ural is the natural, and is expressed through it. God is not a fitful omnipotence, but essential law."

THE OLD STANDARDS.—The Rev. Geo. C. Lorimer, in the September Arena, says:

"These documents, with whatever excellency they may be accredited, were prepared by fallible men-some of them, indeed, exceedingly fallible--who were hardly qualified in their day to define the faith of Christ for the guidance of future ages, and were adopted in most cases by meagre majorities. Why we should suppose their statements are to be regarded as infallible, and why thinkers of our time should be strictly held to their formulæ, is something that no one has yet had courage or intelligence sufficient to explain. What right has any body of men to insist on conformity to a creed prepared by beings like themselves, even though it has been venerated for a century or two? Who is Melanchthon, and who is Luther, and who are the Westminster divines but 'men by whom we have believed'? But are we bound to their word, or are we strictly held to the Word of our common Lord and Divine Teacher? Is Chillingsworth's cry, 'The Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible the religion of Protestants,' a mere illusion? It certainly is, and the sacred idea concerning the right of private judgment, if the withered hand of men long dead is to hold the brain of the present in the grasp of death."

THE Rev. A. H. Bradford, D. D., writing in the Christian Union of "The Religious Outlook in England," says:

"The tendency among English ministers to accept 'the larger hope,' or the doctrine of Conditional Immortality, is probably quite as largely due to the sight of vast masses of humanity born into poverty and criminal conditions as to study of the Scriptures. Indeed, most of the English thinkers who have broken with the old orthodoxy seem to me to have followed what they believed to be their intuitions, rather than to have thought their way through critical or speculative processes. The emphasis of thought is upon what can be done for man in the present life."

HOPKINSIANISM.-Prof. Allen, writing in the Atlantic Monthly

of "The Transition in New England Theology," says:

"From the time of Calvin onward it had been held that love redeems the elect, while justice punishes the reprobate.

No

greater step could have been taken than to maintain, as Hopkins did, that the essence of Deity was love to universal being. But when it was attempted to incorporate this truth with the tenets of Calvinism, when it appeared that the divine love to universal being was sending to eternal perdition the great majority of those then living, the situation was even worse than before. One could possibly endure that justice should bear the brunt of so awful a necessity, but that the essence of divine love should require it seemed like a caricature and a mockery."

NEW BOOKS.-We are indebted to the author, Mr. W. T. Berger, for a copy of a little book entitled, The Wages of Sin, and published by Elliot Stock, 62 Paternoster Row, London. In it the author, who writes like a devout Christian and an earnest student of Scripture, sets forth the process by which he was led to reject the orthodox dogma of eternal suffering, and to accept the more rational and Scriptural view of restoration. Although he has not been led to see certain aspects of this larger-hope doctrine which give it proper limitations and completeness, the discussion, up to the point to which he carries it, is most satisfactory and convincing. The book is a very valuable one to put into the hands of preliminary inquirers on this subject.

We have received also from Mr. E. H. Rogers, of Chelsea, Mass., a copy of his new book entitled, National Life in the Spirit World. A Sociologic Essay. The author is strongly convinced that the Gospel of Christ proclaims a salvation which is not merely to individuals but to the race as organized into nations and commonwealths. The Kingdom He promised looks forward to the gathering of all mankind into a universal brotherhood. He does not believe, however, that this ideal can be accomplished, or is even aimed at by the existing Church. Christ must come again in some extraordinary manifestation of His presence and power to overthrow the selfish and usurious systems, of commerce and of society which have built up this present world into a great Babylon. Meanwhile, however, He is putting under probation and organizing in the spirit world the masses of the dead where the same tendencies of the race to come together into communities and nations prevail as here. He enters at length into an argument

to prove that the national existence and pre-eminence of Israel is continued there, as preparatory to the revelation of the finallyperfected commonwealth of mankind on the earth.

We have been much interested in the argument, but while it is ingenious and sheds flashes of light here and there upon some obscure passages of Scripture, we are not convinced. The author starts out rightly when he discovers that "all investigation into the future state on the basis of individualism is inconclusive and unsatisfactory." He obeys a proper instinct also when he insists that the organic relations of humanity are such as to establish identity of interest and of destiny between the living and the dead. But the basis of this identity and brotherhood lies even deeper than the one he has laid. His conception of a "spirit sphere" where the dead are gathered is without sufficient support in Scripture, and removes this major part of the human race too far away in interest and sympathy from the living. In some way not yet plain to us their lives are immerged in the living. If they dwell in "spirit spheres," these spheres must find their centres in the existing flesh-and-blood humanity now living on the earth. All of them who were not prepared to rise into that realm of perfect manhood where Christ lives and reigns must come back to earthly life for further judgment as men in the flesh." It is in the mystery of our existing humanity that these mysteries of the future lie hidden. We would rather look for their solution here, and wait for the disclosures to be made here, than seek for explanations in some unknown realm of spirit-being about which Scripture has little to say, and across whose borders it is not only difficult but dangerous to peer.

Our thanks are again due to the Rev. E. Petavel, D. D., of Lausanne, for an enlarged and bound copy of his reply to Professor F. Godet, of which we made notice in the December number of last year. The present volume is entitled God's Mercy in Punishment. It consists of a series of essays in which the argument for Conditional Immortality is presented in Dr. Petavel's usual forcible and attractive style. The book is published by The Faith Press, Limited, at Malvern Link, England, from which it can be ordered. Price 1s. 6d.

WORDS OF RECONCILIATION.

VOL. VIII.]

FEBRUARY, 1892.

[No. 2.

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IS IT A MISTAKE?

Now and then we receive a letter from some friend of this magazine, expressing regret at its divergence from the plain path in which it set out into what is feared to be a region of doubtful speculation. We admit that such a fear seems natural to one who has not gone over the ground of this subject as we have been compelled to do.

A large proportion of those who have devoted themselves to the scientific study of nature and of man have drifted away from the Christian faith. Some new and more complete statement of that faith must be made to the world before it ever can be won to Christ.

Our effort has been to seek such a statement, and to open a way to the right understanding of the mysteries of the future by a new interpretation of the mysteries of the present. We find the germs of such an interpretation latent in the Bible, and are seeking to bring them out. We believe it will in the end be made manifest that in this work we have not been making void the Word of God, but are establishing that Word. Until then we must expect to be misunderstood and distrusted by many of those who, with us, are sincere lovers of the Word and jealous for the honor of Him whom it reveals. To become an object of suspicion to even the least of our brethren is an unfeigned sorrow. But this must be endured until the shadows which now conceal from us the perfect vision are dissolved, and we shall see eye to eye.

Of this we may be sure, that whatever our search into the structure of man's being may reveal to us, the end will be to justify more fully the Psalmist's amazement at the mystery (Ps. cxxxix), and to incite us to join with new fervor in his exclamation, "How precious are Thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more`in number than the sand."

ST. AUGUSTINE states that during the interval between death and resurrection men's souls are kept in hidden receptacles (abditis receptaculis).