heard before; a voice which had the vision of a poet, the heart of a mother, the tenderness of a saint, the passion of a devotee, and the strength of a giant, all in one. His sermon was apt, direct, tender, without any straining for striking effects, but an absolute reliance upon truth in its simplest, sweetest, most complete form. The sermon closed, the services were dismissed, Maltbie Babcock descended from his pulpit never to enter it again. It was the beginning of his final vacation, and his voice was never heard within those walls again. In a few months the hope which he presented that day was realized, and he had gone to heaven from Naples. DANIEL L. RADER.

Portland, Oregon.

WHY SHOULD THE YOUNG MEN FEEL EMBARRASSED?

MY quondam India missionary friend, Dr. Mudge, in the Arena of this REVIEW for May and June, attacks most vigorously, not to say arrogantly, the questions of our Discipline, put to young men on the subject of Christian perfection or perfect love, when they are being received into the ministry of Methodism. He calls the situation "embarrassing" to the young men. But the writer of these lines is simple minded enough, or so far belated in Methodism, as to wonder why such young men should be embarrassed by these well known questions. Any intelligent young man is not supposed to be so very young as to be unacquainted with the standard teaching of Methodism on this subject. Hence if he is not prepared honestly and manfully to face these questions, he should seek a place in the ministry of some communion where no such embarrassing questions are asked. Whatever the "practice" may now be I am not aware that the "theory" of our church has so changed on the subject of Christian perfection that these questions are obsolete. Dr. Mudge asks what do these questions about going on to perfection and being made "perfect in love in this life" mean in the light of "history" and "well known views of early Methodisın"? Now, the standard books of Methodism leave no doubt about the meaning, and, as stated, intelligent young men, fit to be candidates for our ministry, know that the standards of Methodism speak of the glorious privilege, now and here, of entering what Jesus calls a perfection like that of the heavenly Father, which John calls "perfect love" for, and Paul speaks of as sanctification of "spirit, soul, and body," in which perfection all is surrendered to God in love and obedience. This is no mere ideal or transcendental perfection, like the circle of pure mathematics, yet it is a perfection complete for all practical life, as is the circle of practical geometry and trigonometry. This perfection is like that of our divine-human Master and Pattern, and is attained or obtained by the human and divine coöperating, by the "groaning" which S. E. Quimby wishes restored, and by the "striving" which he deplored as resting too much in human effort. We do not derogate from God's power in this matter when we hold that we must "work out" our perfect salvation, which he "worketh in." Dr. Mudge demurs at what he deems an unfair "plain implication," "that the young man, however much qualified for his

work by a complete consecration," is not yet "made perfect in love," but must "look forward," etc. Now these questions are just as they should be, for, as a matter of fact, the ordinary experience of young Christians is that they are not "perfect in love," and the examination is based on this common experience, touching which, alas, Dr. Mudge makes the melancholy claim, that it is "the experience of the mass of the ministry of Methodism"! However, it might be perfectly in place for some candidates to answer that they have attained the object of their "groaning" and "striving."

Again, Dr. Mudge says, "The form of the question excludes the thought that perfection in the sense of maturity is meant." Well, what if it does? Perhaps the maturity the objector has in mind here is something toward which we will be "going on" to all eternity; for we have no reason to believe that a maturity precluding growth and development will ever be reached. And further, suppose the phrase, “in this life," and the word "made" of these questions, do point to an experience effected "instantaneously." Why may this not be so attained, like conversion in innumerable instances? Besides, it is not the instantaneousness of the state that is implied or emphasized by the questions so much as the reality, in God's own way, of the great fact of a soul brought into complete willing submission to God's great law of love as stated by Christ. If this is "not the experience of the mass of the ministers of Methodism,” as Dr. Mudge affirms, so much the worse for the mass. Dr. Quimby is to the point; "better to be inwardly groaning until we are assured that that which at the time we joined Conference we declared we were expecting, has become an established experience." If not attained why not "expect" it? Why should it not be a "purpose" and "desire"? Most certainly it may be "imagined," and for many "moments," that a young man who has no such "expectation," and "purpose," and "desire," is less fit for the pastorate. I pray God that these reasonable and scriptural questions may ever be kept in, and let the young men "embarrassed" by them, if there be such, enter the ministry where there may be no such embarrassment. Ocean Grove, N. J.

T. J. SCOTT.

THE ITINERANTS' CLUB

THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF JUDE-CONTINUED

VERSE 8. "These defile the flesh," they are subject to base desires and passions from which only divine grace and God's power can deliver them; "and set at nought dominion," human government. They have no respect for authority. They despise the law, and become the disturbers of the peace. They not only despise government, but they speak evil of rulers. "They rail at dignities," men of dignified position, the rulers of the people. In the margin of the Revised Version we read "glories." They aim at the overthrow not only of established authority but of the persons of rulers. Some have applied this passage to God and to their rejection of his authority.

The close relation of vice with lawlessness has been often noticed. A virtuous people is a law-abiding people. When the church was under the severest persecution Paul counseled submission to the state-Rom. 13. 1: "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God."

A similar passage to this is in 2 Pet. 2. 9, 10: "The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished: But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities." We may not enter at this time into a discussion of any similarity between Jude and Peter; it is enough to know that both express the same thought, and have employed in part the same examples of warning.

Dr. Gardiner remarks: "Three hundred years have passed away since Calvin, commenting upon these same words, wrote, "These two things are always joined together, so that they who abandon themselves to iniquity at the same time seek the abolition of all order.' Human nature has not changed since the days of Calvin or of Augustine, nor has the unholy alliance of self-will and sensuality ceased. Self-will seeks its gratification in setting aside the will of God." This whole passage is not without its application in the age in which we live, and the Epistle of Jude has its lessons for our times as well as for his own.

