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July 31, 1912] T? H E
turn the other way are failures. The wires and
autos and daily mails have oulv linked the mitlv.
? __ -J
in^r districts the more closely to the towns.
In our own church the problem has not yet
become as serious as with others and in different
<|iiaiters. It is one, however, which is likely to
he thrust upon us more and more, and it will be
the part of wisdom for us to be ready to face it.
The vigorous discharge of present duty and the
f'llifll/lll nark x A_ *
uot ui picnt-ui, opportunity will be the best
fitting for future calls as well as the best means of
delaying the day of the problem's coming.
SCIENCE FALSELY SO CALLED.
The friends of truth and reverent scholarship
are fully justified in believing that the era of
skepticism through which the religious world
has been passing will pass, and that'in due time
we shall see biblical faith securely enthroned
on/1 i+o ? ?* '
iw uouuceis routea. it has become increasingly
apparent that the feigned superior
learning of the biblical critics is a fabric of
myths, a mass of counterfeit credentials which
its exploiters have used to attract attention and
get position. Since their fog banks are being
blown away and their whisperings, swellings and
tumults are being silenced, it is being disclosed
that their camp consists mainly of mist and
uoise. A reverent scholarship has advanced to
the fray and laid bare the shallowness and hollowness
of the defences of a band of conspirators
who while professing to be the friends of truth
have been its most inveterate enemies.
The persistent claim of these men has been
the right of scientific investigation of the sources
of truth and faith, in contrast with what they
are pleased to term traditionalism. That the
intelligent study and exposition of the Scriptures
may be called a department of science
none need deny. Certainly scientific methods
are involved in such study and scientific facts
have a bearing on its fruits. Happily, to the
devout investigator, scientific methods have contributed
vastly in recent and in earlier times
to the elucidation of truth. But what must be
said of science, so called, whose effect is to destroy
confidence in the very system of truth
which it. nrofesses t.r? c1iic.idA.te "Wnnld n Bvctem
calling itself astronomy which denied the existence
of planets and constellations be accepted
as scientific? Is a system calling itsef Christian
Science which denies the existence of material
substance and rejects the essentials of the
Christian faith a science in fact? The word
science signifies systematized knowledge of truth,
but can the systematic denial of truth be called
a science? If so, it is a department of science
which exalts ignorance and falsehood. Some
months ago The Advance took the scientific
fakirs in biblical criticism to task after this
fashion:
There never has been a time when more was
said about science in religion than now. And
yet there never has been a time when there was
so much in the sphere of religion which was
ui scientific as at present. Nothing could be
more unscientific than for professors in theological
seminaries to be trying to teach young
men religious truth and doctrine when they do
not know what they believe themselves, but not
a few of them are making the attempt. Nothing
could be more unscientific in its line than for
the seminaries to be training men to preach and
at the same time filling their minds with doubts
as to whether they have anything to preach, and
yet they are doing it. Nothing could be more
unscientific than for preachers to go on preach>ng
when they do not know what they believe,
and yet there are those who are doing it. Noth>ng
could be more unscientific than for churches
put men over them to lead them who do not
know where they are going themselves, and y*t
t is done. Nothing could be more unscientific
than for professed scholars to try to maintain
PRESBYTERIAN OF TtiE S(
that the Bible will be more believable when they
have proved how little it ought to be believed,
out tney are at it every day. Nothing could be
more unscientific than to think that the Church
can be built up by destroying all its foundations,
but nobody can look over the theological literature
of the day without seeing how much of this
is going on. Nothing could be more unscientific
than to try to persuade the world that the men
and women who have done the most good in the
past were the worst mistaken in their premises,
and yet it is done right along. Nothing could
be more scientific than to think that we can prevail
upon the reluctant and selfish world to do
its duty by sowing its mind with doubt, and yet
the doubt sowers are as busy in the Church as
" uv ovrr lUi a U1 lliCil UC1U0.
These things are all so utterly unscientific
as to make the professed devotion to science in
religion seem extremely peculiar. As a plain
matter of fact there is more of the scientific in
the preaching in a backwoods school house which
calls sinners to repentance and faith in the Saviour
of mankind than in some of the boasted
theological leadership of the day. Any preacher
outside of the paralyzing sphere of *'modern
thought" knows that the way to influence and
save men and women is to preach religion into
them and not out of them. And that is what
the Church will do when this spasm of the unscientific
has passed.
THE "LIMITATIONS" OF CREED.
The time is near for the opening of the Theological
seminaries for another year. It is a
suitable occasion for one to settle the question a?
to how the studies of such institutions, and especially
the following of their courses in theology
and interpretation, are related to breadth of
thought and intellectual activity and freedom.
