capable of clear, conciliatory, and convincing speech? And, on the other hand, do faulty opinions have place, and in what degree, in the congregation? Are they seriously faulty? Do they notably obstruct the gospel? Are they held aggressively or in quietness? Evidently the wisdom of critical discussion, whether for or against the newer view, depends on the man and the occasion. Sometimes, yet rarely, aggressive courage is wisdom. It is said that about 1830 Charles G. Finney, the notable evangelist, came on his mission to Rochester, then a rising city of Western New York. He found that with few exceptions its leading professional and business men and its people generally were avowed infidels. They would give no hearing to his usual topics. He formed a new plan of campaign. He ceased warning and appeal, and went to argument on fundamental things-to formal and protracted proofs of Christianity, and to like refutation of infidelity. Trained as a lawyer, he used a lawyer's methods. With his peculiarly incisive speech and relentless logic he challenged their attention. They must needs listen. He estab lished his position-they could not resist the force with which he spoke. A revival swept the city and left on it and the region around an impress which survived the century. The adequate man and the exigent hour had met. A few preachers only can wield such weapons and effect such results. Others should not attempt it. Let it be noted, in the first place, that a sentence may suggest a doubt which pages cannot resolve. An error brought to notice only that it may be refuted will often long outlive the refutation. Project upon the congregation a denial of some statement found in the Bible; some hearers will infer the falsity of the whole book. Project on the congregation an unqualified affirmation of every statement, historical or scientific or moral, of the Bible; many hearers will repudiate a book which seems to them to war on reason and the moral sense. If need be, the statements must be made whatever the hazard-but the impending danger imposes extreme caution. One of our most noted preachers, now doubtless living in the light supernal, thought it wise to give his people a series of sermons in disproof of atheism. Two of his hearers met in the vestibule at the close of the series. "What did you think of it?" said one to the other. The significant answer came, "O, I still believe there is a God." It is easy to disturb faith by unnecessary proofs of evident truth and by unnec essary emphasis on subordinate truth. Let it be further noted that men live the religious life, not by faith in the minutiae of the Scripture, either of the Old or the New Testament, but by faith in God, the Father Almighty, Maker, . Upholder, and Lord of the Universe; in Jesus Christ, his only Son, in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, who died, the just for the unjust, and who lives forever to give the eternal life; in the Holy Ghost, by whose abiding indwelling men are re-created in the image of God; in the unchanging obligation of the holy law which is summed up in Love; and in the indissoluble union of character and destiny. These truths, when believed, make men free in the liberty of the sons of God. However men may differ as to the interpretation and the truth of incidental and subordinate parts of Scripture, if they believe these, they are all in Christ Jesus. These, therefore, with their manifold illustrations and applications, are the chief, I might almost say the only proper topics of the pulpit. And let it be again noted that these central truths have for the pulpit this advantage, that they are to a great degree selfluminous. They commend themselves, if stated clearly and with the force of conviction in the preacher, to man's highest reason, to his moral constitution, to his noblest aspirations, to the deepest necessities of his soul. They meet him at the topmost of his being. Preach God in his natural and especially in his moral perfections, and the soul assents, adores, submits, and trusts. Preach the supreme law of love, and the moral sense acknowledges its sovereignty, its completeness, its adaption to man's life. Preach the immanent Spirit of Holiness, and the moral incompetency and the despair of the natural man is replaced by a divine energy of goodness. Preach the irrevocable connection between goodness and peace, sin and woe, and man's present experience responds in affirmation. Preach the God-man, the ineffably Highest stooping to become the lowest, a man, a servant, a victim, to redeem a lost race; how it touches, melts, uplifts, thrills with immortal hope! Without this there is no Gospel, and preaching is vain. He who did most shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the most weak. 