well worked out in history, and when these principles reappe somewhat disguised form, and begin to win acceptance, the ought to be able to detect their spuriousness. Again, certain theories of redemption and atonement have already been thor tested in history, and every teacher of religion needs to have the of that testing constantly in mind. Just now there is pressin of historical investigation to aid in determining whether God is thought of as Infinite Substance or as Spirit, and as to what ality means, if applied to him. So all the ideas of religion historical testing. They are all the product of growth and understood only in the light of their growth.

But there is another reason why the historical test is indisper History shows that religions are inextricably bound up wi prophetic personalities from whom they have sprung or who given them their greatest forward impulses. You can cut top of a tree and have it grow again, but to cut off its roots is Now the roots of a religion, by which it draws sustenance fro soil of the past for the nourishing of each growing bud that forth these roots are its prophetic personalities. I know th question whether permanent significance can be attributed great religious personalities is warmly debated in these days. I theologians are at present divided over the issue as to wheth central thing in Christianity is a personality or a principle. Jesus of history or the Christ of faith; the Person or the Id which the Person gave rise; the unique, concrete personality came at one point in history, or the Logos, progressively mani throughout history-which is fundamental? Now the in of this issue arises out of the supposition that in the one way other a fixed norm is to be secured. Either the person of is to be withdrawn from historical study and given legislative a ity in some respects, or some abstract principle, which we may de is to be ultimate. But when we once have given up the idea th problem of religious truth can be settled by an ultimatum, either the realm of philosophy or of history, and perceive that our re must be upon a method, which has both its philosophical an torical aspects, then we can see that the dependence upon proj personalities and the search for principles supplement each othe

What is the nature of the prophet's claim to an abiding place in religion? Is it not based upon his originality and creativeness in the moral and spiritual realm? But if originality and creativeness in the realm of the spirit are the essential characteristics of the great religious personality, then such qualities belong to the essence of religion itself in its fully developed form. The religious ideal for every soul must be to bring it to the point where it will be able to send out its own ray of light, however tiny, to the lives of other men, and add its special increment of power, however slight, to the forwarding of the great common human ends. The very significance of the unique personalities, who become a permanent source of revelation for their fellows, is that they can engender in other men a real and direct life with God, and so enable them to meet their own problems with independent insight and energy. To become a disciple of Agassiz, as one can see from the delightful Recollections of Professor Shaler, was to become an original scientist. If one failed to acquire original power in his work he was no true disciple of the great Agassiz. What is true in such an instance is more profoundly true in the realm of religion. The prophet gives us a deeper insight into the principles which he has embodied, imparts to us his own mind and spirit, and so enables us to live, in some measure, the prophetic life.

But it is a lack of insight to suppose that, as we appropriate the principles of the prophet's life, his personality as a concrete whole becomes any less significant for us. No abstract principle can be an adequate substitute for the prophet himself. For truths embodied in life are always more luminous than truths in their abstract form. An ideal gains a new radiance when it shines through a personality. Books will never replace teachers. Magazine articles will never drive out orators. Printed homilies will never serve as a substitute for preachers. And this, not because of any ineradicable weakness in human nature, but because there is more truth in an ideal glowing with the passion of a human soul than in the most faultless of its intellectual definitions. If we would have something more than the skeleton of religious truth, if we would apprehend its flesh and blood and nerve, then we must learn directly from the personality of the prophet.

The necessity for this is imbedded most deeply in the very nature

of religion itself. Religion is concerned with man's relation to the Infinite. It is an experience in which the finite and the Infinite meet. But now the fullest expression of the Infinite is not in abstractions but in individualities. The more normally and completely an individual is developed, the more he embodies the Infinite. The genius of an artist is a very pervasive thing. It is not easily caught as you study his life. If you would really know it, go to his masterpiece, sit down before it, and let that individual expression of the artist's genius sink into your soul. The genius of the Infinite God is the most pervasive of all realities, but if we would appreciate it most vividly and poignantly, we must sit at the feet of Jesus Christ. In this abiding significance of Jesus Christ and of every prophet of God is to be found the supreme reason for the historical testing of our faith.

