from Quetta, on the borders of Beluchistan, through at least 55 degrees of longitude (about the same as from Maine to California) to the provinces of Luzon, and from the Punjab in the north of India through some forty degrees of latitude to Java, south of the equator. At the close of 1904 the foreign workers in this field numbered 379; the native workers, 4,436; the communicants, 110,896; the Christian community, 168,653; the baptisms for the year have been 17,262; the Sunday school scholars were 133,266, and the contributions amounted to $192,994. Making a fair allowance for the growth in the two years yet remaining to round out the full half century, we may count the foreign workers at that time as probably about 400, the natives as 4,500, the communicants at 125,000-twenty years ago there were only 7,000, with 100 foreign workers and 1,200 native—and a community approximating 200,000; the scholars in the Sunday schools 140,000, with $200,000 raised on the field.

These figures are encouraging and imposing! They justify congratulations and rejoicings, and deep thanksgivings to Almighty God. They can be made the text for many enthusiastic addresses. But they must be taken as only a token of what God is ready to do for us if we will rally to the appeal which his providence presses upon us. Money is the chief need to draw from this most fruitful of our mission fields the rich stores which are ready to drop into our hands. Will not some one to whom God has given the stewardship of large means seize the priceless opportunity, and invest here a few hundred. thousand dollars? We can conceive of no better use to make of riches. It is India's Jubilee! Her sons are preparing to do nobly and will make great sacrifices. What response shall they have on this side of the water? It ought to be generous. We have undertaken a gigantic work in Southern Asia. The responsibilities are enormous. But we are well able to carry them. It will do us good and only good to strain a little at this task immense, for the glory of God and the honor of our Lord Jesus Christ. Southern Asia is to be his; how soon, depends on the faithfulness with which we carry out his last command. Let the present number of missionaries in the land be speedily doubled, and the forces already there be mightily strengthened, in answer to united prayer, by the baptism of power from on high. Then will the millions of converts, concerning which Asia's senior bishop delights to prophesy, assuredly be gathered in, and the crown of that entrancing country be soon placed on the head of Him whose right it is there, and everywhere, to reign.

THE ARENA

THE HARDEST OF ALL

Or all the difficult problems the Methodist minister grapples with that of the people who do not believe in revivals is the hardest. These people are usually eminently respectable, pillars in the church, and liberal with their money in supporting the various benevolent enterprises. The minister may be tempted to tell them the Methodist Church has always been a revival church, and owes its effectiveness to this very fact, but he knows how useless it would be and exercises the patience of the saints in keeping silence. In one of Frank Stockton's books a man is described by one of his neighbors as a crank, but another quickly disputes the statement. "Why, you can turn a crank," he said, "but Stephen Petter is screwed to the floor, and no one could ever turn him." It is exactly the same with the people who are against revivals. The hardened sinner may be brought through the efforts of a faithful minister to a knowledge of his condition, but who can arouse the self-satisfied men and women in the churches of to-day? A member of the church said not long ago that the people who came into the church during the revival services were not worth saving, that they never made trustworthy members, and the church was better off without them. "They have souls," observed a woman who did not belong to the church, but her friend answered quickly, "It is hard to believe that." Now, what can be done with people like that? They are perfectly certain that they themselves are saved, and that is sufficient for them. "I do wish a few of our members, like old Mr. B and some of that set, would go to one of the smaller churches. They don't belong with our class of people, anyway, and I think some one ought to suggest to them that they could do so much good in a smaller congregation," said a church member. Mr. B and a few more of the unfashionable members ought to be able to see that they are not wanted from the reception they get Sunday after Sunday, but they have an old-fashioned belief that the church is for rich and poor alike, and they still go. "The minister seems just as glad when some poor woman or man joins the church as when Dr. united last Sunday with the congregation," said a disgusted woman not long ago. "Dr. H- will be a good, substantial member, while those poverty-stricken folks who came in during the revival last winter are nothing but a burden to our society." Well, why shouldn't the minister rejoice over every soul born into the kingdom? If the cold water pourers were content to keep their opinions to themselves, or even to confine them to the long-suffering minister, the church would still be able to struggle along with them and do good work, but they labor to convince the whole world that they are right on the subject of revivals and all who disagree with them are wrong. The young people listen to eloquent sermons and their hearts are touched and quickened, but they see these men and women holding aloof from the work because they do not believe

