ever, it is to be recognized that this mediaval period made a large contribution: that evidence of the truth and Divine origin of Christianity as it is seen in the clear exhibition of its truths, in their systematic connections and relations of interdependence, in the rationality of their existence and applications. Those same skeptical tendencies in Christian thought, represented by such men as Duns Seotus and Abelard; and it thus became necessary for such men as Anselm and Aquinas consecutively to neutralize this by their constructive theology. This was, of course, imperfect, and much of it has had to be, and will have to be, done over again. But it is, after all, the ultimate and satisfactory form in which Christian evidence will receive its final statement; the truth, shining in its own clear light, the lesser as well as the greater truths recognized in their proper position perfecting the illumination.

With the revival of literature in the Western Church and the general awakening of intellectual activity there were germinant elements of skepticism and positive unbelief, and with these the occasion for a manifestation of Christian evidences. Christianity had been so corrupted and caricatured by its accredited representatives, that the world outside-heathen, Jewish, and Mohammedan, as well as the great mass of nominal believers-needed to know its real character. As with the average Frenchman or Spaniard now, the Christianity of the average layman of the first quarter of the sixteenth century was that of the Papal system, with its manifest and manifold abominations. When such men were awakened to intellectual activity in the humanist movement, these abuses and the accepted system of which they formed part became their point of attack. But there were two powerfully restraining influences modifying the power of such attack,-prevention of avowed unbelief, open assault upon Christianity. One of these was the risk and personal danger involved; in other words, the Church process of answering heretics and unbelievers. Mere philosophical and literary skeptics make very poor martyrs. It is pleasanter to doubt or philosophize in private than to burn or hang in public. The machinery of ecclesiastical repression was so effectively worked that nothing short of genuine religious conviction ventured to tamper with it. Then again, a great deal of the literary and philosophical skepticism and rejuvenated Heathenism of this period was in the Church itself or among ecclesiastics of the highest order. There was great necessity for an exhibition of Christianity in its reality and its power; of the evidence within of its Divine origin.

This necessity was met in the movements of the Reformation. In that great movement, and the fundamental issues with which it was occupied, all others were absorbed. The triflers were swept aside. The

reactive effect of Protestantism, even upon the old system, was to its awakening and purification, saving it from the cancer of skepticism with which it was threatened. Its result and mode of working resembled much those of Methodism in England during the last century. Men thoroughly and religiously in earnest have no time and less taste for theories of skepticism.

But this spirit of earnestness, which had thus put in abeyance the rising skepticism of the new culture, was itself subject to deteriorating influences. The mere division of outward Christianity, and its interference in men's minds with the idea of its essential unity; the divisions and bitter controversies among Protestants and the religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; produced a condition of things in which unbelief could make itself manifest. The forms of this unbelief are more fully developed at a later period. These have been divided into three classes: first, the Deistic, with its two types, the one more spiritualist, represented by Lord Herbert of Cherbury, the other more materialist, represented by Hobbes; secondly, the Pantheistic, represented by Spinosa; and, thirdly, the Skeptical, represented by Bayle. The object of Herbert of Cherbury was to get rid of revelation, by attempting to show its uselessness, and incapability of being proved. The object of Hobbes was to deny and do away with all moral obligations in ethics and politics, in the ordinary sense of those words, and, of course, to sap the foundations of religion. The result, whatever the intent of Spinosa, was to absorb the world in Deity, to destroy alike the personality of Creator and creature, and, of course, with the latter, all personal responsibility. The representative of the last of these divisions, the skeptical, Bayle, was not like these others a system builder to replace or put aside that of the existing faith, but a universal critic, skeptical in his spirit as in the result of investigations. The position of these writers is not, by themselves, closely and consistently defined. They write and express themselves, at times, as approving of the existing system. But it was not very long before their position was recognized.

These, however, were merely precursive to something more clearly and positively defined, the Deistic contest of the next century. "The principal phases of this period of the maturity of Deism, which we shall now successively mention, are four:

"First, what may be called the intellectually rationalistic, that of Toland and Collins. This involved an examination of the first principles of religion, doctrinally, asserting the supremacy of reason, and, of course, its sufficiency to interpret all mysteries. What reason could not thus interpret was not rational, was irrational, and to be rejected.*

* Farrar's History of Free Thought, p. 125.

"Secondly, what may be called the ethically rationalistic, that of Lord Shaftesbury. This involved the examination of religion morally; and it asserted the supremacy of natural morality as a rule of conduct, denying the propriety of motives of reward or punishment.

