while seeking to find God that way. But in the first act of faith he gets back again to the true centre of his being in God, and is set right at the very seat of his disorder.

The right rhythm is established between the soul and God. This is why "faith is counted for righteousness.' It is a fundamentally righteous act. It brings back into rhythm with God the life that is vibrating all out of tune with His. And it is in this way that the life and death of Christ declare to us the righteousness of God, and are so efficacious to establish us in that relation. Christ awakens man to faith in God, and so connects Himself with the life of man just at the point where its alienation begins, and there restores the broken harmony. "Therefore being justified-set right with God-in this way of faith, let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, . . through whom we have now received the atonement." The Christian life, thus begun in faith, is to go on in one round of restored harmony, glorying in tribulations also, until finally it ends in the perfect life of heaven in which God shall dwell in us and we in Him, and we shall become vessels through which He can pour the rhythmic fullness and melody of His life through all the ages to come.

What relation the death of Christ bears to this manifestation toward and in man of God's righteousness is a deep subject. We hope to take it up in the next number.

We have been able here merely to fasten attention on the thought that "the righteousness of God," to which we are to be conformed, expresses something deeper than a relation in law or even in character; it goes down to the foundations of our being in God, and speaks of a harmony

there—which even science suggests to be the final end in creation and which establishes us forever in righteousness, because we are brought not only into eternal rightness but into rhythm of being with the Source of all life, and being, and blessedness. They that receive this gift of righteousness must reign in life.

And as all God's present discipline of us is toward this end, we can understand why we are told to "Rejoice in the Lord always and in everything give thanks; to be careful for nothing," and why this peace of God, which passeth all understanding, should be the effectual guard of our hearts and minds under all the ills of life. "The God of peace shall bruise Satan under our feet shortly."

GOD'S IMAGE IN MAN.

We are indebted to Mr. Henry Wood for a copy of his book, just published through Lee & Shepard, Boston, price $1. Three of the chapters of the book appeared in recent numbers of the Arena. Our readers will remember the extracts in our March number from the one on "The Solidarity of the Race." They will gather from the specimen of the book there given that the writer is a profound thinker upon current religious problems. This book conducts us over the field of modern religious thought, as will be seen from the titles of some of the leading chapters: "The Nature of God," "Revelation Through Nature," "Through the Son," "Biblical Revelation," "The Universality of Law," "Man's Dual Nature," "Evolution as a Key."

The leading ideas of the book are that man, as made in God's image, is essentially and only a spiritual being, that what we call the material part of him does not pertain to his essential self, but is only a form and vehicle for its expression, that the mission of Jesus was to exemplify this eternal fact of man's relation to God and to awaken within men the consciousness of it, that under His leadership and by His inspiration the race is being evolved and uplifted on to its true plane of being-the divine, that God's true revelation of Himself to man is not from any region without, but from within, that this is the key to the true doctrine of inspiration, and that the problem of salvation is the liberation of man from bondage to the errors and the evils that have woven their network of delusions around him and developed him into a personality of evil which has usurped the place and prerogatives of his true and divine self, and which must be crucified and destroyed in order that the real man may know himself as of God, and live.

It will thus be seen that this book, although rationalistic from the point of view of the strict literalist and dogmatician, adheres closely to true gospel lines. Its chief omission, from our point of view, is that it does not discuss in a full and satisfactory way the relation of the death of Christ to man's salvation. But in most respects it is a worthy representative of that new Christianity which is superseding the old orthodoxism, and which is concerned to find a basis for its faith which no storms of critical con

tention can upheave or remove. The extract we gave from the chapter on "The Solidarity of the Race" showed how closely Mr. Wood's thinking in some directions was in ac

cord with our own.

We find that this is so at some other

points, as will be seen by these extracts:

Does animalized individuality possess a surviving personal consciousness, or must the life-force-which in its essence cannot be destroyed-be turned back to make another trial in some other form or condition?

In the disintegration of the dogma of an arbitrary hell imposed from without, we must beware of minimizing the peril of one which is self-made, that will burn out the dross as unsparingly as it is separated in a refiner's crucible. So far as we identify the ego with the body and the "carnal mind," we shall be lost, and that by law immutable, and even beneficent (p. 207).

It is not the life, but the consciousness, that may not endure. That which is linked to an environment must share its destiny. The divine image is man's ideal self. In the degree to which his ego is wrought into this indestructible. part of his economy his personality has an immortal basis. When he says "I" to what does he refer? If to his body, or to his external and sensuous mind, he is in danger of losing what, to him, is himself. The external and that which adheres to it is subject to disintegration. The ideal in man is immortal, and the ego must be bound to it—yea, be it-in order to share its divine permanence. As man links himself to God and Spirit, his ego takes on their eternal attributes. That life, if such there be, which is essentially base and external, when the form is dropped will gradually lose its unreal personality (p. 256).

As bearing upon another burning question of the day we give the following :

The Church standards were formulated in an age of great limitations as compared with the present, and remain fixed, while actual belief is constantly changing. Should dead formulas which are not believed remain inscribed

upon its banner? Some say, "Let them stand, but give them new interpretation." But this would be a specious diplomatic stretching and straining of language unworthy even of a secular organization. . . . The Church cannot afford to be more careless and contradictory-not to say dishonest-than the world. The latter has a contempt for sophistry, and looks upon sincerity as one of the primary elements of religion, in which opinion it is quite correct. The examination of a candidate for ordination, in which a creed must be evaded, and, at the same time solemnly affirmed, is a humiliating spectacle. Religion is a growing, living force. As well thrust an active, vigorous animal into a cast-iron mold as to exactly define all truth in external formula. In either case life is extinguished.

But the perversion which retains abandoned statements because human and sectarian pride will not admit previous misapprehension, has a subtler degrading influence than is often recognized. It not only forfeits the confidence of the world, but darkens Christian character. Hypocrisy is more dangerous than scepticism. Christ never condemned honest doubt, but he did denounce Pharisaism. Sincerity is a gem of the first water, but shams are odious. If one, in the interest of policy, begins a course of plausible concealments and conformities toward a creed that he does not truly accept, his spiritual perception becomes blurred, and moral degradation sets in. The eye must be single, otherwise darkness follows. A gospel with mental reservations, yea, that is not obviously transparent to the most impartial convictions of truth, is without vitality. God's law, deeply written in man's constitution will never condemn him, if he honestly seeks truth for its own sake. Such an one has a guidance which will never lead him out of the way. That scepticism which is the product of sin or selfishness is not sincere scepticism; but there may be honest doubt about some things which have been called religion, but hardly concerning its vital principles. Whether one be classed as orthodox or heterodox,