nected with their ancestry of three thousand years ago as can the descendants of Israel? Be it remembered that through these genealogists we are carried back, twenty-one hundred years, to the one single ancestor of this race who had connected with him this all-inclusive prophecy: "And in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed." If this prediction is fulfilled it is fulfilled in Christ. Three facts stand out here: (1) The promise to Abraham; (2) The genealogical descent of Christ from Abraham, as witnessed by these tables; (3) The fulfillment of this promise in Christ. That is, there is no other man in history that has been, is now, and unquestionably to the end of time will be such a benefactor to the families of the earth. These facts show that the stories of Matthew and Luke are wonderfully significant when taken in all their bearings. The only rational explanation of them is their simple truthfulness. An imposture or a myth could not by mere coincidence strike such wide-embracing harmonies. But there are other facts connected with the nativity of the Messiah that are as significant of the truth of the story as are these to which we have already called attention. Luke's account is unique, and without reasonable explanation if it is not true to fact. Connected with this account of the miraculous conception of the Saviour is the song of Mary called The Magnificat. It is a psalm quite as poetical in all its utterances as any of those to be found in the ancient psalmody of Israel. It would be in place in the collection of the Psalms; and were it there it would be recognized as a splendid specimen of Hebrew poetry. It breathes the spirit and fire of the days of David's tabernacle. It could not have been the production of times later than the infancy and youth of Jesus. It is impossible that it should have been the invention of a Christian of the latter part of the first or the former part of the second Christian century. It would never have been written from the Christian or Gospel standpoint. It belongs to pre-Christian modes of thought and environment. It speaks in the language of old Israel. It sings their national hopes in the days of foreign oppression; mark-national hopes, not Christian. It breathes the very atmosphere of the Judaic. What believer in the Gospel, with

the Gospel hopes in his possession, could thus have transported himself back to pre-Gospel times and have thus sung the glories of the Messiah's advent? But the psalm contains a prophecy: "Henceforth all generations shall call me blessed," a prophecy that spans time and to this twentieth Christian century is having a very significant fulfillment. The virgin mother of Jesus is honored above women, for an honor transcendent above that conferred upon woman has been given her. Let him who objects to the historic verity of this account explain this psalm and prophecy otherwise than in harmony with the virgin birth of Jesus. No theory that does not take into consideration all the collateral facts should have a moment's attention. The same that has been said of the psalm of Mary may with equal cogency be said of the psalm of Zacharias in Luke 1. 68-79. It is a psalm and prophecy of old Israel. It would be in place in the Book of Psalms, and compares favorably with any of them as a production of lyric poetry, glowing with the hopes and aspirations of Israel as a nation. The same is true of the utterances of Simeon. They are manifestly prophetic. They are in the enigmatic language of prophecy, and especially Messianic prophecy. This feature will be apparent if you compare Luke 2. 29-32, 35 with Isaiah 42. 1-9, and 53. In Simeon's prophecy we have, as in Isaiah 52. 13-15, and 53, both the bright and the dark side of the Messiah's mission; the humiliation and the glorification. We are made to see the glory first and then the cross. How enigmatic the conception, "Yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also; that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed." The first part expresses metaphorically the anguish of the mother of Jesus at the cross. The objector may regard it as an idea produced out of the event of the crucifixion, but the latter part of the verse will not admit of such an explanation. Its range of prophetic vision is too far-reaching and the language is too enigmatical. Yet how perfectly fulfilled has the prophecy been in the march of the Christian centuries. Here also we have a prophecy that could not have been produced after the days of Christ unless we attribute to the inventor of the prophecy a scarcely conceivable finesse. For what purpose such

a deception?-for deception it must be if it is not a truthful record. And with the actual facts before him why was not the inventor tempted into something more explicit and less figurative and enigmatical? The "sword" of anguish that pierced the mother's heart was to reveal "thoughts out of many hearts." It is true that the ages have shown that the cross is a wonderful revealer of human emotions, impulses, desires, thoughts. Its pathos has touched human hearts into deepest soul passion as no other record of suffering has done, and this in the interest of a righteousness that is altogether self-denying, brotherly, altruistic. It has drawn sharp lines of distinction between men in these respects. Those who tarry in the presence of the cross are hallowed and sanctified by its consuming spirit of love, and they that take it upon themselves are pledged to heroic deeds of humanitarianism and self-abnegating righteousness. No; this is not a beautiful myth invented after the cross and connected with the infancy of Jesus. It is too strictly in keeping with facts of twenty centuries to be a myth.