"Thirdly, as following upon the two former, and for which they had prepared the way, was the more direct attack upon the specific Christian evidences, that by Collins of the prophecies of the Old Testament, and that by Wollaston of the miracles of the New.

"Fourth, a combination of all these, in different proportions, by Tindal, Morgan, and Chubb. This effort with each, while destructive, was also constructive. The destructive part was to show that all of Christianity, plus natural religion and natural morality, was irrational and to be rejected, so far as, in accord with them, it demands acceptance. And they undertook to show, upon these principles, how much of Christianity may be rationally accepted as true."

Of the three other noted English writers of this century, Bolingbroke really added very little to his predecessors; Hume, exercising influence in his day through his argument on miracles, is now more influential through his philosophical speculations; and Gibbon, with his natural explanations of the success of Christianity, and his halting defense of heathenism and its persecutions, has lost his power of mischief. His own testimony to the power of Christianity, and the magnitude of its effects upon the world, is to be found everywhere in his volumes.

But to all of these forms of assault there were numberless replies of great power, some of them even by anticipation, others as the unbelieving scheme was put forth.

Two of the most important during the seventeenth century were the De Veritate Religionis Christiana of Grotius and the Pensées of Pascal on the Continent, while in England the names of Bacon, Cudworth, Locke, Boyle, Tillotson, Burnet, Leslie, Littleton, Bentley, Clarke, Butler, Warburton, Sherlock, Jennings, Leland, Paley, with many others, met the various issues. Hume's argument against miracles received various replies, the most noted of that century being those of Campbell and Paley, while Gibbon and Paine, coming in rather later, were answered by Bishop Watson. The assault (to use the language of Principal Cairns)" was a failure. The assaults of Deism had been repelled, and the ammunition shot away, and nothing remained but to raise the siege. Churchmen forgot their party differences, and Nonconformists fought by the side of Churchmen against the common enemy. The best works of their antagonists, after the replies to them, look poor and shallow, and hardly anything remains in Christianity to be struck at but the external difficulties of reason and of theology." Connected, however, with these monuments of skeptical and

infidel thought in England, and receiv ing largely their impulses from them, were those of similar character in France and Germany. The character of the French infidelity, taking its tone largely from Voltaire, was more bitter and scoffing than that of the English Deists. At the same time, there was a large infusion (through Rous seau and bis imitators) into it of sentimentalism. And with these, through the writings of Diderot, Helvetius, and D'Holbach, were the combinations of Atheistic materialism. Their practical result was the worst excesses of the French Revolution. For, while it may be recognized that the materials had been long in gathering, yet this was the spark to the actual conflagration, and heightened its fury. There were various replies of the Romish clergy. But there was not spiritual life nor intellectual power in the French Church fully to meet these various attacks, and its reconstruction under Napoleon was rather a matter of State policy. Later works from French Protestant and Romish writers of an effective character have appeared. But the spirit of unbelief largely predominates. Renan's legendary theory of the Gospels has perhaps had a wider circulation than any work of a similar character. As a matter of argument, it goes back to the oft-refuted position of Paine and his lame school of English Deists, that of conscious deception. De Pressensé gave an effective reply to it, which has been followed by many others.

In Germany the principles of English Deism passed into what has been called the Rationalistic, or Naturalistic, movement. The peculiarity in this was that its leaders, represented by Paulus and Semler, were clergymen and theological professors, advocates and defenders of supernatural revelation, undertaking to show that there was nothing really supernatural in it.

Coming back to English unbelief and that of this country, we find in the beginning of this century, in England, first the positive effects of a revived Christianity through the movements of Wesley and Whitefield, extending in its influence to the Established Church. Still further, in the revulsion from the infidelity of the French Revolution there was called forth a strong popular sentiment in favor of Christianity. To some degree the same facts had exerted a like influence in this country,-modified, however, by sympathy with France as a people, and especially in view of her assistance rendered during the Revolutionary struggle. There was introduced a great deal of the infidelity of French principles, as that embodied in Paine's "Age of Rea

son." The religious movements of the first two decades of the century checked a great deal of this, and it was, moreover, met in specific replies and works on Christian evidences. The arguments, as directed to the nature of the objections, were largely his

torical, reproductions in a more popular form of the materials of such writers as Lardner and Paley. At the same time the internal, moral, and experimental evidences received more specific attention. The work of Hartwell Horne contains a full exhibition of these evidences of this period, say the first forty years of this century. Those of Bishop Williams and of Doctor Chalmers, in Great Britain, and those of Doctor Alexander, Bishop McIlvaine, and President Hopkins, in this country, present them in briefer compass and better adapted to popular use. The great work of Butler, also, was used, with those of the Rationalists, showing the necessity of Christianity.

