The first step into clearness in the bewildering total of the subjects of theological science would seem to be an agreement concerning the true perspective of faith. In some way or other the world of religious thought needs to be ordered in different degrees of worth. Some scheme involving a gradation of rank, valid for the religious human being, should be imposed upon the objects of religious concern. Relativity is the law of our being,—not the relativity which excludes, but that which is contained in, the absolute, as the planet in infinite space; and a deep and sure grasp of this law would seem to be of the utmost moment in theology. The story is told that Francis W. Newman, the radical, made a journey from London to Birmingham to discuss the profounder issues of religious belief with his brother, John Henry Newman, the Catholic; and when the question arose as to the axiom from which debate should begin, the Catholic proposed to the radical as the surest principle of faith the infallibility of the Pope. This story has, if not literal, at least symbolic truth. It serves admirably as an illustration of Cardinal Newman's sense of the perplexity and contradiction of his time, and his fine irony. It is almost needless to add that, while men are thus at variance concerning the relative security and value of the different interests of Christian faith, discussion can be nothing but a discipline in confusion.

The main conclusions that were widely accepted at the close of the last century with reference to the origin of our first three gospels have been confirmed by the investigations of the first decade of the new century. Thoroughgoing re-examinations of the whole problem, such as those of Wellhausen, Burton, and Loisy, have resulted in the reaffirmation of the so-called Theory of Two Sources. According to this theory Mark is the earliest of the Synoptic Gospels, and served, in some form, as a documentary source for each of the other two Synoptists, who had, besides Mark, another written source, made up to a large extent of the sayings and teachings of Jesus. The term Logia was formerly much used as a designation of this second source, on the supposition that it was to be identified with the writing to which the church father Papias applied that name, but there is now a general disposition to avoid this usage and to employ some more neutral symbol, like the letter Q (Quelle, “source”).

As our buildings today bear the impress of Greek genius in architecture, and our law in great measure holds the form that was given it under the Roman Empire, so do religion and morals with us still feel the influence of the Jew. Through Christianity that strain of spiritual life which had been nurtured under a great line of Hebrew prophets was taken over to and planted in the new soil of Graeco-Roman life: so that its heroes finally displaced the heroes of classical antiquity and its forms of thought, in part at least, superseded those which belonged by natural inheritance to pagan faith. The beginner of the movement which accomplished this change was Jesus of Nazareth, who thus made himself one of the foremost figures in the world's affairs.

As part of this process of getting itself rooted in a new habitat, and by way of adaptation to alien conditions, Christianity underwent considerable modification of form. First it was worked over into somewhat different shape in the mind of Paul. Petrine Christianity, no doubt, was held strictly within Judaic lines, and was designed only for “home consumption.” The Pauline form introduced changes which better fitted it for a “foreign market.” A later and more profound change was made by those influences which our fourth gospel represents. In this new guise it was such a different thing that it became thenceforth, almost of necessity, a stranger in the house of its birth. These modifications of it, innocently assumed to be its original shape, have lived on till our own day.

And now a new force is being brought to bear upon it whose ultimate effect we cannot wholly measure. The new science of historical criticism has come into this field, possessing an equipment and a determination which blind tradition will be unable to resist. One of the first facts to attract its attention was that change of form which Christianity had undergone in getting itself transformed from Eastern to Western life; and one of its first problems was to retranslate these later versions of its message back into a primitive gospel.

During the last five hundred years there has been taking place throughout the world a fundamental revolution in government,—first as to its actual condition, and secondly as to its theory; for that and not the reverse is always the order of development. Up to that time in each community the mass of people, with rare exceptions, had been governed by a few, with one man at their head. The change, which came slowly, consisted in the rise of the governed from passive acquiescence into active participation, the recognition of this as rightful, and the growth of ability among the people for governing. This up-swelling tide, surging everywhere, has been defined by one of its ablest exponents as “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

The theory now for many years held by most critical students of the Old Testament is that the early narratives from Genesis to Kings are composite, and, further, that the sources from which they were compiled belong to different periods in Hebrew history, having been produced by authors, or schools of authors, occupying various points of view, but so related to one another that their contributions, when arranged in chronological order, reflect the course of events for many successive generations and the progressive development of ethical and religious culture among the Chosen People.

