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September 13, 1911 ] THE]
and used by the believers themselves, the abundant
writings of the later New Testament would
surely have indicated the tact- As it is they are
asuoiuteiy silent upon tne suuject. The otiiei- passages
only confirm the account of the origin and
early use of the name. One of them quotes the
word of a proud Jew,conveying his thought in almost
centemptuous language ;the other is used in
a refcrense to the sufferings which he believes
were endured at the hands of the prosecutors.
THE HYPERCRITICAL BOOMERANG.
It has often been suggested that if the critics
were left to themselves that they would finally so
bite and devour one another that there would remain
such a decimated and maimed pack as
would excite pity rather than alarm. This
seems to be coming to pass With rather unex
pected celerity in these days of rapid transit.
Not only is there much clashing between the
hypotheses and conclusions of these critical adventurers
but there are occasional outright desertions,
on the part of supposed loyalists and
veterans, from the ranks of the boasted apostles
of modern thought.
A significant instance is to be found in the
Leipsig Teachers' League, which is described by
the "Eecord of Christian Work" as "an association
of government school teachers which has
been attempting to eject evangelical instruction
from the Saxon schools.' Ihis body of 4' progressive
thinkers" invited Professor Gregory, an
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44Wellerhausen and John," expecting to follow
the professor in a vigorous onslaught on the
evangelical faith. Instead, however, we read:
4 4 The event was as interesting as unexpected.
Professor Gregory attacked Wellhausen all
I along the line and bore powerful testimony to
the genuineness of John's gospel. The address,
which Gregory, not without a touch of irony,
dedicates to the Leipsig Teachers' Association,
4 4 Whose zeal for the study of the Gospel has
given me much pleasure,'' the Allg. Luth. Zeitung
describes as a joyous hussar ride into the
field of Biblican criticism. The author sets in
contrast plain sense and the heavy ponderings
of the learned critics.44The typical scholar," he
declares, 4 4 is too often closed against the things
of real life. He considers possibility, and with
deadly accuracy decides upon the impossible.
His theories can be overthrown with utmost ease
by mere reference to the matter under consideration,
yet all the world praises his science until
the next one comes along and turns it upside
down. Anyone who tries to keep abreast of theological
literature must jump from theory to
theory as a mountain goat from rock to rock. I
do not know whether a guide to the graveyard
of theological speculation would be more interesting
or more painful reading. Certainly it
would be instructive."
Professor Gregory passes in sharp review
Wellhausen's perverse hyper-criticism of John's
gospel., summarizing in sixteen points his objections
t > Wellhausen's views. Wellhausen,
for cT.nr.:, has described the words in the faith
of John, "Go and sin no more," as the unreasonable
addition of a forger, on the ground that
one who had lain bedridden for thirty-eight
years could have no opportunity to sin. "Does
Wellhausen really believe," Prof. Gregory asks
scornfully, "that only an athlete can sin? Does
he thing that sin takes place only in the nerves,
muscles anl bodily motions?" When Wellhausen
remarks that our Lord's High Priestly Prayer
(John, xvii.) must be an addition since it
? lacked the free fight of the preceding chapters,
Gregory retorts, "Suppose the Gospel of John
were given for the rirst time to a jvionammeaan
,, or Hindoo to read. He would find it interesting.
Some passages would seem magnificent to
him. He comes to the fifteenth chapter, 'I am
the vine, and my Father is the husbandman.' He
reads through this chapter and the sixteenth
with closest attention. He comes to the seventeenth,
'Father, the hour is come; glorify thy
Son, that thy Son may also glorify thee.' At
the end of that chapter he lays the book down
for a moment. He is overpowered by what he
has read. Now go and tell him that the earlier
"free flight," unfortunately is absent from this
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE SO
chapter. Would you ckire? Festus salid to Paul,
'Much learning doth make thee mad.' 1 fear
continuous occupation with the patchwork of mosaic,
exilic and post-exilic documents have rendered
Wellhausen's sight short lor the loftier
poetical phases of literature.''
THREE LEAKS.
CHARLES E. JEFFERSON, D. D., IN THE CONGREGATIONALJST.
In these days when everything is being overhauled,
there ought to be a gearing up of our ecclesiastical
machinery so as to obtain increased
efficiency. There are three conspicuous leaks
in the system as it is now running, and these
three leaks are responsible for an enormous
waste. There is a leak between the church and
the Bible school. Too many boys and girls in
structed in our Bible schools never get into the
church. All their study of the Scriptures does
not seem to inspire them with a love for the
church or give them a disposition to identify
themselves with it. There will always be a leak
here, for human beings when they become adults
will not always do what they were taught to do
when children, but one cannot help feeling that
the present leak is far larger than it ought to be.