It remains that we briefly indicate the neJessities of Christian evidences at present, and in view of recent tendencies, as of those of the last quarter of a century. There are, first, those claiming to be philosophical, Positivism, Agnosticism, Materialism, including in the latter Material Evolutionism. Secondly, those in the domain of science, antagonizing Science and Theology or depreciating the latter as a ground of rational belief or action. Thirdly, those in the domain of Criticism, the old rationalistic movement largely revived in its spirit and processes, and reducing to its minimum in Scripture the element of the supernatural. And, fourthly, those in the sphere of moral life; the Pantheism which absorbs personal life and personal accountability in a material or ideal universe; the Pessimism which finds this universe with a plan and purpose indeed, but one that is evil. And, last of all, in the sphere of Comparative Religion, the effort of unbelievers (in this) to make Christianity one of the natural religions of the world, a little better in some respects than other theories, not so good, perhaps, in others, but at the best, a religion of the past, to be superseded by a, or the, religion of the future, and that by its future of human development, and so on indefinitely. Against each of these powers of unbelieving thought, the Christian apologist needs to present his defenses and urge his attack. And it is to be said that the ability and scholarship of Christian writers have nobly responded to this demand. "The assault," to use the expression of Professor H. B. Smith, "has been along the whole line." But such assault, at whatever point made, has found defenders inside. And these defenders, repelling the attack, have gone out of their lines for aggressive movement. These different forms of unbelief, in their respective fields of investigation, have been met by the researches and replies of Christian scholarship. Over against the objections and asserted difficulties, for instance, of physical science, made by infidel and atheistic scientists, are the replies of Christian scientists of equal scientific reputations,-such men, for instance, as Whewell, Brewster, Forbes, the Duke of Argyle, Dawson, Dana, Hopkins, and Chadbourne. The efforts, again,

of skeptical comparative religionists, have found their answers in the labors and conclusions of Christian scholars and investi

In

gators, such men as Hardwicke, Moffett, De Pressensé, Rawlinson. Then, again, in the department of metaphysics and moral science, the assertions of Positivism, Agnosticism, Materialism, Pessimism, are finding their answers with almost every weekly issue of the press,-in the works of such men as Flint, Caird, McCosh, Harris, Fisher, and Pasteur. What, again, claims to be the higher criticism which disposes of Scripture alike in its inspired and its historical claims, has been met by a thorough investigation, in a profoundly reverential spirit and by conclusions of an opposite character,-in the labors of Lightfoot, Dean Smith, Pusey, Westcott, Brett, Delitsch, Green, Fisher, Wright, and Leathes. These are but samples in each department. Connected too with these may be mentioned Christian reviews and journals in which these items receive discussion, and also regular endowment lectures, the Boyle and Bampton and Hulsean and Warburtonian in England, with several of a similar character in this country. Even the coarse reproduction of some infidel materials, in the efforts of Ingersoll and those of his kind, have not passed without replies,-those of Judge Black and Thurlow Weed fully meeting them. Whenever the demand has been made on Christian ability or scholarship, it has been promptly and effectively met. each form of contest, too, as in the past, the result has been not only a repulse to falsehood, but a clear gain to the truth of religious conviction and assurance. has never been a time in which Christianity had such a hold upon the intellect and heart of the world. There has never been a time in which it has had as many and able defenders; when so many, even of its enemies, have felt and confessed its power, and are endeavoring, if not to destroy it, to solve the problem of its origin. Finally, two positive results may be mentioned in connection with these assaults and repulses of unbelief and faith in the last quarter of a century. The quickening of interest and the enlargement of the area of investigation and study in rational theology; the position and prominence given to the person of CHRIST in specific Christian thought as in Christian evidences. The two grand issues are over these points: Is there a LORD in nature? How has He revealed Himself in CHRIST? As these are rightly answered, all others fall into their proper position. And the drift of human thought as of Christian evidence is to bring man to a practical decision. As the contest works on in these various departments of human thought and investigation, that final point of decision, with its alternative, becomes more clear and manifest,-out and out Christianity or out and out Atheism

There

REV. C. WALKER, D.D.

