on the terms upon which it is offered in the written word; because these terms depend solely upon the will and decision of the pardoning power." He then names the ideas which he finds in the Bible, and does not find in reason; an immense mass of truth, a universe of truth, consisting of the doctrines of trinal unity, of incarnation, of human fall and human recovery, and of the kingdom of God through the indwelling Spirit. He regards the "meagre and narrow unit" of the Unitarian as in feeble contrast with "the infinite vortex of life, being, and blessedness" which the Trinitarian finds in God. He sees God brought near to man in the incarnation, “in which all the plenitude of the divine nature blends and harmonizes with the winning helplessness and finiteness of a creature." The idea of the kingdom of God, with its indwelling energy of the divine Spirit, he pronounces a peculiar idea of the Biblical writers. Hence Professor Shedd regards the book which contains this "universe of truth" as the great and transcendent source of originality and power for the human intellect, the thorough exegesis and apprehension of which "endows the human mind with authority" to "make positive statements concerning the origin of the human race; the dark, mysterious beginnings of human history; the purposes and plans of the Infinite Mind; and the alternatives of eternal salvation and eternal damnation," those "dark and difficult problems."

The thoughtful reader will pause here, and challenge the position which Professor Shedd has taken. It is impossible for the human mind to obtain authority to make the positive statements just mentioned. The assumption of this authority by writers and speakers now, on the ground that they derive it from the writers and speakers of the Bible, is wholly unwarrantable. Reason is incompetent to confer on those writers such authority; and by reason only does any one pretend to confer on them this authority. Positive statements, in regard to the "dark and difficult problems" of human life and destiny, can have no authority but that of mere opinion, in the intelligent mind; and Professor Shedd must be aware, that the opinions on these points which are peculiarly orthodox are widely, if not generally, rejected by intelligent minds. His

"sacred orator" may speak with sublime confidence; but who does not know that the avowed ground of his confidence is nothing other than his opinion that Biblical statements are from the mouth of God, and that he understands the true sense of those statements? Opinion only at bottom; how, then, authority in the positive statements based on that opinion? And if that opinion really passes for what it is worth, and has little or no authority with the mass of thinking men, then Professor Shedd's sacred orator fails of that authority which he confidently aspires to wield. The evident fact of our time in this matter is, that the minister wields no authority except as he produces rational conviction.

And who can permit Professor Shedd to make up, as he does, that universe of truth which he finds in the Bible alone? Reason, suitably disciplined under the providence and spirit of God, certainly tells of the kingdom and indwelling presence of the Eternal and Infinite One. It pronounces the universal incarnation of divinity in humanity; not indeed ascribing to God "winning helplessness and finiteness," but finding in man, however weak and low, some sign and wonder of God with us. It contrasts with the story of a single physical entrance of God into human flesh, the rational idea of the univer sal presence of the life of God in the soul of man. For a mere myth, meagre and barren as any pagan tale, of man's fall, reason gives us a profound view of the fashion in which the Creator, of his own wise and kind good-will, made man subject to evil, that, by the discipline of suffering, the soul in man might be endued with energy to aspire to heaven. And, instead of finding in God only "the meagre and narrow unit" to which Professor Shedd refers, reason, as the inner light of disciplined faith, discloses that "infinite vortex of life, being, and blessedness," which Professor Shedd imagines none arrive at who do not look through the Trinitarian conception. If Professor Shedd is unconscious that God communicates directly to the human mind the richest thoughts of himself, of his presence with us, of his plan in our low estate here, and of his purpose to raise us to blessed eternal life on high, we can only say that his dogmatic preconceptions must have

limited singularly the range of his meditations. If he is not aware that a universe of truth in religion, as well as in ethics, lies wholly open to the search and faith of man, he has reflected to little purpose upon the revelation which God has wrought into the very mind of man.

