

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Christianity, "which was Universal Religion renascent," existed long before there were any New Testament Scriptures. How long before no one can exactly tell, for God buried the body of this Moses, and no man knoweth of his grave to this day!" Sufficient is the fact that Christianity could exist, does exist, and can exist without any especial Holy Book peculiar to itself. All books are its Holy Books, and all Truth is its Revelation.

But, within a generation or two after the visible and audible retirement of its Divine Founder, Christianity-which had already spread over the known earth-seemed to need the support of some Written Records. So "many took it in hand to write." Who they were nobody exactly knows, and it matters not. The things that were written were so numerous and, for the most part, so spurious and worthless, that after perhaps two hundred years, a few of the more helpful and reliable of the manuscripts were sifted out, and gathered into what is now known as the Canon of the New Testament. As to their special inspiration or inerrancy, not a claim was made by any of their writers nor by any of those who compiled them into a single volume or "Canon." They were issued and everywhere known as simple Biographies of Jesus and Letters to Churches. As such they were, and are, Literature-sacred Literature indeed, but still Literature. So they were held to be for two or three centuries, at which time Christianity began to revert to Heathenism so rapidly that these Writings were soon transformed into a Charm or Fetich: and, more and more as Degeneration progressed and the centuries went on, they were idolized instead of searched." Finally they were united in one volume or "Canon," with those Selections from Ancient Hebrew Literature which had come to be known as the Old Testament Scriptures; and the two Collections of Writings combined were called the Bible. A next step was to pronounce them the Word of God: and a next, to hold them inerrant and infallible-God's miraculous and only Revelation to Mankind! From this point of downward tendency, all the rest was

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natural and easy. Anathemas upon all who should question or doubt; Salvation for all who meekly received; and Damnation for all "Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Heretics" who should dare to reject! Apostolic, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds which, "whosoever believeth shall doubtless be saved, and whosoever believeth not shall doubtless be damned!" Sacraments, without which there can be no Salvation! Rituals of Worship, without which no man can please God! An infallible Church, outside of which all are without God and without hope! Vicarious Blood, without which all mankind must eternally perish! Intercession of saints, without which none can receive the mercies of God! Infallible Popes for Roman Catholics! Infallible Councils for Greek Catholics! An infallible Apostolic Church for English Catholics! And, for all orthodox Protestant sects alike, an infallible Book! Such has been the tendency to revert, and such its appalling results. And all because it was supposed that Christianity-which arose, flourished, and gloriously prevailed for two hundred years without any Holy Book, and for half a century without any recognized New Testament writings at all—could not possibly get along without some "infallible" book, church, council, or Pope, to compel and sustain it. A heathenish principle adopted to begin with; and, Heathenism rampant ever since, as a consequence.

"Facilis est descensus Averni."

But now 't is time, high time, to return to "The Truth as it was in Jesus." And all broadest minds and greatest souls of humanity are demanding the return. The twentieth century will be the opening age, not of any Protestant Reformation merely, but of a Religious Reform world-wide and eighteen centuries deep; and this reform will be—in spirit, not in name-Renascent Christianity.

XIII. THE RENASCENT BIBLE.

With the written records called the Bible this reform has vigorously begun, and shall more vigorously continue. The Bible, not as an infallible or as a supernatural book, but as a

volume of Sacred Literature: one of many, but probably best of all and containing the Truth of all,-as the vastly superior results of its teachings have thus far seemed to indicatethis is the first position taken, and now to be maintained, by the Higher Criticism. As an indication of what is already astir in the Christian world regarding this great impending Reform, a quotation just taken from a leading book review is here added, with the remark that the list of names given contains for the most part those of ultra-conservative workers in the cause of Biblical Revision and the New Criticism.

XIV. THE BIBLE AS LITERATURE.

"The Bible as Literature is a compilation of articles upon the subject by Professor Richard G. Moulton, Ph.D., Rev. John P. Peters, Ph.D., Rev. A. B. Bruce, D.D., Rev. Henry Van Dyke, D.D., Professor W. J. Beecher, D.D., Rev. William E. Griffis, D.D., Rev. William H. Cobb, D.D., Professor Max Kellner, D.D., Professor Lewis B. Paton, M.A., Professor Marvin R. Vincent, D.D., Professor George Frederick Wright, D.D., Professor George B. Stevens, Ph.D., D.D., Rev. Samuel T. Lowrie, D.D., Professor M. S. Terry, D.D., and Professor Albert S. Cook, Ph.D. It may well be imagined that some pointed things are said by these writers, who represent progressive theology in this country. Professor Moulton declares that the Bible, the very name of which may be translated as 'literature,' is a 'literature smothered by reverence,' and he goes on to say: 'To the devout reader the Bible has become a storehouse of isolated texts, of good words. He scarcely realizes that it exhibits the varieties of literary form familiar to him elsewhereessays, epigrams, sonnets, stories, sermons, songs, philosophical observations and treatises, histories and legal documents. Even dramas are to be found in the Bible, and also love songs; nay, so far does dumb show enter into the ministry of Ezekiel that some of his compositions might fairly be described as tableaux-vivants. The distinction between things sacred and things secular, which exercises so

questionable an influence upon our times, seems unknown to the world of the Old Testament. Its literature embraces national anthems of Israel in various stages of its history, war ballads with rough refrains, hymns of defeat and victory, or for triumphant entrance into a conquered capital; pilgrim songs, and the chants with which the family parties beguiled the journeys to the great feasts; fanciful acrostics to clothe sacred meditations or composed in compliment to a perfect wife; even the games of riddles which belong to such social meetings as Samson's wedding. With the single exception of humorous literature, for which the Hebrew temperament has little fitness, the Bible presents as varied an intellectual food as can be found in any national literature.'"

As another indication of "what is astir" in the way of trying to fulfil the prophetic words and method of the Divine Founder of Christianity, we add here another quotation from the same recent book review as that inserted in the section immediately preceding.

"Warfare of Science with Theology."

"The aim of the author of this work, Hon. Andrew D. White, late President of Cornell University, has been, in his own words, to try to aid in letting the light of historical truth into the decaying mass of outworn thought which attaches the modern world to mediæval conceptions of Christianity, and which still lingers among us-a most serious barrier to religion and morals, and a menace to the whole normal evolution of society.' Behind this barrier he sees the flood of increased knowledge and new thought rapidly rising with the danger of a sudden breaking away, distressing and calamitous, sweeping before it not only outworn creeds and noxious dogmas, but cherished principles and ideals, and even wrenching out most precious religious and moral foundations of the whole social and political fabric. 'My belief is,' he says, that in the field left to them-their

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