accept. George Schneider* wrote a criticism on the Essence of Christianity, with the significant title, The Concessions of a Liberal Protestantism to Unbelief. He affirms that a God and Father in Heaven, who counts the hair on our head, and without whose will not a sparrow shall fall to the ground, does not fit into our modern mode of thought. The Social Democrats turn the gospel of Jesus into a programme for social reformers. Max Göhre, in his Drei-monate Fabrik Arbeiter, tells us that the Socialists consider Jesus not as the Christ of the theologians, but as a man in history with noble dreams and aspirations, who tried to bring about, by religious means, that golden age which they are now seeking by economic revolution. While they regard the methods of Jesus as impractic able, His ideas are accepted as eternal. A socialistic tendency is found in circles of the orthodox church. One of its great exponents is the court preacher, Stoecker. He is not in any way in sympathy with the spirit of the Social Democrats, but believes that the gospel message must not only be proclaimed from the pulpit, but must be wrought out in the social and political life. This is a somewhat novel tendency in a Lutheran preacher. In the churches and lands, which live under the influence of Zwingli and Calvin, it is a part of the sixteenth century message. We can but mention the theosophic and spiritualistic tendency with thousands of followers in Germany. As a religious phenomenon, rather than a theological movement, it may be considered a reaction against materialism and rationalism. While it is an evidence of disease and decay, it becomes, also, a witness of the irrepressible tendency of the soul toward the spiritual and eternal, rather than toward the material and temporal. Thus we have sketched in barest outline the tendencies in present day German theology. We find, on the one hand, an extreme orthodoxy, which is out of touch with the age, and, on the other, a radical socialism which is sunk in the age. Between the extremes there are shades of liberalism and con* Das Freie Wort, Nr. 48, 110. servatism. The pastors and the people in the churches are mainly conservative. The professors in universities, a respectable minority of preachers, and a large portion of professional men and educated laymen are liberal, many of them safely so. The controversies which agitate the church, the books and pamphlets which pour from the press, the hopes and fears which animate the hosts of Christ, are traceable to the action and reaction of the intellectual and spiritual convictions of the representatives of the various schools. One stands in silent awe before the troubled sea. The foundations are moved; the ark trembles on the verge of the abyss. There are some who would turn back and find safety in the calmer havens of the past. There are others who are fog-bound, waiting for the kindly light to break through the surrounding gloom. And there are those who move forward, undaunted, with their eyes fixed on the eternal Christ and trust that "the best is yet to be." Count Attinghausen, in Wilhelm Tell, foresaw the impending change in the political life of his fatherland. He gave utterance, in plaintive notes, to the feelings which throb in many a saintly bosom to-day: "Das Neue dringt herein mit macht: das Alte, Mit denen ich gewaltet und gelebt. Unter der Erde liegt schon meine Zeit: Wohl dem, der mit der neuen nicht mehr braucht zu leben." -Act 2, sc. 1. But before he dies, after Tell had shot his arrows, Attinghausen laid his hand on the boy's head and with a prophet's eye beheld the dawn of a better age: "Aus diesem Haupte, wo der Apfel lag, -Act 4, sc. 2. G. W. R. VIII. NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT CONSIDERED WITH REFERENCE TO RECENT CRITICISM. By James Orr, D.D. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1906. Pages iii + 562. As some readers of the REVIEW may have no knowledge of the Bross Foundation it may be well before noticing this volume, the third of the Bross Library, to say that in the year 1879 the late William Bross, at one time Lieutenant-Governor of Illinois, desiring to make some memorial of his deceased son, agreed to transfer to the trustees of Lake Forrest University, "the sum of forty thousand dollars, the income of which was to accumulate in perpetuity for successive periods of ten years, at compound interest, the accumulations of one decade to be spent in the following decade," for the purpose of calling out "the best efforts of the highest talent and the ripest scholarship of the world," in the production of the best books or treatises to demonstrate the divine origin and authority of the Christian Scriptures, to show how both science and revelation coincide and to prove the existence, the providence, and the attributes of the one living and true God. This gift as originally contemplated was finally consummated in 1890; and in 1900, at the close of the first decade, the trustees began to administer this important fund. There are two methods of securing books of such a character as will meet the conditions of the trust agreement. First, the trustees may from time to time select able scholars to prepare books on some theme within the prescribed terms; and secondly, one or more premiums or prizes are to be offered during each decade, the competition for which is to be thrown open to the scholars of the whole world. According to the first method President Francis Patton, D.D., of Princeton Theological Seminary, and Professor Marcus Dods, D.D., of New College, Edinburg, were chosen. The former delivered a course of lectures on "Obligatory Morality," in May, 1903, and the latter a course of lectures on The Bible: Its Origin and Nature," in May, 1904. These lectures were given before Lake Forest College, were open to the general public, and are now published by the trustees of the Bross Fund. According to the