And when Professor Shedd attempts to say, and does say, that between morality and mercy there is a gulf fixed, so that he who has found out, from the revelation in his own mind, what is the truth in regard to human duty, can by no means pass over to discover the truth in regard to human salvation, we cannot hesitate for a moment to say, that he has misread the plainest revelation of God to man, and has occupied a position from which it is impossible to exercise the authority of truth in the world of modern thought. The line of Calvinistic speculation in regard to God is not one on which the battle of our time can be successfully fought. The whole modern world, newly and profoundly awakened as it is to the consciousness of human rights, under the laws of eternal right, is prepared to repudiate, as a moral abomination, the doctrine that a guilty soul has no rights which a holy God is bound to respect. It is true that the divine law must punish sin. It is no less true that God must punish humanely, and with a single eye to the best good of the sinner, as well as of the universe. The principles and methods of human salvation are no more dependent upon the option and volition of God, than the principles of morality are. God must do right by the sinner; and any, even the least, inhuman punishment can never be right. Not to consult the best good of the sinner, as often as the rod of penalty is lifted, would be a departure from right which immutable morality does not permit, even to God. Human law may say, "I am powerless to accomplish good to the criminal: I can, at best, only accomplish a good for society by restraining the evil-doer, and by holding up a warning; but I am helpless to reach him by effectual moral power." But God can have no occasion to confess moral impotence. The excuse under which he does confess this, according to Calvinism, that man has been made free, and that God must respect human freedom,is the flimsiest that ever sheltered a fearful error; as if moral

influence, moral omnipotence even, the effectual moral influence which a perfect father always exercises over his child, and by which the character of the child is made pure and strong, were an interference with human freedom! To persuade a soul to repent and believe; to convict and convert by moral discipline, this is not an interference with that soul's freedom: on the contrary, when God persuades a soul to submit and obey, he lifts that soul into the freedom which belongs to the eternal life. It seems as if Calvinism had been either insane or wicked in alleging, that God must not interfere with human freedom by persuading men to be holy and happy; for that is just what God must do, and to be unable to do it is to be no God.

There is no gulf fixed between morality and mercy. To make men do right is the whole of mercy, and no more than the whole of justice. When God "communicated morality in reason and conscience," he communicated justice and mercy also. These latter are not "settled in the heavens," apart from the former, "at the divine option and volition," except as it is the wish and will of God, necessary and inflexible, to accomplish morality in every creature. The very instant in which human speculation attempts to leave the plain ground of simple morality, as this is revealed in reason and conscience, in that instant it becomes a criminal in the presence of Eternal Right, no matter how high the pretext, or how pious the pretension, which is put forth by it. Through the whole history of religion among men, there may be run this line of distinction between systems or parts of systems which do, and those which do not, rest fully and squarely on the revelation of right and wrong in the reason and conscience of man: the former sound at least in method; the latter false in method, and false in results.

This brings us to the position which we believe that the Christian ministry, and education for that ministry, ought to occupy, and must occupy or surrender its power. The necessity of the hour is for instruction in religion which comes back from dogmas to the revelations of a good conscience. The free thought of Christendom is impatient of the ancient dog

mas, even in the most conservative communions: it spends itself in energetic pursuit of the just, the good, the useful, and demands supreme consideration for the real welfare of men. It is idle, in our day, to attempt a revival of interest in the dogmatic traditions of any branch of the Church; especially when this involves even an apparent undervaluing of practical devotion to human welfare. The authority of a humane spirit, of brotherly good-will, is greater than the authority of any creed. Modern events have put man into the foreground, and made it of the first importance to consider the practical problems of his deliverance from evil here and now. Of two men, one of whom ventures to "rise upon the rostrum, and make positive statements concerning the origin of the human race, the dark, mysterious beginnings of human history, the purposes and plans of the Infinite Mind, and the alternatives of eternal salvation and eternal damnation," while the other attempts rather to expound the revelations of a good conscience, to interpret the rights and duties of man, to set forth the joys of righteousness and the pains of iniquity, it is not difficult to tell which will command, in any and every communion, the attention and interest of enlightened minds.

Is there not, beyond all question, a Reality of religion and of Christianity, which may be considered apart from religious, or Christian, Formality? If there be no Christian Reality, which, in thought at least, may be taken apart from Christian Formality, then is Christianity a doomed religion. We are fully aware that some thinking men are not only setting aside the long-sacred views of Christ and the Bible, but also are adopting conceptions described by the terms "pantheism," atheism," "materialism," - terms which strike the common pious ear with horror. We do not hesitate to accept the situation. If the good providence of God can bring good out of it, we ought to have hope in it. These men, whose speculation is designated as pantheistic or atheistic or materialistic, do not necessarily lose the Christian Reality. They do misunderstand, in our view, the revelations of reason; still oftener, they misname their own interpretation of these revelations, thinking themselves atheists because they deny the God of