in it. "Wait till six months from now," they say when the minister rejoices over the ingathering. "You'll see where all these young men and women will be then." The plain, everyday sinners rarely resent an appeal to their better nature, and it is a common remark that the fearless minister either in revival work or Sunday after Sunday in the pulpit will never lack an audience. Under the outward appearance of indifference there is a real longing for the peace that passeth all understanding, but who can touch the heart of the man who refuses to believe that any way is right but his own? Pity the minister who finds his most unpromising field of labor in his own church. The salary may be large, the music perfect, the outward life filled with all that the world counts worth having, but none of these things can still the beating of his heart and put away the sting of failure when he sees souls going to ruin through the neglect of the people who are satisfied that they need no revivals. Kenton, Ohio.

HILDA RICHMOND.

"THE HIGHER CRITICS' BIBLE OR GOD'S BIBLE?"

THIS is the title of a volume recently published by the Western Methodist Book Concern, from the pen of the Rev. William Henry Burns, D.D. It is an able and unusually readable review of the present condition of the inevitable struggle in the church over questions which are being forced to the front by modern biblical critics. It does not profess to enter upon these questions in detail, meeting the critics on their peculiar ground, but it does discuss with great acumen the validity of their principles, the correctness of their methods, and the soundness of their con. clusions. Dr. Burns is a conservative. He has gazed intently on the activities of the critics and asked himself the question, Whither? His reply with much clearness and cogency of argument, and with a striking array of facts, exposes the skeptical tendency of much that passes, both in our own and other churches, for the best modern scholarship. His lance will possibly strike a jarring blow on the armor of some who prefer to be considered orthodox, evangelical scholars. What the author seeks to uphold is the familiar truth which lies at the basis of Protestant evangelical Christianity, that the Word of God is a reliable record and a message of divine authority. That such doctrine is imperiled is now so well known that silence as to the danger is no longer a virtue. In dealing with the criteria of higher criticism the author says, "To my mind the crucial question . . . is whether they conduct their investigation of the phenomena of the Holy Scriptures in a right or in a wrong way, and as to whether their results are correct or false. All else is so much dust for the eyes." These are the questions which he discusses, and, weighed in his balances, the higher critics are found wanting. It is possible that Dr. Burns has failed to give sufficiently adequate and cordial recognition to some of the positive and helpful results of higher criticism, but the facts he adduces seem to show that its negative and destructive results would be appalling if true, or if believed to be true. To one who wishes to form a clear idea of what higher criticism is, and what issues are

involved, this volume will be exceedingly welcome. While Dr. Burns applies the term "higher critic" generally only to such critics as have departed more or less widely from the standards of the church, it may be said that few if any conservative scholars have a desire to be classed as higher critics. "Biblical scholars" fits this class well enough. It is not the scientific investigation of the dates and origin of the sacred books, but an unscientific overworking of the theory of evolution, a sublime faith in the authority of one's own critical feeling and imagination, and a disposition to eliminate the miraculous from the Word of God which seem to be the sine qua non of the real higher critic. These characteristics Dr. Burns lays bare with ruthless hand. His book will be either condemned or ignored by the critics, but it bears internal evidence of wide reading, sound thinking, and bold statement, and is an important contribution to the present discussion. A brief and pithy introduction by Bishop McCabe whets the appetite for what is to follow. The captions of the chapters are good and give a fair idea of the scope and character of the work. They are as follows: "Higher Critics and the Modern View," "Deintegration and Reintegration," "Reducing the Supernatural to a Minimum," "Destroying the Foundations," "The Higher Critic's Bible; or the Residuum,” “A Defective Method; Unassured Results,” “The New Scholarship and the Pretentious Critics,” “God's Bible the People's Bible," and "Earnestly Contend for the Faith." Chicago, Illinois.

