lie in the fact that it refers everything in this system of the world and of man back to God, but in its wrong apprehension of the outcome of the system. And into this false estimate it is betrayed by a misconception of the meaning of the primary truth of the Gospel. The Church for many centuries has rested under the shadow of a false view of the purpose of God in providing for all mankind recovery to another life beyond death. The Reformed Churches, in making up their systems, fell into this traditional mistake. The Scriptures teach that, while the wages of sin is death-a death which may carry down even the soul into destruction in hell (Matt. x, 28), God has provided redemption from death through resurrection, which can reach every man, however, only in his own order and with such accessories of judgment as shall infallibly render to every man according to his work. The Confession of Faith assumes that there is no benevolent intent whatever, no hope toward God" in the provision to raise the unjust, but that the effect of Christ's victory over death in their case is simply to unspeakably augment their doom, adding to the torment of the soul the anguish of an eternal corporeal damnation.

Now we have to say that this degrading view of resurrection, in the case of this immense portion of mankind, is utterly unscriptural. It violates the whole spirit and letter of Old Testament prophecy and confuses it into a hopeless enigma; it misconceives the whole work of redemption, narrows the meaning of election, and mutilates and obscures every first principle of the gospel of the grace of God. We cannot here again go over the ground so often gone over in these pages to show how all Bible truth

about retribution fits in harmoniously with this truth of race-redemption through resurrection. But we once again entreat our brethren to examine this principle of redemptive resurrection in the light of Scripture and of reason, and even of science, and to ask themselves whether they cannot find the key here to all the dark problems which vex them in their effort to revise their Standards. They are not bound to follow us in our attempts to adjust this principle to other truths of Scripture or of science. it is perilous in them to reject the principle itself.

But

For this is not a mere question of policy or of theological riddles. We affirm that, so long as the Presbyterian Church permits this slur upon God's redemptive purpose in resurrection to remain in their Confession-stripping it of all beneficent effect except in the case of the elect-so long she must stand as a false witness to the grace and power of God in the gospel of His Son. For this matter enters into the very heart of the gospel. Its glad tidings begin with the announcement of Christ's resurrection as a note of great joy to all people, and in fulfillment of the ancient promise-oft repeated-that in Him all the families of the earth shall be blessed. It is, therefore, no light matter to strip this primary fact of the gospel, upon which the world's hope rests, of its true efficacy and meaning.

For testifying to the true value and the wide scope of this first truth of the gospel, and in the endeavor to bring my Church to see it, I was compelled to withdraw from it. This increases my right to speak this word of warning, and to say to these brethren, that if they continue to pervert and deny this gospel of the resurrection, their compromising expedients to amend their Standards will be

futile, and the troubles in their camp will increase. God will give them no rest, and no prosperity worthy of the name, until they render to Him in this vital matter the glory due unto His name.

OBLIGATIONS INCREASED.

It is often taken for granted that, with more liberal and hopeful views of the future of mankind, there must necessarily come a loss of zeal in Christian work, and a diminished sense of responsibility for the salvation of men. It has, however, been one of the features of this magazine that, in broadening the horizon of the Christian's hope for mankind, it has shown how this hope can be realized only through the devotion and self-sacrifice of elect souls who are willing to take part with Christ in His work of redeeming mankind. The ordinary view of the Christian's responsibility in this work limits it to this narrow sphere of earth and time. The few souls with whom he is brought in contact in the brief span of his life are all with whose salvation he is supposed to be charged. But when one comes to see the true doctrine of the unity of mankind, as embracing the living and the dead in one organism, and to know that each living soul represents on the arena of life a series of lives that went before it, of which it is the product and the continuation, a wider and deeper sense of individual responsibility is attained. And especially as the Christian comes to view himself as a member of that Christ-body which is the first fruits of those redeemed from among men, and who are therefore charged with the potency and

the responsibility of redeeming their brethren, he gains a new sense of what Scripture means when it describes him as called by God "into fellowship with His Son, Christ Jesus our Lord” (I Cor. i, 9), with him to suffer, to count all things but loss, and with Him to be baptized in behalf of the dead (I Cor. xv, 29). Our view shows how much larger and more intimate is the relation of the individual Christian to the world's redemption, and how widespread the effect of his devotion and self-denial, and how indispensable it is to the result.

We have taught no doctrine of a lazy, selfish passage into heaven on the ground of what has been done for us, but the Scripture doctrine that every man must reap the fruit of his own doings, and that Christ is given to us not to avert from us the consequences of our wrong-doing, but to dwell in us as a living and overcoming power of rightdoing, and to bring forth in us the same fruit of loving self-sacrifice for the sins and sorrows of men that was so pre-eminent in Him.

And no other doctrine so stimulates the Christian to seek the unity and purity of the Church, for no other so exalts the place of the Church in God's redeeming plan, and so demonstrates how necessary it is for the salvation of the world that the channels of her life be kept free and undefiled.

And as for philanthropic labors, no other doctrine presents so strong motives; for no other insists so strongly and with such added weight of scientific proof, that in the body of humanity we are all members one of another, and that the wrong and pain of one is the concern of all. Our doctrine shows that the salvation of the individual can

only be wrought out by labors and sacrifices for the general good, and that his ultimate perfection and blessedness are bound up in that of the race, even as in the Revelation the heaven of the saint is identified with the city of God, which, coming down from heaven, is set up on earth, and in the light of whose glory all its nations walk.

We are firmly convinced that the low and selfish type of piety so prevalent among professing Christians, the worldliness by which the Church is clogged and the sense of her high calling obscured, the prevalent indifference to her divided and weakened state would be impossible were Christians truly enlightened in the meaning of that gospel of which the resurrection of Christ is the central fact. That prime fact of the Christian faith has been so dislocated, and distorted into an infinite calamity to an immense portion of the race that, in the language of Isaiah, a "covering is cast over all people," hiding from them the glory and the grace of God as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ. The false doctrine of the resurrection of the unjust for purposes of everlasting punishment is responsible for this dark veil over the face of God, for the Christian lives stunted by this blindness, and for this long groping of the world in sin and in ignorance of God, and of His great salvation.

ONE OF THE CHIEF CAUSES of the traditional monstrosity that bas grown up in the Church in her doctrine of future punishment has been a persistent misapplication of certain Scripture warnings against being cast into hell which our Lord addressed to His disciples when they