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all were taken from one and the same original. But substantial uniformity with circumstantial variety is one of the surests tests of truth in all historical narratives. The several accounts of many important battles of the world, and of many other historical events, vary in many particulars, and yet no one thereby has any doubt of their occurrence. The four portraits of the Father of his Country, painted by four different artists, namely, Stuart, Peale, Sharpless, and Wright, though all taken about the same period of his life, vary so much in expression that you would scarcely know them to represent the same person, and yet the same George Washington undoubtedly sat for them all. The various editions of Gray's 'Elegy,' and of some of Shakespeare's plays, differ as much as do some chapters of Matthew and Luke in their respective accounts of the same transaction. Indeed, what four of us could go away from a meeting and give exactly the same account of what had transpired? What four witnesses under oath in a court of justice ever describe a transaction precisely alike? And yet their testimony is taken as reliable in cases involving the most important interests, even of life and death. Indeed, judges and juries are apt to discredit a cause in which all the witnesses tell a long story in exactly the same words. Let us apply the same principles to the four gospels. They exist; they purport to contain the history of our Lord Jesus Christ; the authors are not living; the characters they therein describe are no more. No man living knows by direct personal knowledge that these things were ever so. But why not apply the same rules of evidence and belief to scriptural narratives as to any other? Being in existence, and a minute account of passing events, they must be either genuine and true, or else a gross forgery. There is no alternative; for the self-delusion theory is preposterous. They were true when written, or were then an absolute falsehood. If the latter, they must at that very time have been known to be false, and an imposition on the credulity of those then living. These stories began to be published not long after the alleged crucifixion. Many persons were then living who could easily have refuted the state. ments of the evangelists had they been untrue. The enemies of Jesus were still alive and active. The scribe and the Pharisee, the priest and the Levite, still smarted under his repeated denunciations. They had the disposition, the opportunity, and the incentive to deny the story of the miraculous birth, the spotless life, the marvelous works, the sublime death, the astounding resurrection, and the glorious ascension of our Lord, had the then published description of these events been totally fabulous. But, so far as we know, no person then living ever uttered a protest against these accounts, and for two thousand years they have been received and treated as veritable history. Again, being written, they must have been written by some one. There they are; some persons wrote them; and they must have been written by either bad men or good men, by liars or by truth-tellers, by forgers or by honest historians. That is a very elementary and simple proposition, but it is the key to

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the whole situation. Every circumstance tending to disprove forgery tends, on the other hand, to prove the truth of the documents; for they must be one or the other. The question, then, is: Do wicked men write such books as these four gospels? Do liars proclaim that they and all other liars shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone?' Does the thief denounce dishonesty, or the adulterer reprove uncleanness, or Satan rebuke sin? If, then, these stories were not penned by wicked men, they must owe their origin to honest men; and if honest and truthful men wrote them, they must be honest and true narratives, and not a tissue of falsehoods. Is not the conclusion irresistible?" The dean of the Law School then goes on to examine the subject from four other standpoints, in four chapters which show how incontrovertible and overwhelming is the evidence, viewed legally, for the historic truthfulness of the gospels. Dean Bennett, who was a Protestant Episcopalian, says, at the close of his Introduction: "I hope to see the time when the ministers of my own Church shall be canonically permitted to open their pulpits to their brethren of other denominations. God speed the day!"

The Gospel for a World of Sin. By HENRY VAN DYKE, D.D., LL.D. 12mo, pp. 195. New York: The Macmillan Company. Price, cloth, $1.25.

