"The present day, in particular, with its moral slackness, stands in urgent need of rousing and regeneration through the moral earnestness of Christianity. In the bosom of Christianity unfathomable forces are slumbering, forces which have by no means lived themselves out and are still

ing human life into new channels with an irresistible and elemental violence. The contact of divine and human begets daimonic forces which may work either for revolution and renewal, or for destruction and desolation. To gain control of these and lead them into the paths of produc

is too rigid, Protestantism is divided by opposition between older and newer types. Courage and sincerity are absolutely necessary for the constructive work of the coming religion, which is to be a world-religion, a necessity

tive work is one main task of the religious community."

But, he points out, "the particular way of apprehending this task may in the lapse of time become narrow and stereotyped. Then arises the need of appealing from it to the primal force itself and summoning this to the task of new creation."

Eucken, does not definitely formulate a new religious dogma but he continually insists upon an attitude toward evolutionary Christianity. Catholicism

B

"Either religion is merely a product of human wishes and ideas which have been sanctioned by tradition and society, in which case, as a human fabrication, it must be destroyed by the advancing tide of spiritual progress, and no art or might or cunning can arrest its downfall;-or religion is based upon facts which are more than human, and then the fiercest attack is powerless to shake it, but will rather help it, through all stress of human

41

need and toil, to come to its full strength and unfold more freely its eternal truth."

An extended study of Eucken's philosophy as set forth in his various works is made in the London Quar

terly Review by W. R. Boyce Gibson. Broadly compared, we are told, Bergson's outstanding emphasis is upon intuition, Eucken's upon action.

union of theory with practice on the one "It is precisely through its intimate other that Activism makes to many of us hand and with mystical insight on the

so profound an appeal. We stand in need of a practical philosophy of life, of a philosophy which takes us as we are, heirs of the past and makers of the future, places us in our historical and cultural setting, shows up the great organized movements out of which our civilization has arisen and within which it is still operative for good or for evil, sets before us a clear live option between the rule of Nature and the rule of Spirit, and calls us to register our decision daily and hourly, if need be, in token of continuous loyalty to spiritual ideals."

ISHOPS of the Church of England in Convocation have solemnly resolved "That the denial of any of the historical facts stated in the Creeds goes beyond the limits of legitimate interpretation, and gravely imperils that sincerity of profession which is plainly incumbent on the ministers of Word and Sacrament."

On

The issue before the Bishops was as clear as petitions could make it. the one hand, were petitions from the Council of the Churchmen's Union, for freedom to study, interpret and restate traditional doctrines in the light of newly-discovered truth; on the other hand, from clergy and laymen, for removal of doubt as to whether an ordained minister is free to continue to exercise his ministry after he has deliberately come to the conclusion that any historical statement of the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed is not true. No calm in the religious storm has resulted from the Bishops' resolutions, which proceed as follows:

"At the same time, recognizing that our generation is called to face new problems raised by historical criticism, we are

anxious not to lay unnecessary burdens

upon consciences, nor unduly to limit

freedom of thought and inquiry whether among clergy or among laity. We desire, therefore, to lay stress on the need of considerateness in dealing with that which is tentative and provisional in the thought and work of earnest and reverent students."

This decision to "lash themselves to the creeds and let the tide of new thought go by," as one writer puts it,

OF ENGLAND

is accounted a victory for the High Church Bishop Gore, of Oxford, whose open letter to his clergy, "On the Basis of Anglican Fellowship in Faith and Organization," opened the floodgates of controversy in the London Times. Bishop Gore contended that "if a man is to be free to think and say anything he pleases, and still be counted a fit candidate for a bishopric, there can be no corporate principles of any kind at the back of the Church." Regarding the prescribed theological minimum, however, Dean Henson, of Durham, pointed out that Dr. Gore himself interprets the articles which declare the ascension of Christ and his descent into hell in a symbolical sense, while affirming the literalness of the statements of virgin birth and physical resurrection. Every Christian church has to meet the genuine difficulties which modern knowledge raises concerning these articles, says Dean Hen

son.