Our discussion has led us to the conclusion that the final test of religious truth must be a method rather than an absolute norm, and that this method must be both historical and philosophical in its character. On the one hand, we need to co-ordinate religious truth with other truth, and to reconstruct the doctrines of the past for the sake of enhancing their present value, while on the other hand we are bound also to study the way in which religious ideas and functions have worked in history, in order to determine what their real value is. And above all we need to have our own sense of religious values nourished, purified, and developed by spiritual association with the great prophets of faith.

BANGOR THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
BANGOR, ME.

EUGENE W. LYMAN

If we take the real meaning of the question under discussion to be: "Is history rather than philosophy the final court of appeal in the determination of religious truth ?" then, since history represents external authority, and philosophy represents the free, rational spirit of man, the question really amounts to this: "Is the final test of religious truth some form of external authority, or human reason itself ?"

Inasmuch as what may be said on this subject applies not only to one but to all religions, it might simplify matters, and prove of more immediate interest to all of us, were we to confine our discussion to

the question in its application to the Christian religion. This would prove the more fitting as, doubtless, in the entire history of religion, the relative claims of external authority and of human reason have been more frequently and more vitally discussed in connection with the religion of Christ than in the case of any other religion.

Usually the source of external authority in religion is to be found in a person or persons regarded as infallible; or in an organization, religious or ecclesiastical, or both; or in a book, or series of books, regarded as inspired, or partly inspired, and containing absolute truth. Wherever the source of external authority is placed it is regarded as supreme, to which all other authority, including that of human reason, is subordinate. Occasionally individuals will speak of several sources of authority, and regard them as co-ordinate, but, as a rule, one ultimate, supreme authority is recognized.

In the case of the Christian religion the great body of Christian believers is divided, broadly speaking, into two classes-one emphasizing the claims of external authority, the other emphasizing the right of private judgment. The question at issue is the question of the right to interpret the Holy Scriptures. Both parties agree in recognizing the Scriptures to be in some manner, and in some degree, a source of divine authority, but the question is, Who shall interpret their contents? Who shall authoritatively declare what they teach? One of the parties believes, the church alone has authority to declare the real meaning of the Bible. The other party insists upon the right of the individual to make his own interpretation. Generally speaking, the first position is taken by the Roman Catholic, and the second by the Protestant.

The Catholic position is clearly defined in the fourth decree of the "Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent," where we find these words:

Furthermore, in order to restrain petulant spirits, it decrees, that no one, relying on his own skill, shall, in matters of faith and of morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses, presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church, whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures, hath held and doth hold.1

1 P. Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom (New York, 1877), II, 83.

The meaning of this is plain. The Roman Catholic ack edges the Scriptures to be divine, and that the holy mother c stands between the individual and the Scriptures as the real preter of what the Scriptures teach, and any other interpretati the part of the individual, contrary to that given by the church, be rejected as false.

On the other hand, Luther, Calvin, and all of the early o of Protestantism define the general position of Protestants insists upon the right of private judgment. Calvin says:

But there has very generally prevailed a most pernicious error that the tures have only so much weight as is conceded to them by the suffrages Church, as though the eternal and inviolable truth of God depended on th trary will of man. . . . . For as God alone is a sufficient witness of Hin His own Word, so also the Word will never gain credit in the hearts of r it be confirmed by the internal testimony of the Spirit. It is necessary the that the same Spirit who spoke by the mouths of the prophets should pe into our hearts, to convince us that they faithfully delivered the oracles were divinely intrusted to them."

If anyone will examine the early creeds of Protestantism, h find this position even more emphatically stated. It is declar the Helvetic, Gallican, Scotch, and Westminster Confessions, is to be greatly regretted that later Protestantism in some qu has receded from this broad position in favor of a more dog interpretation of the Scriptures which it tries, on the basis of siastical authority, to force on the acceptance of others to the embarrassment of Christian scholarship, and to the real det of the Christian church.

Now, in regard to the positions of the Roman Catholic a Protestant just explained, it seems to me it must be patent to partisan that the Protestant position is the more tenable, f Protestant plants himself on the rights of human reason and I conscience, and the very claims of the Roman Catholic in regard divine authority of the holy mother church must ultimately be add to, and substantiated by, human reason and human conscience selves. How else are these claims to be vindicated and establ Every argument he puts forth to establish the divine authority 2 Institutes, I, 7. Quoted from Briggs, The Bible, the Church, and the (New York, 1892), p. 2.