This is a companion volume to The Gospel for an Age of Doubt, which some admirers have called the finest apologetic of modern times. The author says: "This second book is written chiefly because I feel the need of a fuller utterance to complete the message of the former book. They stand together and interpret each other; they are windows looking toward Christ from two different points of view. The message of the first book was this: Christ saves us from doubt, because he is the revelation of God. The message of the second book is this: Christ is the revelation of God, because he saves us from sin." Thus it is seen that this book rather than the former goes to the root of the matter, and shows us the staple that anchors the whole dependent argument which runs connectedly through both volumes. Speaking of the present age, Dr. Van Dyke says: "The age of doubt will pass, is already passing, and we are entering, if the signs of the times do not deceive us, on a new era of faith. There is a renaissance of religion. Spiritual instincts and cravings assert themselves and demand their rights. The loftier aspirations, the larger hopes of mankind, are leading the new generation forward into the twentieth century as men who advance to a noble conflict and a glorious triumph, under the captaincy of the Christ that was, and is, and is to be. The educated youth of to-day are turning with a mighty, world-wide movement toward the banner of a militant, expectant, imperial Christianity. The discoveries of science, once deemed hostile and threatening to religion, are in process of swift transformation into the materials for a new defense of the faith. The achievements of commerce and social organization have made new and broad highways

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around the world for the onward march of the believing host. we can discern the brightness of another great age of faith." The Gospel is for the whole world in every age. "To those who are doubtful and confused the divine Voice says, 'This is my beloved Son; hear him.' To those who are sinful and sorrowful, the Voice says, 'Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.'" The first chapter is about the mist of doubt above the gulf of sin. The second is on "The Sin of the World," the inexplicable presence of evil, the sense of sin, and the hopeful fear. Perhaps the most brilliant and powerful chapter is the third, entitled, "The Bible Without Christ." We do not wonder that this masterful chapter, when delivered in substance as a university scrmon, has been felt to be terrific in its force. Starting with the fact that one of the strongest proofs of divine inspiration is the presence in the Bible of a clear message of salvation centering in Christ; noting that Jesus himself took this view of the Scriptures, as indicated in his words to the unbelieving Jews who trusted in their sacred books but felt no need of him, "Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me;" Dr. Van Dyke says: 'Suppose, for a moment, that this were a mistake. Take Christ out of the Bible. Suppose that there were no testimonies to Christ in the Old Testament, no promises of his coming, no foreshadowings of his saving mission and power-only law and ritual, poetry and history, philosophy and prophecy. Suppose also that the New Testament contained nothing but the record of the moral teachings of Jesus and his followers, without reference to his life and death as a visible revelation of divine justice and mercy in personality and action. Suppose that it had not a word to say about his work in relation to men as sinners. Suppose, in short, that it gave the words of Jesus about the reality and nature and guilt of sin, about the pain and shame and fear of humanity, but no explanation of him, no recognition of what he did and suffered, no view of his crucifixion and resurrection, in their bearing upon the sin of the world. Suppose the Bible without Christ. What hope of salvation would it contain? What would it be worth to us? What would be left of it as the divine answer to the need of a sinful world? In the Old Testament, with its partial and imperfect vision of the nature of evil, an unbroken shadow; in the New Testament, with its poignant disclosure of the secret of sin, an intolerable light." In the thirty pages following the author paints the awful blackness of that shadow and the blinding glare of that insufferable light. Under the title of "Christ's Mission to the Inner Life" he writes of the kingdom within, the picture of Jesus in the soul, peace with God through Christ, and newness of life. Under "The Perfection of Atonement " he sets forth the love that meets all needs and the love that passeth knowledge. The closing chapter is "The Message of the Cross," opening with Amiel's words, "The cross is the guarantee of the Gospel; therefore it has been its standard." Dr. Van Dyke is nowhere guilty of giving aid and comfort to the Unitarians. His last sen

tence is, "On the cross of Calvary God is revealed, crowned with thorns and enduring death for our sake." To which he adds Browning's great

lines:

The very God! think Abib; dost thou think?
So the All-great were the All-loving, too—
So through the thunder comes a human voice
Saying, "O heart I made, a heart beats here!
Face my hands fashioned, see it in myself!
Thou hast no power, nor mayest conceive of mine,
But love I gave thee with myself to love,

And thou must love me who have died for thee!"

Life Indeed. By EDWARD B. COE, D.D., LL.D., Senior Minister of the Collegiate (Dutch) Church, New York. 12mo, pp. 267. New York and Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Company. Price, cloth, $1.25.