But there are still some other facts that must be taken into this perspective. There is the fact of the humble birth of Jesus and the reputed poverty of his parentage; yet he is connected, according to the story, with the royal house of David. Beyond all question the prophecies going before connected the Messiah with David by lineal descent. We have not the space to recall these. No believer in prophecy will deny them. He who does deny them has difficulties insoluble before him, and we may leave him to his task of reconciling his notion with indisputable facts of history. We need have no interest in his theories until he explains the facts. When the one hundred and tenth psalm and the wonderful life and achievements of Jesus of Nazareth are consistently explained without postulating the divine in connection therewith, it will be time to consider other objections to the supernatural produced by the critic. But how came a writer of fiction to conceive the idea that David's greater Son should be born in a stable and cradled in a manger; that he whose nativity the stars must herald, and whose mission angels must preach and sing in sweetest song and

sentiment ever borne to human ears, should find his resting place with the beasts of the stall "because there was no place for him at the inn"? Is this a likely invention of some myth-monger? Is this the condition in which the Jew would place his infant Messiah, and is this the way in which he would have his birth heralded? The whole story is unique; from first to last it can be no other than absolute truth.

Taken as a whole, the account of the miraculous conception, virgin birth and infancy of Jesus as given by Matthew and Luke is most rational, and in strictest accord with the whole story of his life and teaching. It cannot be dissevered from his life without making an inexplicable lacuna in the gospel account; a gulf wide and deep between the Christ ministering and teaching and old Israel with its prophecies and Messianic expectation. As we have said, we have no account of his birth, infancy and childhood if these two evangelists do not give it. If we try to imagine the gospels all beginning with the beginning of his ministry, without a word about his parentage, birth and childhood, how unsatisfactory, especially in view of all the Old Testament antecedents of prophecy and preparation. No; Matthew and Luke contain the revelation in this respect that the Christian system requires. We are compelled to believe that the offense of this portion of these two gospels consists in the supernatural; not that there is recorded anything out of harmony with the life and mission of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the critical process of destroying the gospels by elimination, a process that is just as valid when applied to any other portion of the book. In fact, there is no part of God's word that is more completely hedged about with corroborative and collateral evidence than this portion which we have reviewed.

T.M. K. Stuart

ART. VIII. A STUDY OF SIN

THE question as to what is the nature of the active agency for evil in the world is not a new one. The problem is so old that it may seem past the time to add anything to the convictions that men already have. But convictions, when held simply as ideas about a thing, have no vital power. They are significant only when they are pathways over which currents of life pass to points of interest. Man's interest is in his own growth. He feels that he is a possibility and he is anxious to realize it. With the lapse of time he finds a world of life outside himself waiting to receive him and beckoning him on. His world of ideas must ever be a fitting bridge over which he can go and come. If, through some false reverence for past notions, he persists in retaining them without understanding them he soon finds himself out of touch with reality and is thrown into a state of confusion and chaos. Every restatement of ideas in the field of science, of philosophy, of theology has been made at the demand of and in the interest of the growing man. This principle was never more fully recognized than by Jesus when he left his followers, not with a statement of facts, but with a living, indwelling Spirit to be guide and authority to each individual. Any statement of fundamental principles that is calculated to satisfy modern thinkers must accord with known scientific truth as well as with the scientific tone of modern thinking. Can we find a satisfactory statement of this kind for the nature of the agency for evil in the world? All forms of life present themselves to us under two conditions, or in two states of being. We have forms of life higher than others; in a more advanced state of development. The lower forms give promise of becoming the higher. They are possessed of an energy that acts upon things, that takes up, and assimilates, and adds to itself. Growth is needed here to bring the one out of the other. The child grows to be the man physically, intellectually, morally. And this principal is vital to the gospel of Jesus. He told the disciples, who were anxious about securing a place in