Educated but uncritical thought finds the notion of miracle increasingly burdensome. Many reject it outright and others would gladly be rid of it. The current conception with such persons may be fairly described as follows: There is an order of nature from which it is hard, if not impossible, to show a departure. There may be apparent departures from the accustomed order, but they are always expressions of a deeper order and hence are natural. For instance, the freezing of water by the application of heat seems like a violation of the familiar laws of physics, but it is really an illustration. The science of today makes us familiar with many facts, which would once have been thought miraculous, but which we now see to be outcomes of law. Comets and eclipses were cases of this kind in the middle ages, and epidemics also were similarly regarded; but all of these things have been brought under the reign of law. The aëroplane and wireless telegraphy, and even the trolley car, would have been signs and wonders beyond ordinary thaumaturgy three hundred years ago, but they are not miraculous. The facts of witchcraft, faith healing, cures at shrines, were long denied because they seemed to affirm spiritual agencies of some sort; now we admit many of the alleged facts, but deny their supernatural character by including them under the head of hypnotism, suggestion, influence of mind on body, and so on. Considerations of this kind are making us increasingly hospitable to strange facts which once would have been thought miraculous, and increasingly indisposed to admit their miraculous character. Thus the realm of nature and the realm of mystery are both extending, but the sphere of miracle seems to be approaching the vanishing-point.

Fifteen years ago there appeared a volume of some four hundred pages, which bore the modest title, An Outline of Christian Theology. It had originally been prepared by the author, a professor in Hamilton Theological Seminary, for the use of his seminary classes, and, after circulating for some time in the form of typewritten notes, was privately printed for the greater convenience of the users. No attempt was made to advertise the book, but in due time it found its way into the hands of one and another who was interested in theological questions, and when in 1898 it was issued by the author through the ordinary channels, it received from the public an instant and hearty welcome.

Opinions as to the nature and origin of Christianity have been profoundly modified during rather recent years by the increased attention that has been given to the circumstances of the society within which its work was to be done. It is fortunate that these inquiries have been undertaken by scholars whose primary interest has not been to defend Christianity, but only to understand the conditions that necessarily determined its forms both of organization and of faith. Into their studies Christianity entered only as one element among many others, and it is this fact that gives to their results their peculiar value for the history of Christianity itself.

In 1866 a certain clergyman in New York wrote a discourse to which he gave this characteristic title: “Christian Education the Remedy for the Growing Ungodliness of the Times.” The production won in its day sufficient fame to be preserved as a pamphlet in the Harvard Library; but there it has long remained unsought, its presumptions of finality dependent at last, for even a bare reading, on some whim of historical curiosity. One need not so much as glance at the discourse to know why it lies, with many a like effort, quite forgotten. The title tells the story of its dogmatic temper, its easy ignorance of ends and means, its lack of insight into childhood. The point of view is naïvely, comfortably, loftily external: it recognizes no great problem in its subject, no need for new data, new thought, new purposes. Discourses of that sort are not written now—or, if written, not preserved.

With every year, to be sure, far more is printed on the same general topic than was ever printed in the sixties. Even the inattentive lay reader cannot escape contemporary discussion of religious education; but the modern discourses are of a new kind. The Poole's Index list of magazine articles under Religious Education shows this growth and change with striking concreteness. Beginning in 1802, the Index for eighty years includes only fifteen references to the subject, all of which are serenely general in character. “Religious Education for the Masses”; “The Religious Education of a Family”; “The Religious Education of Children,” these titles fairly represent the kind of treatment which this topic inspired during the nineteenth century. The record in the Index for the four years beginning in 1902 offers a sharp contrast. There are thirty references under Religious Education, and of these a large majority bear titles which show that they are scientific in temper. They are intensive studies in the history or the principles of religious education, or formulations of definite problems in its theory or practice. These titles are characteristic: “Religious Education before the Reformation”; “The History of Religious Education in the Public Schools of Massachusetts”; “The Need of a Professional Consciousness in Religious Education”; “The Philosophy of the New Movement for Religious Education”; “The Place of Action in Religious Education;” “Scientific Aspects of Religious Education”; “The Relation of Religious Education to Science.”

That a coöperative commonwealth is on the way, it would be rash to assert; but that forces tending in such a direction are gathering strength is even more evident in England and on the continent of Europe than with us. While discussions of socialist theory on economic and political lines increase and multiply another line of thought suggests itself to people preëminently interested in the spiritual rather than in the economic conditions of the race. Supposing a socialist organization of society realized, what would be the reaction on the ethical and religious consciousness,—on creed, on worship, on conduct?

It is the purpose of this paper to suggest a few points on the second of these themes,—the probable future of religion under socialism. The subject is less remote from present interests than appears: hypothetical though it be, the attitude of many people toward socialism itself will depend on their conclusions on this point.

The excavations of the Harvard Palestinian Expedition at Samaria in 1909 have revealed for the first time the plan and the masonry of a royal Israelite palace. The view thus given of the material resources and technical skill at the command of the kings of Israel is so enlightening for the history of Palestine that the identification of the palace becomes the point of paramount interest. It must be recorded at once that we have not found a line of Hebrew inscription anywhere in the building, nor have our excavations given us the name of any of the kings of Israel. The identification rests entirely on archaeological grounds; but these, though simple, are direct and clear.