it, nevertheless. It clears our ideas and makes them definite. Stating the data of this estimate hypothetically, we may say, if the volume of water annually discharged by the Raccoon is three billion five hundred million cubic feet, and if it carries one million three hundred and forty-one thousand cubic feet of silt, nearly one-half of which is obtained by the deepening of its valley; then it has required about thirteen thousand years to excavate that amount of silt which has been removed since the end of the Champlain period. While this is a hypothetical statement it is worth making for the sake of replacing vague impressions by more precise notions. It seems to me the erosion in a small and well-defined valley is a better basis for computation, and yields more satisfactory results than such an example of erosion as the gorge of Niagara. And inasmuch as such valleys are numerous, and the opportunities for such computations are manifold, I can not but hope that the estimates may be multiplied until the collation of the mean results obtained by independent observations shall give us an accurate measure of the remoteness of the glacial period, and thus of the antiquity of certain primitive men, though these may not have been the very first men.

The average of all the estimates quoted above, including my own, is seven thousand eight hundred and fifty years since the end of the Champlain period, and about fifteen thousand years since the end of the glacial period. That the antiquity of man is very greatly in excess of fifteen thousand years is improbable from the fact that, as he is the highest of the mammalia, he is likely to have originated about the time when the mammalian type culminated early in the Champlain period. That it is much less than fifteen thousand years is also improbable because of the magnitude of the climatic and geographical changes which he has witnessed. Think what a different world it was when New England had a climate similar to that of Greenland, if not still more severe; when the border of the ice-fields was in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio; yet primitive man left his

implements in the Trenton gravels, showing that he came upon the scene as soon as the ice receded. Think how long it must have taken for the flora of Denmark to be completely changed twice; first a forest of pines was replaced by oaks and white birches, and these by the beech trees which now cover the land. But in the peat-bogs human remains are scattered among the debris of the pine forests, as well as among the oaks and birches. Stand at the mouth of the Thames and restore, in imagination, the geographical conditions which primitive men have beheld there. The English Channel is dried up; the Rhine flows on through a valley where now the German Ocean heaves its billows, and the Thames is its tributary. From such a condition imagine the land slowly settling down at the rate of a few feet in a century, till these valleys are filled with briny waves and the present condition is reached. Remember that man has been an actual witness of such changes, and we shall be likely to consider one hundred and fifty or two hundred centuries a small enough estimate of his antiquity.

The more extravagant estimates of the remoteness of the glacial period are mostly derived from astronomical. data. The greatest difficulty about these is the fact that there is no positive test by which we may connect the glaciation of the northern hemisphere with any particular one of the several maxima of cold. We are left to conjecture whether it was due to the cold wave which swept over this hemisphere eleven thousand years ago, or one hundred thousand, or two hundred thousand, or eight hundred thousand years ago.

The consequences of any particular view of the antiquity. of man, or any other scientific question, are a secondary matter. The only legitimate consideration is whether the evidence sustains that view. Still it may be pertinent here to allude to the bearing of the conclusions maintained in this article upon the interpretation of the Christian Scriptures, and upon the theory of evolution. In respect to the first, it is now quite generally conceded that the Bible does

not furnish the materials for a chronology of primitive man. Hence the old traditions of the date of creation must be abandoned at any rate; and in that case it is a matter of indifference to many theologians whether it was ten, or a hundred, or a thousand thousand years ago. Most of them, however, will prefer to keep somewhere in sight of the ancient landmarks, if they can not exactly stand by them. Hence it follows that theology has an interest in cutting down extravagant estimates and keeping human periods within moderate bounds.

Curiously enough the interests of evolution lie in the same direction. The amount of variation in the lower animals and plants since the glacial period is very small. If that was a million, or even a hundred thousand years ago, geological history is hardly long enough to account, upon evolutionary principles, for the enormous amount of variation which has actually occurred.

ARTICLE IV.

THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH ARCHETYPE.

BY E. J. FIsh, d. d.

"Who will venture to justify the extreme individualism, the numberless divisions and conflicting party interests, into which at present even the best positively Christian powers of Protestantism seem to be almost hopelessly rent ?"-Schaff.

THE weakness of human nature which renders abstract statements unimpressive and figurative impressive, made it needful that God, "the truth," man's Redeemer, should appear in human guise. This appearance withdrawn, but the weakness remaining, there were required other figurative representations of the truths conveyed. Hence baptism, the expressive symbol of initial redemption, and the Supper of progressive. Hence, too, the Christian Church, Christ's metaphorical body, his reproduced manifestation and ministry in sanctified and combined human material.

The same weakness which requires figures of thought is liable to pervert and abuse them. What persistent Jewish blindness in spite of parable and miracle! What murderous distortion of Messiah's character and mission! What continued travesty of sacrament symbols! What fearful rending, centuries long, of the Savior's Church body! Still the Redeemer's "own receive him not," and the "familiar friend" lifts up the heel.

As there is need, then, of studying and re-studying parable and miracle, memorial ordinance, and the personal Christ, so is there need of studying afresh the metaphorical Christ, often torn by factions, crowned with thorns, hung on a cross, and sealed in a tomb. The multitudinous bodies called Churches attest the need in proportion to their

number and difference. The growing tendency to multiply senseless forgeries, greatly emphasizes the need. Halffledged Church builders, with their "liberal" followings. entailed, reckless of the authority of Christ, the Head, flame out on the ecclesiastical sky like November meteors. "Who, in the face of these facts," asks the honored author of "The Apostolic Church," "will deny that the Protestantism of this day is as much one-sided, diseased, and in need of reformation as was the Catholicism of the sixteenth century?" Surely it is time freshly and earnestly to inquire, whether, according to previous custom, he who said, I will build my Church, gave his apostolic and other artisans a definite, if not minute, outline of the "habitation of God in the Spirit." Also, if such a pattern was given, What are its binding essentials?-inquiries healthily aided by seriously heeding those Sinai-like words: "Let each one take heed how he builds. If any one destroy the temple of God, him will God destroy."

This article aims briefly and comprehensively to an swer both questions by introducing the Christian Church Archetype tersely announced in the laconic phrase, “there is one body," and to a patient, penetrating mind, guided by such announcement as a key, elsewhere distinctly waterlined on apostolic parchments. Though almost appalled by the magnitude and diversity of interests touched, we say announced, as delighted with our discovery as was the philosopher Goethe with the first discussion of archetypes in the French Academy, the news of which interested him far more than that of the French Revolution, received by the same mail.

THE ARCHETYPE DEFINED.

By archetype we mean the first and ruling type, the divine ideal in mind when the Savior said, "I will build my Church," "the pattern showed," the invariable model found in all complete or normal New Testament Churches, as an archetypal leaf or pattern is found in all the myriad leaves of a tree, or a species. This archetype does not exclude