Books, editorials and leading articles, no less than the debate and pronunciamento of the Bishops' Convocation, indicate the tremendous interest in Engintellectual liberty in the spiritual land aroused by the loud demand for sphere. Dr. Sanday, professor of divinity and canon of Christ Church, Oxford, publishes a reply to Bishop Gore's open letter in which he affirms belief in the central reality of the Supernatural Birth and the Supernatural Resurrection, but not in all that the Church of the past has believed of them as literal fact. Of the Resurrection he writes:

"The only question really at issue relates to a detail, the actual resuscitation of the dead body of the Lord from the

tomb. The accounts that have come down to us seem to be too conflicting and confused to prove this. But they do seem to prove that in any case the detail is of less importance than is supposed. Because, whatever it was, the body which the disciples saw was not the natural human body that was laid in the grave. A natural human body does not pass through closed doors. Its identity would not esintimate friends, cape recognition by either for a shorter time (as by Mary Magdalen) or for a longer time (as by the disciples on the way to Emmaus). No coherent and consistent view can be worked out as to the nature of the Risen Body."

Of the Incarnation Dr. Sanday says:

"In regard to the Birth of our Lord, I would say that I believe most emphatically in His Supernatural Birth; but I cannot so easily bring myself to think that His Birth was (as I should regard it) unnatural. This is just a case where I think that the Gospels use symbolical language. I can endorse entirely the substantial meaning of that verse of St. Luke (i, 35): 'The Holy Ghost shall come upon that which is to be born shall be called thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee: wherefore also holy, the Son of God.' This is deeply metaphorical and symbolical, and carries us into regions where thought is baffled. I do not doubt that the Birth of our Lord was sanctified in every physical respect in the most perfect manner conceivable. The coming of the Only-begotten into the world could not but be at

tended by every circumstance of holiness. Whatever the Virgin Birth can spiritually mean for us is guaranteed by the fact

that the Holy Babe was Divine. Is it not enough to affirm this with all our heart and soul, and be silent as to anything beyond?"

The London Guardian recognizes the importance of the occasion which has called forth the action of the Bishops in recognizing student-liberty but setting a limit beyond which loyalty shall not go. "It is not for the ministers of the Faith," says the Guardian, "to teach the negation of Faith." But The Christian Commonwealth declares:

"The controversy now raging in the Anglican Church on the basis of fellowship is pursued on one side as tho the sole end to be gained is the reinstatement of the creeds as records of historical fact rather than of religious truth. Liberal churchmen recognize quite as clearly as Bishop Gore and his friends that if the emphasis is laid upon the historic elements in the creeds, and not upon the spiritual values they contain, their position in the Church becomes impossible. All the restatements and new interpretations of Christian doctrine which scientific knowledge and biblical criticism have made necessary to the modern mind, are ruled out before they are made. If that demand for liberty of intellect is not conceded, not by the Anglican Church alone, Liberal thinkers in all the churches must go out into the wilderness again. But if, as we believe, such freedom of the mind as we claim for all scholars and thinkers in the churches is compatible with an absolute and steadfast loyalty to the aims and ends for which the Churches

W

exist, no Liberal Christian does any violence to his conscience by remaining in fellowship. Precisely the same issue was raised at the beginning of what is called the New Theology movement in the Free Churches; and it will be raised again

whenever any new movement of the intellect and spirit of free and instructed men and women begins to threaten the traditional habits of thought and modes of worship in the Churches. Only a frank and willing recognition of the fact that spiritual loyalty and intellectual freedom are the twin pillars upon which Liberal Christianity reposes can save organized religion from the repeated disruptions which must follow a victory of the obscurantists."

The Church of England, says the London Nation, is on the verge of a crisis which is bound to have a momentous effect on its future as a Christian and a national institution. "Bishop Gore is under the strange delusion for so able a man that the particular views of orthodoxy which he happens to hold are at the same time the doctrines of the Church of England. . . . As a matter of fact, the Church of England, in the explanation which is given of the second article of the creed in the Church's Catechism, is much more liberal than the Bishop of Oxford."