Evil. Evil differs from sin in that sin refers more to the act and its consequences, while evil refers more to the state and its conditions. But the two terms are used so often interchangeably that this distinction is not clearly kept in view. The Evil One made an evil suggestion to Eve, and she sinned and caused Adam to sin, and so brought evil into our life. Yet this distinction is not preserved in the translation of the Bible, e.g., in Ps. li. 4: "Against Thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight."

But the great question that has overshadowed all other questions upon sin and evil is, Why is it permitted and whence is it? There can be no complete reply, since our spiritual nature is not known to us, nor is the future life so known that we can certainly reply to minor objections. Created beings must be so far (as a higher limit) imperfect, and from that limit there is a descending scale into sin. The sinless angels are charged with folly and the heavens are not clean in His sight, perfect and glorious and lovely as they are. The vanity St. Paul urges we are subject to is the defect whereby we are open to sin. But as law for us implies obedience and its opposite, and these two imply a choice of either course, as obedience and disobedience are moral qualities, we have not the absolute reason, but the relative conditions upon which sin could and did enter into the world. Freedom of will, is a proper reply to the question why it is, for it implies the power, not the necessity nor the willing desire to sin, but that power to act which the will holds as of its own essence; a power it exercises for good or for evil whenever motives and persuasions, sufficiently enticing, are presented to it in either direction. The effects of evil in the soul, of course, affect the intellect, and therefore the body; consequently physical evil and pain, with sorrow, suffering, and natural defects, follow. These mould our whole earthly life. It is to be noted that while the guilt of sin is pardoned and a counter-remedy given, the effects of evil in the system, spiritual and natural, are not removed. Our probation is founded upon the principle that we accept the forgiveness, use the remedy offered as faithfully as possible, and endure the consequences of sin patiently, till the law of restitution in CHRIST shall gain its full power. As sin and its evil consequences work their effect slowly, so the undoing of these effects must be slow. The same wisdom which permitted evil must guide the elimination of evil, and as its inscrutable purposes in permitting it overshadow us, so the like mysterious plans of freeing us must be taken and used in faith. It is for this purpose the Church was founded, the hospital for sin-sick souls wherein CHRIST the physician has left a perfect remedy, were we but to use it as He has directed and would submit to the guidance of those who are empowered to administer it.

But evil, a poison in the spiritual system, is properly foreign to it, and since its effects are so loathsome and hideous, the conscience exclaims against it. This is the key to St. Paul's passionate self-analysis, and with its triumphant hope of victory (Rom. vii.): "0 wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank GOD through JESUS CHRIST our LORD. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of GOD; but with the flesh the law of sin. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in CHRIST JESUS, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

These facts are, then, clearly within our grasp, and these only. We cannot now know why sin was permitted or whence it came, only we know GoD cannot be its author. We can know how it has power over us, because of our (a) imperfection, because we are finite, because of our (b) freedom of choice, which is a law of our being and the basis of all probation. We know that (c) all spiritual, intellectual, and physical defects, sins, and suffering flow from it. We know that (d) it is a poison deeply seated, needing the medicine of a Divine healer. We know (e) that its consequences are continuous, recurring, and were it not for the constant presence of GOD, would be fatal in every respect. We know (ƒ) that while the guilt of evil can be forgiven its temporal consequences are not removed, but that the mode in which these are used or submitted to forms an important part in our training. Further than this, upon the mystery of our future restoration, upon the effect of our individual conduct, upon our future condition, we know nothing. We can trace but cannot fully comprehend the reason why evil in the soul should cause the ruin which befell the material nature around

us.

There is but one thing open to us for our own good, to feel deeply the evil and to use faithfully the remedy in CHRIST.

Examination for Holy Orders. In the early subapostolic Church this examination must have been rather one in the candidate's moral fitness and general acquaintance with the Scriptures, and varied with the circumstances both of the time and the person. That it was public and well known, according to the Apostolic injunction, having a good report of them which are without," we have the singular testimony of the Emperor Severus, who ordered that in appointing a new governor inquiry should be made about his character, adding that this was the manner of both Jews and Christians in selecting their priests. There is no minute canonical law such as we have now, at least no mention is made of any, but doubtless the Bishop was the responsible person. The candidates were selected probably by the clergy, and were then presented for acceptance to the Bishop. They were often men of great culture (as Tertullian), and well acquainted with the literature of the day, but the larger number were not so well trained. There are

