style-the style that has grown up in the bosom of the church -is entirely vocal in origin, while a great deal that masquerades as church music to-day is not ecclesiastical by birth, but draws much of its form and the character of its melody and rhythm from a style that arose under instrumental and secular influences. Music of the latter class betrays its source and associations in its frequent dance-like rhythms, its florid accompaniments without organic relation to the voice parts, its noisy climaxes.

In the liturgic music of Tchaikovsky we have a style that is purely vocal and purely churchly, without any reminiscence of the dance, the opera-house, or the concert-hall. There is no ostentatious parade of counterpoint, no organ pyrotechnics, no choral shouting and scrambling. True also to the church tradition, there are no solo performances. All is impersonal, restrained, solemn. But these cadences are such as angels might sing, and their effect penetrates to the depth of the soul. The pleadings and loving ascriptions of the Eastern saint-John of the Golden Mouth-are clothed in tones which he himself would have deemed worthy. In them profound effect is produced with the simplest means. These tender melodies, these ineffable harmonies, breathe the very temper of devotion. They remind us that church music is or must be prayer, and must promote the spirit of prayer. Every criticism of church music must have this conviction for its basis."

ARTICLE X.

NOTES ON BRITISH THEOLOGY AND PHI

LOSOPHY.

It is a pleasure to commend to the notice of readers of the BIBLIOTHECA SACRA the two volumes just issued, on the Gifford Foundation, by Professor Edward Caird, LL.D., D.C.L., D.Litt., Master of Balliol College, Oxford. They are the last terms in the series that forms a brilliant record of work done in Kant, Hegel, Comte, and other philosophical representatives. The distinguished firm of publishers, Messrs. Maclehose and Sons, of Glasgow, have done for the volumes, in type and finish, all that publishers could do. The volumes are marked by all those excellences of style and thought which have made Dr. Caird the superb lecturer he has ever been-so superb that it does not appear we in Scotland shall soon see his like again.

There are two ways in which we may estimate this work. One is as a contribution on the Gifford foundation, and the other is, as a general contribution to religious and philosophical thought. Now, in the latter, and fortunately the more important, aspect, the work seems to me to rank much higher than in the other view. For it is obviously a somewhat circuitous and indirect mode of approaching the problems of natural theology, to reach them through an exposition of early Greek philosophies. But, on the wider view, such a work has so great value in itself as a contribution to the subject of which it treats, that it can scarcely be too highly praised. That subject is, "The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers." The opening chapter is on "the relation of religion to theology," and has an exceedingly fresh and wellTwo vols. Pp. xvii, 382 and xi, 377. Glasgow: James Maclehose and Sons, publishers to the University. 14s., net.

balanced statement of the relations of reason and faith. I am so heartily in accord with what the gifted author says that only with reluctance do I enter upon criticism. Yet no statement on such a theme can hope to win universal assent, and criticism is the greatest compliment we can pay to its value.

The contention of the Master of Balliol is that the opposition so often existent between faith and reason can only be relative-not absolute-and must more and more disappear, as each comes to its own in fully developed spiritual life. He proposes (vol. i. pp. 18-20) no more new or striking idea than that of evolution-the usual catchword of our time-as an eirenicon in the hope of bringing both terms to better mutual understanding. As to his main contention, enlightened theologians have long been agreed upon it, and do not regard the opposition of faith and reason as more or other than accidental. Dr. Caird says there is "no third power beyond both" to determine them, and that is, no doubt, true, although it leaves the matter in somewhat loose and indiscriminate form: there are theologians who discriminate the spiritual reason from the natural reason, the dialectic process in the former not being divorced from ethical conditions. The same laws of thought are, no doubt, valid for both, but it is reason as regenerate and spiritually enlightened that is held to surmount the oppositions between faith and reason.

As to the proposed eirenicon, I venture to think it not without its disadvantages, and hardly feel prepared to rate it so highly as our author does. The reconciliation of faith and reason is sought to be effected within the more or less discordant spiritual subject, and the idea of evolution-which, as a result of modern science, is certain to be conceived as very largely exterior to that subject-will be very apt to make the reconciliation sought too much in what lies beyond ourselves. It seems to me that a truer eirenicon lies much nearer, and is found in the progressive and symmetrical development of the rational and-I do not write "or "-spiritual life of the subject. There may, no doubt, be an exterior aspect which the

term Evolution covers, but it seems to be undesirably overweighted in value when the subject's attention is drawn off so largely to exterior aspects. I am by no means sure that the author does not unwittingly make the opposition between reason and faith, which he means to heal, at times appear greater than it is. He leaves the impression that faith is mainly a passive and unreflective thing-the "unreflecting faith" of religion, as it is later (vol. i. p. 380) termed-which must develop into reason," whose "criticism" is "directed against" it. A deeper spiritual analysis would show how unsatisfactory such a presentation is. We had thought the day was past when any would treat faith, like Mansel and others, as though it were only unreflective or receptive, and not also constructive.

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But perhaps philosophy is lagging at one point behind theology. The one and only faint trace of any better view (foot of p. 19, vol i.) is quite overborne by the whole trend and tendency of the discussion, which does no manner of justice to the rational character of faith in its developed reaches. It is entirely overlooked by the author that the whole function of reason is not correctly represented when it is set forth as a coming after faith to "criticise" it. Reason must also go before faith and justify its confidence, by showing how rational are the grounds of such confidence. Faith is faith-faith believes just because it is seen to be more rational to believe than not to believe. Faith does not "develop into reason," but into perfect harmony with reason. It is not only that faith and reason are not absolutely opposed-as Dr. Caird rightly contends-but that they are not so separate and independent as he represents. This prior and justifying assent of reason, in faith's most living forms, strangely enters not within Dr. Caird's purview. As we have seen faith, in its more developed workings, to be so highly charged with rationality, so it should be seen reason involves an ultimate element of faith. If faith is to "develop into reason," we should need to preserve the balance by calling in Pascal's saying that faith is "the last step of reason." For it may, with not less cogency and truth,

be shown that faith is itself the highest reason-reason sublimed the crown of our intellectual activity. But there is really no need to put it either way.

Another point. We are, of course, in perfect accord with the author's insistences on the "universal" character of Christianity, the "kernel" of which "is essentially rational," and on the need "to break away from the local and national influences of the region in which it was born." But, in the principle of dropping what was local and accidental, we have something which, in the hands of some who occupy Dr. Caird's reflective standpoint, would carry us so far that it had been better for Dr. Caird to show the principle at work. But he merely says, "I will not conceal my conviction that its dissolving power must be fatal to many things which men have thought and still think to be bound up with their religious life, but I do not believe that it will destroy anything that is really necessary to it." Such reserve, however prudent or permissible, can hardly be satisfying to his readers. In less reserved-or more courageous-writers of the same school, we have before now had the Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection of our Lord, dropped or dismissed as historic fact, while their ideas were retained. Are such facts among those meant to be treated as "local," "temporary," "provisional," and without "universal" relation or cosmic significance? The Master of Balliol expressly recognizes the difficulties of such an intellectualized Christianity, with its projection of ideas minus a basework of historic fact, but it cannot be said that the help he gives is great.

There is, in fact, no real facing of the difficulty, and we are left to conclude that the tossings betwixt idea and history are to be obviated by taking history as idea for our mediating thought. Now, the services of writers like Professor Caird towards a spiritual interpretation of the universe are so great -so inestimably great-that it is real pity they cannot be brought to see how greatly they sin against events and against the needs of humanity in treating historic fact as the mere