It is so because it lays emphasis not on historic statements but its religious values. "Plain men will not draw the distinctions which the Bishop of Ox

on

"We might afford to dismiss this ecclesiastical hair-splitting if it were merely a quarrel of the schools. But the Bishops of the Church of England are invested by the State with large executive powers, and, as one of the Divinity Professors at Cambridge has pointed out, it lies in the last resort with the Bishops to accept or reject a candidate whom these Professors have trained for the work of the ministry. A candidate who has been trained at one or other of our universities for Holy Orders on modern methods may, and undoubtedly will, find himself rejected by Bishops whose orthodoxy is framed on Dr. Gore's lines. All the labors of a lifetime will be suddenly wasted; suddenly dashed to pieces. His career all the aspirations of a lifetime will be will be broken before it has begun. If Dr. Gore and his friends prevail, we shall have, as in the Roman Communion, a cessation of all relations between the Church

and modern learning. The Professors at the universities will teach one interpretation of the beliefs of the Church in the name of scholarship. The Bishops will insist upon another in the name of orthodoxy. In such circumstances, the Church, as an ancient national institution, is bound to lose its prestige, and will deserve to lose it."

ORK, Play and Love these are the three remedial agents constantly recommended by social experts. To these Dr. Richard C. Cabot, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard, adds a fourth -Worship, which he describes as supremely indispensable to the vitality and resisting power we most need. In a new book entitled, "What Men Live By," he draws upon his research into the essential principles of mental healing Work, Play and Love, he says, are his saints. One finds in them an outlet for devotion and gropes toward God. But when we assume that all true religion can be woven into these we fall into the same fallacy that certain teachers fall into who think that English composition can be taught by weaving it into history, science and philosophy. Vital religion is not acquired in that way. Worship, prayer, direct communion with God, is an essential if we are to secure that which we all know well enough that we want-food of the soul in health or disease. Work, Play, Love and Prayer, says Dr. Cabot, are of all times and all races in whom character is an ideal. Their interplay

is the essential of that “more abundant life" which many modern prophets, for example Ellen Key, "extol without defining":

"Every human being, man, woman and child, hero and convict, neurasthenic and deep-sea fisherman, needs the blessing of God through these four gifts. With these any life is happy despite sorrow and pain, successful despite bitter failure. Without them we lapse into animalism or below

it. If you want to keep a headstrong, fatuous youth from overreaching himself

and falling, these must be the elements of strength. When you try to put courage and aspiration into the gelatinous character of the alcoholic or the street-walker, you will fail unless you can give responsibility, recreation, affection, and through them a glimpse of God. I do not believe that evolution, revolution, or decadence have power to change these elemental for those overdriven in their industrial needs. . . In genuine emergencies and harness, material relief (food, rest, air, sleep, warmth) may be the first necessity, but unless we can give the vital nourishment which I am now advising, all material relief soon becomes a farce or a poison, just as medicine is in most chronic diseases a farce or a poison."

...

Work, Love and Play brace and reenforce each other, yet, adds Dr. Cabot,

"they all leave us rudderless and unsatisfied without Prayer. They can attain creative power only in Worship, which-inchoate or full formed-is the source of all originality, because it sends us to our origin. The harder we work and play and the more intensely we devote ourselves to whomever and whatever we love, the more pressing is our need for reorienting, recommiting, refreshing ourselves in an appeal to God."

shows itself in loss of power, in posiThere is a spiritual fatigue which

tive nausea of existence. Dr. Cabot

emphasizes the value of prayer-pauses and mountain - top prayer - vision, and follows Professor Hocking in a theory of worship-cure:

"As the growth of a colony of bacteria is checked by the chemical products of its own way of living, as there is something in the very nature of work that calls (through fatigue) for rest, so there is that in all Godless living which tends to draw us (through the pain and paralysis of spiritual fatigue) back to God. 'Worship is the self-conscious part of the natural recovery of value' in life, when it has grown stale. For worship is the conscious love of the Spirit of the Universe, and we need it regularly like food or sleep."

quest of the adventure that she is coming to feel is her right and her privilege as a means of escape from the boredom of not having anything to do and of not believing in anything"; the increasing practice among even the most respectable and modest women of "displaying themselves in public restaurants (in God knows what company!) on the arms of dancing escorts whom they hire by the hour or the afternoon, as one formerly might have employed a detective to watch one's family jewels at a social festival."

reaction. If this awakening comes late, the outcome may be a reversion more violent than any Puritanical revolt the world has ever seen.

always wanted woman to be better than "Whether rightly or wrongly, man has

himself. He realized that in their formative period it is necessary for his children to be surrounded with good influences at home. When it is borne upon him that woman has lost the one quality which enabled her to hold his reverence, his respect and his devotion, he himself will impose terms that will result in a return to customs which centuries have made normal."