In the first place too many teachers do not
urge their pupils to attend the services of worship,
nor do they attempt to persuade them to
unite with the church and become helpers in
its work. This is one of the most important duties
which a Bible school teacher is given to perform.
No man or woman is worthy a place in
the Bible school of the church who does not himself
love the church and work constantly for its
growth and prosperity. There ought to be in
every school instruction about the church, its
origin, history achievements, its sacraments,
government and mission, and it is because there
has been so general a failure to furnish this sort
of instruction that so small a fraction of all
who are members of the school ever write their
names on the church roll. Bible school superintendents
and teachers can do a deal, if they
will, in reducing the dimensions of this first
leak.
There is also a leak between the church and
the Y. M. C. A. The Y. M. C. A. is a church
institution. It was founded by a church member
and has always been supported in large measure
by the members of the church. It is indeed
only an arm of the church stretched out to
Kelp and protect young men. But it is easy
tor the Y. M. C. A. to get so interested in athletics
and educational classes as to lose sight of
allegiance to the Son of God and his church.
There are secretaries who come to minimize
all public worship and to care little for the
sacraments and beliefs of the church. There
have been instances in which the Y. M. C. A.
secretary has posed as a surly critic of the
church, vaunting himself as the chief Christian
worker in the community, tatnd looking down on
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a peril long ago recognized by the International
Committee, and there is a strenuous effort to
meet and overcome it. Much remains to be done.
The Y. M. C. A. ought to be one of the chief
servants and nourishers of the churches. It
ought to be sending into the churches a constant
stream of young men whose ear it has
caught and whose heart it has won.
The Y. M. C. A. wlilich is content to give
the young men of a town dumb-bell drill, baths,
concerts and lectures at low rates, making no
demand on their moral heroism, and not stirring
them to self-sacrifice, is not only failing to
do that supreme thing which the Y. M. C. A. has
been given to do, but is making it more difficult
for the church of God to build up in the
hearts of men the principle of Ohristlilce ser
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I U T H (875) 11
vice. Here again the Y. M. C. A. cannot doeverybhing.
It is human nature to rush where
there are loaves and fishes. The Y. M. C. A. offers
an appetizing banquet at reduced figures,
and there will be many who will sit at its tables
and refuse a place at the table of the Lord. But
if the Y. M. C. A. secretaries were loyal lovers
of the church, the losses of this second leak would
be greatly reduced.
The third leak is between the church and the
college?the college founded by Christian men
and endowed by them as an institution for the
strengthening of the church. An appalling
number of young men brougth up in Christian
homes are worth nothing to the church after their
college course is ended. They went to college
full of zeal, *but the college atmosphere extinguished
it. They were students of a professor,
possibly, who in or out of class hours
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churches. There was nothing tin the curriculum
in the way of religious study to make them think
that religion is anything more than an elective.
Pagan writers had a place, not so the Gospel or
the Prophets. There was no prescribed instruction
about the church, her place in history and
her rightful claims on the hearts and lives of
men. The Y. M. C. A. was permitted to do what
it could, but it was outside work, voluntary and
incidental, and not a part of the prescribed education
of a Christian man.
Every American city swarms with college
men who are of no use to our churches. They
consider religion an elective, Jobe and lasiah and
St. John as of less account than Virgil or Herodotus,
and the church as an in institution which
men of culture need not be concerned. In many
cases the explanation is that the tone of the college
was low; that the president was not so awake
to the evils of drink as many presidents of commercial
and industrial corporations; that the
professors in large numbers did not attend divine
worship; and that the whole atmosphere
of the place was pagan, prejudicing the heart
against the religion of Christ.
In these days when the Bible is disappearing
from the public schools, and when religious instruction
is non-existent in so many homes, it
behooves the colleges which were founded by
Christian ministers and laymen, to make themselves
more and more what they were intended
to be, the training places of Christian men, supporters
and feeders of the churches, sending
forth ambassadors and apostles inspired with
the vision of the church of Christ as the institution
through which <all the nations of the
earth are to be blessed.
Here again too much must not be demanded.
No matter what the spirit or efforts of college
officials and professors, many a man will come
out of college a moral wreck and spiritual reprobate.
But if those entrusted with the management
of our institutions of learning would
set themselves whole hearted ly to give them a
higher and more distinctively Christian tone, the
church of God would immediately feel the touch
of a new life, and fresh wonders would be
wrought in Jesus' name.
The woeful tale so often heard, that one is
* ovei*worked" 'rarely -evokes any sympathy.
Those who tell it, would as <a rule, accomplish
more by saying nothing about it and taking a
rest, as one has expressed it, by ceasing to com
plain of need of rest. Talking about it moves
the talker to increased exaggeration of the condition
and the hearer to increased indifference
on the subject. Beyond some tired mothers
and devoted housewives, we doubt if anybody
has ever suffered fatally from overwork.
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