Verse 9. "But Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing judgment, but said, 'The Lord rebuke thee." The word "Michael" means "like unto God," and is here introduced to show the modesty and obedience of the highest order of the heavenly intelligences. Any authoritative statement concerning the details of his personality beyond that given in the Scriptures is now impossible. In some passages he is regarded as a man, but in others, and in this passage also, he is represented as belong. ing to the angelic order. In Dan. 10. 13 he is spoken of as "one of the chief princes" who had power to resist the "prince of the kingdom of

Persia." In Dan. 12. 1 he is represented as the prince "who standeth for the children of thy people." In Rev. 12. 7 we read, "Michael and his angels fought against the dragon: and the dragon fought and his angels; and prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven." It should be assumed in this interpretation that this reference to Michael is an allusion to a fact known and accepted by those to whom his letter was addressed. Otherwise these examples would have been without force to his readers. The interpretation of this passage has been quite diverse. That there are different orders among the angelic hosts is apparent from other passages. Michael is supposed by some to be the highest of the good angels in rank and is here described as in a personal, judicial con flict with the chief of the fallen angels, the devil. Michael has been supposed by other very competent expositors to be Jesus Christ, who is represented in the Scriptures as being in perpetual conflict with the chief of the forces of wickedness. Two things seem to contradict this view. The subordinate character of Michael in this passage is not in harmony with the view of Christ given in the New Testament, and, further, Christ in an important crisis in his life, namely, at his temptation, did rebuke Satan. The former view is the more tenable, namely, that it speaks of Michael the archangel in his own personality as the chief of angels.

The subject of dispute was the body of Moses. Here again in our interpretations we are largely in the region of conjecture. The expression body of Moses is employed typically to represent the Jewish Church, just as the New Testament Church represents the body of Christ from whom it derives its substance. On this point Gardiner remarks: "Christians are often called the body of Christ and with evident reason: they draw from him their spiritual life, and maintain with him an intimate and real communion of which the union of our members in one body is a lively and appropriate image. But with Moses the Israelites had not, and never could have had, any such connection. He was their lawgiver and their prophet, and it might be allowable to speak of him as in some sense their head: but to call them his body would have been too bold a figure of speech, even while he lived: much more when centuries had elapsed since his death. The federal head of the Israelites was Abraham; yet even to him such an expression could not properly be applied: to Moses it would be still more inappropriate. He thus sets aside this interpretation as not sustained."

Another view is that the body of Moses is typical of the Jewish economy, that is, its polity and ritual. This view is maintained by Dr. Adam Clarke in his commentary, who quotes with approval the explanation of MacKnight: "In Dan. 10. 13, 21; 12. 1, Michael is spoken of as one of the chief angels who took care of the Israelites as a nation: he may therefore have been the angel of the Lord before whom Joshua the high priest is said (Zech. 3. 1) to have stood, Satan being at his right hand to resist him, namely, in his design of restoring the Jewish Church and State, called by Jude the body of Moses just as the Christian Church is called by Paul the body of Christ. Zechariah adds, "And the Lord (that is, the angel of the Lord as is plain from verse 1) said unto Satan, The

Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee." Dr. Clarke adds, "This is the most likely interpretation which I have seen."

The literal rendering that there was a dispute between Michael and Satan over the body of Moses, meaning thereby his real body, has some support in the atmosphere of the passage. It bears the marks of a real transaction. The mystery connected with the burial of Moses makes his burial a matter of interest which might well produce interest among the spiritual powers. The passage concerning the burial of Moses is Deut. 34. 5, 6: "So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor: but no man knoweth of his sepulcher until this day."

Out of this historical passage, treated literally, there have grown two interpretations. One interpretation is that the devil was anxious to preserve the body of Moses as a snare to the Israelites in order to seduce them to the idolatrous worship of his bones. It is objected to this that there was little danger of the influence of such temptation because such worship of relics of the dead was foreign to their tendencies. There was an uncleanness about such relics, in their view, which would render such a danger of temptation and consequently such a controversy over his body on this basis impossible. The other view is that the dispute grew out of the desire of Satan to keep the body of Moses in the embrace of death. Moses, it is believed, desired that the body should be raised and glorified even before his final resurrection. That he was raised and glorified is evident from the account of the transfiguration of Christ. Elias had not died, and hence there was no improbability of his presence in bodily form at the transfiguration. The account of the transfiguration showed that Moses was not held in the embrace of death, although evident from the Scriptures that he had actually died. It is said that Moses and Elias appeared with Christ in glory and consequently in bodily form that had been glorified. And it was concerning this resurrection of Moses, previous to the general resurrection at the last day, that the dispute took place. This is held by many to be the interpretation that more nearly represents the historical facts. We regard the view indorsed by Dr. Clarke, already mentioned, as the more worthy of confidence.

The historical fact here mentioned, namely, the controversy over the body of Moses, is not recorded in the sacred Scriptures. It is not necessary to suppose that all the facts of that ancient history are recorded in the Sacred Writings. There may have been facts not inserted in the Scriptures which were not necessary to the great plan of salvation which the Scriptures were designed to unfold. The statement in St. John's gospel, "These are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God," may apply here. The evangelist declares that he had not inserted all that Jesus did, but that he had inserted that which was in harmony with his great purpose. There are facts which the inspired apostle might know, or which he might have found in reliable history, which were not written in the sacred books.