C

OLLEGE men used to be obliged to go to chapel. Now 30 per cent. of the state universities have cut chapel exercises altogether; 37 per cent. of those still held occur but once a week; in some state universities daily chapel means merely an assemblage to hear announcements or an occasional address, not even scripture reading and prayer. "The percentages of chapel observances we figure out from data collected by Richard C. Hughes, secretary of university work for the Presbyterian Board of Education. Mr. Hughes has made a "survey" of religious conditions at state universities in which it is also brought out that nearly half of the 7,545 faculty members of 47 state universities do not appear to belong to local churches or congregations. In a census of the religious preferences of 104,923 state university students, 8,452 expressed none, and 28,550 more are accounted for religiously in the "no information" column.

From Mr. Hughes's survey (published in full in The Biblical World) issues this indictment: Neglect of religion at the state universities is a grave defect in state-supported education which it is up to the churches to remedy.

A few state institutions offer courses in religious subjects and in some cases university credit is given for courses in religion provided by the churches on independent foundations; but it is pointed out that it is quite possible to teach the material of religion without teaching religion. Chapel service, where maintained, is not a practicable substitute for church service.

Estrangement between the churches and the campus increases with the growth of the university. Only a minority of the faculties take active part in the church life as officers and teachers. In 47 universities with 7,545 in the faculties, only 726 are officers

of the church and 502 are teachers in these churches. "It is clearly evident," says Mr. Hughes, "that the churches have not kept pace with the growth of the universities and have, by their own neglect, lost much of their rightful leadership in education."

The religious census of a big state university-one to six or seven thousand people-shows what churches have enough students to call for the employment of a pastor and indicates the churches that can easily cooperate in a union enterprize. The student-body is too large and complex to be dealt with by any one organization or church, continues the report. "The solution of this difficult problem must come through a new type of unselfish, active, daily cooperation of all the churches in interest in a given university." A central clearing house is needed. "The student associations, by reason of their history and organization, should be best fitted to perform this function, but to do this will require a reorganization on a democratic basis by which the accredited representatives of the churches will come into its management. The university pastor should be placed in the same relation to the work of the association in the state university as the president maintains in the church college."

Mr. Hughes warns the churches that enter this field against emphasis upon sectarianism. But "the demand that all unite in one church at the university and that all denominational lines be obliterated-in short, that there be accomplished at the university within the short period of the student's residence what all Christendom has failed to accomplish in centuries-cannot be said to meet the needs. Students are like other people, and this demand cannot be met." He adds:

"This demand, however, grows out of a feeling that the state university offers a unique opportunity for emphasizing the

great fundamental truths of religion and for developing a strong leadership. The liberal intellectual atmosphere of the university discourages the growth of narrow sectarianism, and there is so much vague many look upon loyalty to a church as generalization regarding religion that very evidence of narrowness. This sort of teaching sends men into the world unattached; it is a breadth of view that is narrowing in its results. It too often leaves the graduates with only a general interest in religion as a subject for discussion, but without either motive or plan for Christian service."

"The problem will not be solved," says Mr. Hughes, "until the local churches are developed as effective agencies for religious education and the students brought into these churches."

"The universities are showing us the way. They are beginning to deal directly with every interest in the state except religion. Through their research laboratories, extension departments, experiment stations, the short courses for farmers, housekeepers, and others, they are bringing the results of modern scholarship directly into the homes, the factories, the farms, and all the industries of the state. They are vitalizing the state with the spirit, the method, and the results of scholarship. It is the duty of the church to vitalize scholarship with the spirit of Christ. The university sends its experts out to all parts of the state to meet the people directly, and then it brings the people, old and young, into the university.

This is a new movement and has not yet

reached all the universities, but it is sure to spread to all. The churches must follow the same plan, send their experts into the university and bring the members of the university into the churches.

"The universities more than welcome the churches; they recognize the need and their own limitations. President Van Hise, who has carefully studied the problem and has had unusual opportunity for watching the methods and results of the work by the churches, says that this work must be done by the churches if it is to be done, and that it is better done than