rections the author will be frankly grateful, and should the book find favor he will try to embody any such corrections in future editions. One main purpose has sustained the writer throughout much weary plodding, and that was to understand and help others understand the essential message of Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ. One of the painful truths brought home to us by any study of history is the fact that the simplicity of Jesus' teachings has been obscured and overlaid by intruding elements. The simple things for which the Master stood, and which can be tried out in life we have deemed "impracticable," because "you can't change human nature." So ecclesiastical tradition has substituted theologies which cannot be tested in life, for ethics which may be. It has demanded belief in doubtfully true speculative and intellectual propositions, and called such assent "faith," where the Master demanded loving and trustful acceptance of simple canons of conduct, and identified such acceptance with loyalty to his purpose. The study of the history of ethics may lead, it is to be hoped, a chosen band to really resolutely insist upon putting in the foreground what Jesus put in the foreground, and relegating even true traditions to the background if they are of secondary importance for his purpose. We must as good Protestants complete the work of the Reformation and strip from historical organized Christianity the encumbering graveclothes in which her life has been stifled. With good heart and hope the author puts forth his history of ethics within organized Christianity, knowing well that the prayers of the ages are yet to be answered and God's kingdom will come and his will will be done on earth even as in heaven. 700 PARK AVE., New York, May, 1910. 177 II. The Ethics of Melanchthon. III. The Anabaptist Movement and Its Ethics |