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Dr. Coe is one of the most sincere, straightforward, thoughtful, scholarly, and edifying preachers of the metropolis. His ministry of many years does not pall on the public taste. There is worth, simplicity, dignity, and sweet reasonableness in this volume of discourses, which are carefully written by a man habituated to the pen. Nothing meretricious or sensational could gain entrance to Dr. Coe's pulpit or study. His sermon on A Lost Faith is from the text, "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him; "the sermon, entitled De Profundis, from the words, "Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord;" God's Wrestling With Man is from the text, "And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day;" The Restoring of Souls, from "He restoreth my soul;" The Work of God, from "This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent." The next is "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ." "Where there is no vision, the people perish is the text for a wise sermon on The Practical Man's Mistakes. "And the Lord shut him in" is text for Divine Restraints. In the Footsteps of Jesus is a sermon from the words, "But go your way, tell His disciples and Peter that He goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see Him, as He said unto you." Jesus Asleep, The Leadership of Little Children, and The Necessity of Immortality are other subjects, and the volume closes with a sermon on The Place and the Way. In this last, by a truer rendering of the text, the passage which makes one of the disciples flatly contradict the Lord is cleared up. Christ had told his disciples that he must go away, and that they could not follow him at once. He had spoken to them of a home which he had called his Father's house, in which were many dwelling places, where he would prepare a place for them, and into which by and by he would receive them. And he adds, "Whither I go ye know the way." He does not say, in a correct rendering, "Ye know whither I am going," for that, as Thomas testifies, they did not know. But the way was plain to them, though

the point to which it led was still beyond their sight. Then it is that the slow, cautious mind of the disciple, lingering bewildered over the picture of a royal palace far away, so different from that which his fancy had painted as the future home of the Messiah, replies, "But, Lord, we do not even know whither thou art going; how then do we know the way? First tell us plainly where thy future abode shall be, and then, perchance, we may discover the path which will lead us also to it." There is at once instruction and reproof in our Lord's reply, as Dr. Coe renders it: "O thou honest but narrow soul, hast thou not learned that I am the way? I came forth from the Father, and I am going again to the Father. That is all ye need to know, and ye would have known it if ye had known Me for what I am. To be with the Father is heaven for Me, for you, for every human soul, and no man cometh to the Father but by Me. The fullness of meaning that My words contain it is not in human power to conceive. No mortal eye hath seen or can see the glories that are reserved for the children of God. Not upon any earthly hills, shadowed by clouds, and swept by storms, do the walls and towers of the new Jerusalem stand in their divine strength and beauty. And not even in thought can ye follow Me now to that realm of joy and peace which is so soon to open its gates of pearl to My ascending spirit. It is enough for you to know that it is My Father's house. light, and life, and glory, and wherever he is, there is heaven. even now ye may draw near through Me, and through Me alone. then, from your idle and vain inquiry, 'Whither goest Thou?' and let not your heart be troubled, because though ye know not whither I am going, ye know that I am the way."

He is its
To Him

Cease,

Religio Pictoris. By HELEN BIGELOW MERRIMAN. Crown 8vo, pp. 250. New York and Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Price, cloth, $1.50.

The first words of the Introduction explain the title of this thoughtful treatment of various problems: "Among our books we have a Religio Medici and a Religio Poeta, but not a Religio Pictoris; yet it may be well that the painter, as well as the physician and the poet, should set forth the faith that is in him, because from the nature of his calling he has some special advantages for dealing with the deeper problems of life. The painter is bound both to the ideal and the actual, and cannot separate himself from either. He is thus obliged to take both sides of life into account. His work must consist in shaping concrete realities into some form of ideal expression. He may paint chairs and tables, rocks and streams, flesh and garments, but unless he can make these stir our feelings in some way he is only a maker of signboards. . . . The artist's problem is similar to the problem of every human life. We are all, in our best desires at least, pledged to the ideal, the immortal. We realize, if only dimly, that our life's work should be the shaping of the elements which make up our lives into some form of ideal expression. In trying to bring this about we are obliged to take very definite and

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