Will these studies unman our young men or unlit
them for grappling with the great problems
with which they will be confronted when they
enter upon their full work two or three years
hpno.p?
The best results of faithful study, under approved
masters, in the equipment for the ministry,
are that the mind is thereby trained to precision
of thought, the logical bearing of one truth upon
another as seen, the "proportion of the faith," is
observed, and carefulness of definition and expression
is made possible and habitual. To the independent,
vigorous mind there is produced
no mental restraint 'by such study, except
the natural, logical restraints of truth
itself, which has its boundaries and
which every honest man is supposed to
seek. Indeed, there is less danger of mental
thralldoin that is to be deplored from this source
than from the well recognized fact that a certain
Kt?riK(> of nnnsistpnnv niwl nrid#> holds ?i cnllow mind
to ita first positions and statements just because
it has once become committed to them. So far
from being hampered by faithful study, the mind
learns to think the more vigorously for the bringing
of its powers within proper range and for tire
holding of them away from such excursions into
the domain of illogical or unrelated ideas as will
weaken or waste them. It saves time and power
.?l,nn 1 u i._ 4 i il _ i - ? i- i
nucu uuc ftiiuvtn IIUW tU U1111K. iVIHl Lilt! OtJSl LllUti
to learn how to think or to mark the boundaries
within which one may safely and freely move is
in the years of early preparation, and under wise
and conscientious teachers, not after one has committed
oneself prematurely to some ill-considered,
crude theories, or has become hampered by the
pressing duties of the pastorate and pulpit of a
modern church. Neither the church nor the individual
profits by the ministry of men who have
hampered themselves by their own pre-conceived
notions or whose gift of public speech has not behind
it a sound and profound study of the entire
range of theological truth. Neither does the world
have any permanent regard, however mueh the
)U T (89?) 11
newspapers may give them notoriety, for men simply
because they are "broad'' and "untrammeled"
by the splendid drill and discipline of clear cut
creeds.
A NAHTAfl
(Continue from page S.)
sect "having arisen?AN AST ANTES?contended,
saying," etc.
We have in these forty-six examples all the
New estament instances of the use of Anastas.
Prom these its meaning and use are clearly
seen. It is simply a descriptive word applied
to its substantive to indicate that substantive's
mode or manner of relation to its
verb, i. e., the attitude or posture of the substantive
to the act of the verb.
~ XT rn__x ? * -
jl nc liew lesiamcm examples ot Anastas
are all in the nominative ease and consequently
show the attitude, posture, or manner of the
subject to its verb.
This subject nominative is always standing,
erect, or on foot to the verb act; if being healed,
he stands; if wrangling, walking, going,
coming?in any sort of motion in fine?he is
always on foot.
This use of Anastas is not confined to the
New Testament; it is universal among the old
authors. Among the Attic orators, the speaker
on the Pnyx, or in any assembly, is described
by the Anastas as to his -posture or attitude;
he is ANA2TA5, standing, or on foots The historians,
the poets, the philosophers?all the
Greek writers regularly use the word in the
same descriptive meaning.
This writer cannot recall among hundreds of
marked instances of Anastas, covering almost
the whole of the old Greek literature, any
other than this descriptive, or adjective nse of
the participle. Indeed, the participle, beginning
as an act, becomes at once an adjective
and remains such ever thereafter.
Moreover, it allows no intermediate act,
state, or circumstance of any kind between itself
and the act of the verb. Its nouns stand
erect, or are on foot continually as to their
verbs. There is no "arising" with change of
attitude, posture, state, or condition, before the
verb act.
With this perfectly definite meaning of
Anastas. can t.hara ha ?nv ranarmnhlo HmvKt oo
to the mode of Paul's baptism?Acts, ix. 18?
"Standing he was baptized"?ANA2TA5
EBAI1TI20H.
What other possible conclusion can we reach
without violating the constant usage of Greek
literature for 2,000 years? Can we suppose
Paul's case an exception to all Greek literary
usage?
But Paul's is the only New Testament case In
which the descriptive element is found along
with the mode of baptism. In all other instances
reliance is placed upon the very variable
meanings of two Greek prepositions and
upon a denominative verb used out of its original
?icrnifir?n tinn a n A with maonirina ?'">?> '?
the New Testament, perfectly irreconcilable
among themselves, if uniformity of mode is to
be sought from them; the common definitions
will not be of universal application.
Paul's case furnishes us an example much
more certain and well grounded.
Parksville, Ky.
For the dissatisfied man, all life is unsatis
factory; and for one that is contented, the world
is full of comforts; and for the c/heerful man,
even the easterly wind is musical in the window
crevices, and it makes solemn anthems for him
in the woods.?Mountford.