'Tis the weakness in strength that I cry for! My flesh that I seek In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me Thou shalt love and be loved by forever; a Hand like this hand Brethren of the Graduating Class, to this ministry I commend you. There is no work purer, nobler, more divine. If the things invisible are the real and enduring realities, and if the fashion of this world is in seeming and soon passes away, how eminent the calling of him who would open blind eyes and lift up sordid souls to the eternal good. He will not escape hardship. There will be indifference, criticism, reproach. There will be heart-breaking failures, often scant success, and a consciousness of insufficiency. There may be poverty like that of the Master and his servant Paul. There may be persecution, and even the martyr's death. But with one heart we this day pray that none of these things may move you-and that you may fulfill the ministry which you have received of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace of God. Edward G. Andrews. ART. II. THE RELIGION OF WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE was for sixty-three years a member of the British Parliament, for twenty-six years a Cabinet officer, and four times Prime Minister. For forty years he was so closely identified with public affairs that the record of his life furnishes an almost complete outline of the political development of his country. He was the most influential statesman on earth in the Nineteenth Century, with possibly a single exception. In saying this I do not forget what Cavour did for Italy and Bismarck for Germany, or that other contemporary statesmen, with signal ability, accomplished great things for their respective countries, but none of these had opportunities so vast as Mr. Gladstone. The single exception I suggest is Abraham Lincoln, whose greatness was at once manifested and augmented by the splendid opportunity of a national crisis which rose to the majesty of a world crisis and demonstrated that a democracy can throttle the greatest of hydras and maintain itself against the greatest of rebellions. To Gladstone and to Lincoln might be applied Coleridge's translation of a fine characterization by Schiller: He is possessed by a commanding spirit, And his too, is the station of command. And well for us it is so Well for the whole if there be found a man Who makes himself what Nature destined him, The pause, the central point, of thousand thousands. It is not my purpose to inquire elaborately into the particular elements or the evidences of Mr. Gladstone's greatness, but to show that it had a distinctly religious basis, that it depended largely on his personal religious life, that many of his noblest achievements would have been impossible but for his daily devoutness toward God, his constant and conscious reliance on Divine help, and his incessant and conscientious search after truth and righteousness. A casual observer of his great career could not fail to be struck with his religiousness in a degree unusual among distinguished statesmen; and yet the estimate just given may awaken surprise. But the study of his biography by sundry authors has fully convinced me of its truth. I am aware that it is sometimes unwise for a writer to lay down his thesis in advance; I am so sure of my ground that I thus indicate what will be fully justified by a brief collation of the deliberate opinions rendered by his most distinguished contemporaries and by ample citations of his own words, most of them written with no thought that they would ever reach the public eye. A glance at a few of his characteristics will pave the way for the evidences to be advanced. He was a man of indomitable industry, amazing versatility, and high personal independence-independence which his opponents sometimes reckoned as inexcusable stubbornness and supreme self-conceit. He was open to the charge of political inconsistency; but he was nevertheless the peerless parliamentary orator, and the commanding epoch-making statesman of the century, which he adorned. His industry was intense and perpetual. He had a splendid body, a fine face, a majestic mien, and great physical strength and endurance. Sydney Smith once said that Daniel Webster's life was a false pretense because "it was impossible for any man to be as great as Webster looked." Gladstone's physique was scarcely less imposing that Webster's. Throughout life he was a great walker. Again and again he records having walked for pleasure or for exercise from twenty to thirty miles in a single afternoon, often on mountainous roads, and frequently for considerable distances at the rate of more than five an hour. In his middle and later life his favorite exercise and amusement was chopping down trees in the forest about his castle at Hawarden, and cutting them up into firewood. He was half through his boyish days at Eton before he waked up to a steady purpose of thorough scholarship, but he went through Oxford University with high credit and came out with double-first honors. In his middle life one of his colleagues in the Cabinet declared that he could do as much hard work in four hours as any other man could do in sixteen, and yet he worked sixteen hours a day. After he had retired from Parliament and was eighty-five years of age he had an operation for cataract which restored his sight, and he then devoted himself for seven hours a day to his faithful studies in |