EDWIN C. ARNOLD.

HIDDEN TREASURE RESTORED

ONE of the forcible pictures which our Lord drew of his kingdom is set forth in the thirteenth of Matthew: "The kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field." What motive in the first instance induced the hiding of that treasure? After the discovery of the very great worth of what had been found, what strange and unworthy motive could have ever induced the owner of that field to again bury that treasure, with the risk of its being forever lost? After the patient tests of long years of experience had proved that the treasure found was well worth selling all that he had to buy that field, what suicidal motive could have influenced him to again bury it, in the seeming hope that it would be forever forgotten? Strange, or even impossible, as such a course seems, it may have its parallel. Does not God hide great deposits of treasure in the earth to induce the diligent search for it by man? Not merely here and there a pot of gold, but inconceivably vast treasures of wealth; and not only the finder, but the world, is thereby greatly enriched by working such mines. So inexhaustible stores of God's most precious treasures are found hidden in the field of the gospel. That "field" of pure golden "treasure" was found by two young men in England, reading the Bible, more than a century and a half ago. The surface gold was excellent, and in the metallurgic dictionary of the Bible they found it described as justification by faith.

They also learned that there was a far greater abundance of this "treasure hid in a field,” and that it was of a superior quality; but it was hid deeper in the field. Many had mined there before them, but they were filled with joy at the rediscovery of this surface gold. They continued to dig "deeper yet," and for eight years they worked on, sinking their shafts and running in their tunnels; for though the treasure of justification gave great joy, "still holiness was their object;" and when they were assured of the exceeding value of the gold in this much deeper and purer ledge, "God then thrust them out to raise a holy people." They saw that this "second" deeper, richer, and never-to-be-exhausted deposit, which had so long lain in neglect, contained the most precious of metals, and when its character was fully known in experience it was most eagerly sought after; and that in the same Bible dictionary it was distinguished by quite a different name-holiness. It was learned that it was not the surface gold of justification that had depósited that rich and inexhaustible bed of holiness in the gospel's depths, but exactly the reverse; it was the upheavals from this lowest strata of heart purity which gave existence and value to the surface gold of justification. "The placer diggings will run out," as many gold fields plainly show, but there is no exhausting the deeper diggings of "perfect love." They found the gold of justification was first in order of time, but entire sanctification was first in order of importance. And how the world has been enriched by the deep mining of those two young men, who toiled on for eight years after they found that blessed vein of justification! No wonder the English authorities have honorably given John and Charles Wesley a conspicuous place in Westminster Abbey, surrounded by the great names of the British empire. If, as we all believe, the Wesleys were led of God's Spirit to go deeper far than justification, that to all the world they might anew unearth the valuable bed deposit of "holiness to the Lord," what shall be thought or said of any persons, or of any ecclesiastical management, that may be either filling up the shafts or allowing the timbers of the tunnels to fall into decay, these being the only methods of reaching this deep bed of scriptural holiness in which this most precious gold may be mined, or for so neglecting or discouraging the mining therein that the many do not frequent the churches because "it doesn't pay," and then turn themselves to the world's futile ways of satisfying immortal desires? And when "God thrust out" the founders of our great and much-loved denomination, that through the "holy people" they raised up a special kind of deep mining in the bed deposit of holiness might be very generally followed, and when that denomination either deliberately or forgetfully turned aside from the divine purpose of its existence, and carried on the "placer mining" of justification only, which other denominations are doing very well, would it be at all surprising if God's great displeasure should fall heavily on "the people called Methodists"? Has not that been God's way of dealing with other peoples when they turned aside from the divine purpose in their existence? Is he any respecter of peoples more than of persons? God is raising up an organization to show the interdependence of both surface and deep mining in this "field