Christianity is a religion of the spirit,—a religion of faith, as the Apostle Paul would have said. That is, its essential nature resides in unseen and spiritual attributes; on the persistence of spiritual forces depends its identity from age to age; the inner attitude of the soul is the sphere of its true life. Neither letter nor form, but spirit, is the characteristic mark of Christianity. If this is true, it follows that the life of Christianity necessarily implies the continually new expression of the Christian spirit amid the ever-changing phases of human thought and life. And historical conditions will govern not only the outward forms and modes of Christian life, but also, at least in its concrete formulation, the thought of Christians about religion. The changes that have taken place in Christian thought and doctrine may well be no indication of any weakness or imperfection in Christianity. They are, in fact, rather the manifestation of its excellence, the proof that it is indeed the supreme religion, capable of bringing in the kingdom of God.

Some have tried, by a process of successive eliminations, to discard the Jewish, the Greek, the pagan, the Teutonic influences which from time to time have affected Christianity, as if by such expurgations they could isolate essential Christianity from its accidents, and separate the kernel from the husk. But if Christianity is a religion of the spirit expressing itself under historical conditions, its expression in any period of history will be made through the ideas, true and false, through the modes of life, crude or refined, through the existing beliefs, philosophies, laws, customs, and even superstitions of the time. Many philosophies which we deem false, many rites which we find degrading, have been the well-justified means of expressing the religion of the spirit for men who held those philosophies and to whom those rites were dear. Those things are to be called foreign influences upon a pure Christianity only in the same sense in which that would be true of the inadequate science, clumsy philosophy, and sorry philistinism of custom which in our own day do duty, as the best we have, for civilization.

If it be asked, wherein, then, lies the assurance that our Christianity is properly called Christian, what force binds together these shifting phases of life and thought, and entitles us to speak of them as belonging to one religion, a personal conviction is the only answer that can be given,—namely, that the identity of the Christian religion through the ages depends on the New Testament, and in particular on the presentation of Jesus Christ found in the gospels and on the persistent spiritual power of his person.

From the general point of view thus outlined the question of the miracles of the New Testament, like every other historical topic connected with the Christian religion, must be considered.

The doctrine of the evolution or gradual development of organisms has had a most interesting history in recent years. In speculative philosophy, as is well known, the evolutionary conception is by no means new. The work of Darwin and his immediate predecessors and successors has given it a definiteness, however, and a backing of facts which have since kept it in the forefront of thought.

Because it is a direct blow at arbitrary and supernaturalistic explanations and exalts orderliness as the supreme law of procedure, it has been deemed by many thinkers to be essentially atheistic and irreligious. Much of the early polemic literature raged about this point. Out of this debate gradually emerged the conclusion that the process of evolution and the theory of development do not contribute in any way, either favorably or unfavorably, to the solution of the question as to the possible existence of God, and to the validity of the higher spiritual aspirations of man. It has been realized that evolution can, in the nature of the case, have nothing to say as to ultimate origins, and it has therefore been concluded that it can neither be theistic nor atheistic, but must be merely agnostic. The view of the majority of thoughtful men on the subject today probably is, that the religious problems stand on the whole about where they did before the wide acceptance of the evolutionary doctrine; that religious views are, after all, purely a matter of philosophy, and as such take us back of the point where evolution must begin.

It has come to be frankly allowed that a man may be an evolutionist and at the same time believe in a theistic solution of the universe. Only in relatively recent years, however, is it appearing that the evolutionary philosophy has something constructive to offer regarding the higher human qualities and the religious impulses.

p. 54, line 10 nation read nations.

p. 54, line 19, for decisions read discussions.

p. 68, line 4 for put read pit.

p. 68, line 5 omit over.

p. 70, line 3 from bottom, this read the.

p. 78, line 12 from bottom for complete read conflate.