second method a prize of six thousand dollars was offered in 1902 for the best book fulfilling any of the purposes described in the trust agreement. This prize of 1905 was unanimously awarded by the committee of judges to the writer of the essay entitled "The Problem of the Old Testament," 66 James Orr, D.D., Professor in the United Free Church College, Glasgow. The fortunate winner of this prize stands among the most distinguished theologians of Scotland. His extensive knowledge, his ability as a thinker, his skill as a controversialist, as well as his reverence for the Bible and his earnestness in defending its claims have long been recognized. He seems to have mastered to its full extent the literature, at least German and English, bearing on all the questions of modern biblical criticism. And this gives his readers confidence that with his fair-mindedness united with his broad scholarship he will discuss the problem of the Old Testament intelligently and without prejudice. Too often those who are most positive in their assertions of the evil tendency of the so-called higher criticism and most loud-mouthed in their denunciations of its advocates are utterly ignorant of its nature, method and purpose. Dr. Orr is not one of this class. For while he is persuaded as he tells us in his preface (p. xv) that, as represented by Wellhausen and other radical critics, it rests on erroneous principles, and, if carried out to its logical results, will prove itself extremely dangerous, yet he adds: "Only, if this is to be shown it must, as far as one's knowledge enables him to do it, be done thoroughly and with due regard for all really critically ascertained facts." No better definition of the so-called higher criticism could be given than that which he himself has given on p. 9: "Higher Criticism,' rightly understood, is simply the careful scrutiny, on the principles which it is customary to apply to all literature, of the actual phenomena of the Bible, with a view to deduce from these such conclusions as may be warranted regarding the age, authorship, mode of composition, sources, etc., of the different books; and everyone who engages in such inquiries, with whatever aim, is a 'Higher Critic,' and cannot help himself." On the same page he says: "The truth is, and the fact has to be faced, that no one who studies the Old Testament in the light of modern knowledge can help being to some extent, a 'Higher Critic,' nor is it desirable he should. The name has unfortunately come to be associated all but exclusively with a method yielding a certain class of results; but it has no necessary connection with these results." We should expect that Dr. Orr would deal fairly by his opponents; nor are we disappointed. He is never abusive, well knowing that where calm reasoning is needed passionate reviling is indicative of weakness. Nor does he ever consciously misrepresent the views he is combating, though he may at times misapprehend them, and so unwittingly do injustice to an opponent. He keeps cool and never loses his temper. His book indeed is a model of what a controversial book ought to be. The book was not written with a special view to the Bross Prize. It had its earliest beginnings in the hot discussion called forth by Colenso's book, The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua Critically Examined, 1863, and by the publication in 1866 of Graf's Die Historischen Bücher des alten Testaments, which prepared the way for Wellhausen. It is the result of more than forty years of earnest study, begun when the author was still young and deeply interested in the biblical questions, then new, about which such violent controversy raged for years-a study carried onward ever since with unflagging interest, in the course of which his opinions gradually took shape, until they were finally matured in the form in which they are presented in this Prize Essay. The general course pursued in the arrangement of its contents is simple and well adapted to the author's purpose. After an introductory chapter in which the problem is stated, a brief preliminary survey is taken of the witness which the Old Testament bears to its own authority and inspiration as the record of God's revelation to his ancient people (chapter II.). Here critical questions are not discussed. The next four chapters consider the question how far this view which the Old Testament gives of itself is affected by the results of modern criticism (III. to VI.). The four succeeding chapters are occupied with a careful examination of the critical hypothesis on its own merits (VII. to X.). Chapter XI. discusses the bearings of archæology on the Old Testament, and a closing chapter deals with the age of the Psalter, the reality of predictive prophecy, and the progressiveness of divine revelation (chapter XII.). It is not our purpose now to give a critique of this book. Comprising, as it does, more than 600 pages, and discussing almost every question suggested by modern Old Testament criticism, it is clearly impossible, within the compass of a few brief paragraphs, to present even the substance of the author's argument, and it would be a manifest injustice to him to dismiss his book with a few general observations, or to pick out a number of disconnected points with which we might happen to agree, or from which we might feel compelled to dissent. Such a course would give no adequate idea of the character of the book. It should be taken as a whole, or at least in large sections, and discussed connectedly point by point. And the present writer hopes, if health and mental vigor permit, to undertake this difficult task. F. A. GAST. DER HEILIGE GEIST, SEIN WESEN UND DIE ART SEINES WIRKENS. Erörtert von K. F. Nösgen. 259 S. Berlin, Trowitsch und Sohn, 1905. M. 5.50. This is the first of two parts of a work which bears the title, "Das Wesen und Wirken des Heiligen Geistes." It is announced |