numerous minor canons in the Western Canon Law against too deep a study of the classics, but this was under the influence of Jerome and of Augustine, who in his confessions records his delight in the beauties of Virgil. The examination of a Bishop was rather dependent, as to its extent, upon his fame, and therefore the inquiry into his holding the right faith upon the Creeds would vary very much. With the Middle Ages and the era of Bishops holding political preferment came a general laxness. Yet the learning of the day was almost wholly with the ecclesiastics. Every age, even the darkest, had some bright lights,-men who often were not above the superstitions of their times, but who were nevertheless men of marked ability. Such were Gregory of Tours (573 A.D.), Isidore of Seville (595 A.D.), Cassiodorus (539 A.D.). Later Boniface (730 A.D.), the Apostle of Germany, led in ability, though not in learning. Under Charlemagne many notable scholars were trained, Agobard, Haymo, Rabanus Maurus. Later, Hincmar proved that the line of able and learned Bishops had not died out, and much care in those troublous times to keep up the schools was taken. So too in the East, Photius, Michael Psellus, and others show that diligent care was taken according to their opportunities to see that their priests were trained. Theophylact's Commentary is still valuable. These facts show us that, though we do not know how stringent the examinations were, yet, with whatever ease men were admitted to Holy Orders, their training was not wholly overlooked.

In England the examination for orders is upon the lines of the Divinity studied in the University, though each Bishop has his examining Chaplains. According to the English Canons, the candidate must be a graduate of one of the Universities, or else show his learning by a thesis in Latin upon the XXXIX. Årticles, defended by Scripture proof. He must bring certificates of good life and conversation for the "three years next before." The Bishop is himself to examine him in the presence of those ministers who are to assist him in the imposition of hands. Lawful impediments are to be inquired into, Canons 34, 35. Subscription ex animo is to be made, I. To the acknowledgment of the Royal Supremacy in matters Spiritual and Ecclesiastical, as well as Temporal, and the acknowledgment in the same subscription to the denial that any "Foreign Prince, Person, Prelate, State, or Potentate hath, or ought to have, any Jurisdiction, Power, Superiority, Pre-eminence, or Authority, Ecclesiastical or Spiritual," in England and its dependencies. II. To a declaration that "the Book of Common Prayer contains nothing contrary to the Word of GOD," and that he will use it exclusively. III. To the XXXIX. Articles and their Ratification.

The American Church is equally careful

to have her ministers properly trained, and for this purpose there are numerous theological schools in different parts of the United States. The Canon (Title i., Can. iv.) is full and precise in its directions for the examination of the postulant or the candidate.

Each Diocese shall have two or more examining Chaplains, who shall examine the postulant or candidate in his literary qualifications and report to the Bishop. If the candidate is a graduate of a college, this examination is usually omitted. If he be a candidate for Deacon's orders only, he shall be examined thoroughly in the Holy Scriptures and in the Prayer-Book in all its parts and adjuncts and in the Book of Articles; in his reverent and edifying performance of the service of the Church and of his diaconal duties. If the candidate has been an ordained or licensed minister in any other denomination of Christians, then he is to be examined specially upon his soundness upon the points of difference. The Bishop may or may not be present, at his pleasure. The candidate for Priest's orders shall pass through three examinations, which, except for extraordinary reasons, shall not be held on the same day, but on three separate days. Each must be both oral and written, and the special subjects may or may not be given previously to the candidate. At each examination he shall read a sermon upon an assigned text and hand in two others composed on texts of his own choice; and he shall be examined upon the reverent conduct of the services and upon his knowledge of his duties; and if he comes to the Church from any denomination, he shall be examined upon his soundness upon the points of difference. No examinations in a theological seminary shall supersede these examinations, which can by no means be dispensed with. These three are: I. On Holy Scripture, its history, and on the Hebrew and the Greek ; though these two may, for sufficient cause, be dispensed with. II. On the evidences of Christianity, Christian Ethics, and Systematic Divinity. III. Church History, Ecclesiastical Polity, and the history and contents of the Book of Common Prayer, and on the Constitution and Canons of the Church.

The Bishop may, as he chooses, preside or not, and he may invite the Presbyter, who shall present the candidate at the ordination, to take part in the examination but the Bishop must take part in one of these examinations at least, or else examin› him beside in a fourth examination. If the candidate be in a vacant Diocese, the Bishop who shall ordain him must hold this fourth ex

amination.

Since a candidate for Deacon's orders may be also a candidate for Priest's orders, the first examination for the Priesthood shall be sufficient for the Diaconate examination, but the examination on the Prayer-Book for the Diaconate must be repeated for the Priesthood at the third examination. Signed