If they were much more numerous, I should still hesitate to recommend them to form themselves into a separate political partyespecially into a party founded on the accident of class, a basis narrow and unstable-with the object, avowed or implied, of serving interests less broad than those of the whole nation. In principle I know that would be unsound; in practice I believe it would be either ineffective or mischievous. As to party, its evils, whatever they may be, cannot be cured by the creation of factions. Party, after all, is but the means to an end. Since it is an indispensable means, the true plan is to purify, to elevate, to ennoble it; to make it something better than a mean struggle for place or pay; to ensure that it is always-what I believe it usually is even now-the union of honest men, agreed on certain general principles, and banded together for the advancement of the public weal. THOMAS BURT. AGNOSTIC EXPOSITIONS. [MAY PROFESSOR HUXLEY asp, other ROFESSOR HUXLEY aspires to rouse his "countrymen out of their dogmatic slumbers," and, in common with many Christians, I wish him a large measure of success in a task for which he is admirably qualified. There may be preachers who doubt whether it is desirable to let the congregations of the faithful know of the results of Biblical criticism," and undoubtedly there are many who think that ordinary congregations need and are entitled to receive a more refreshing and morally nutritious fare than critical discussions would afford; but there is also a large and growing number who ardently desire that the people of this country should be fully acquainted with the actual condition of Biblical science at the present time. Whether their recent informant is as competent to instruct the general public on this matter as he is to arouse them to a sense of its importance is at best an open question. It may transpire that his personal views are somewhat in the rear of current conclusions, and that he is less exact in expounding the views of his selected authorities than might have been expected from his scientific discipline and the lucidity of his writings upon other themes. Should these discoveries ensue, he will, no doubt, hasten to confess his errors, and in the interests of science, if not of theology, will rejoice in the correction of any hasty statements that may have run too lightly from his facile pen. These personal considerations are only of importance in so far as they affect the diffusion of what is really known and believed by the best scholars respecting the value of the New Testament documents. At the present moment preachers who found their -addresses on the contents of these books are hampered by the prevalence of vague suspicions of their title to be regarded as primitive and as primitive and trustworthy testimonies to the life of Jesus Christ, and the expansion of His little band of followers into the Church. The most exaggerated and absurd notions are abroad as to the extent to which these testimonies are disputed. People are told by men of good character, high culture, and great repute, that their sources of information are hopelessly discredited, and that Christians have no reliable knowledge of their own Founder, and of his real teachings and claims. It is not obscurely suggested that in some mysterious region, of which Squire Wendover's library may be taken as a type, immense stores of historic information are concealed, and that if preachers dared to enter that awful sanctuary of suppressed knowledge, they would, if honest men, come forth vanquished, after the pattern of Robert Elsmere. As a result of these wild statements and bold insinuations many persons have naturally come to suspect that the ministers they hear, or have ceased to hear, on Sunday, are in the same pitiable condition as Elsmere, between the time when he shut his eyes at Oxford, and that later date when, after a long struggle to keep them closed, the light of the Squire's knowledge penetrated to his soul, dimming the glory of Christ's image, and driving him from his parish in despair. Nothing would please us better, however, than for those mysterious conversations to be reported verbatim to the public. Mrs. Ward, of course, knows what both the parties said, and might enlighten us; but, failing this, if Mr. Huxley would play the part of Squire to Canon Westcott's Elsmere, there would be more realism in their talk, and the result would no doubt be the same as was depicted in the novel. By any means, and by all means, let the results of Biblical criticism be made known, and only those who are base enough to love their own opinions better than truth can fear the issue. Before discussing the more purely critical question, I must take leave to refer to the original subject of contention between Mr. Huxley and Dr. Wace. The Professor has made such boundless excursions, and scattered so many glittering shafts in the course of his two articles, that the public are in danger of forgetting how the disputation began. It may be pardonable, therefore, to reproduce the facts, which involve a point of great interest and almost vital importance in the great controversy of our age. The learned Principal of King's College read a paper last autumn before the Church Congress, in which he used words which have given great offence to the champions of Agnosticism. Having pointed out that Christians do not pretend to have a "scientific knowledge" of an unseen world or of the future, he went on to insist that the difference between ourselves and Agnostics is not that we profess to have such knowledge, and that they profess to be ignorant; but that, beyond the limits of scientific evidence, we believe what they disbelieve. On this account he criticized the title Agnostic as misleading, observing, "He may prefer to call himself an Agnostic; but his real name is an older one-he is an infidel; that is to say, an unbeliever.” With the utmost respect for Dr. Wace, I must express my regret that the word "infidel" was used in this connection. It has evil associations which are better not revived, and I am not surprised that the father of the Agnostic denomination should be very angry. It is also to be deplored that the assertion was made that "the adoption of the term Agnostic is only an attempt to shift the issue, and that it involves a mere evasion" in relation to Christianity. But, without assenting to the use of the word "infidel," or to the imputation of unworthy motives to those who decline to live under such a label, I must insist that the real difference between Christians and Agnostics is precisely as Dr. Wace stated in his paper, and that Agnostic is a misleading term. By using the word knowledge in a different and most equivocal sense, it is easy for Mr. Huxley to turn round and say with a sneer: "Are there, then, any Christians who say that they know nothing about the unseen world and the future? I was ignorant of the fact, but I am ready to accept it on the authority of a professed theologian" (Nineteenth Century, Feb. 1889, p. 170). This may be smart fencing, but it simply eludes, and for many readers conceals, the issue, and holds up to scorn a statement which Agnostics ought to respect. Knowledge is a word with many shades of meaning, and is often used by the most exact thinkers in a popular sense, but when we say that we have no "scientific knowledge" of the unseen world, we are saying what few would dispute-viz., that we do not know unseen things in the same way as we know phenomena, or the laws of Nature which have been ascertained by an inductive process and verified by experiment. Mental certitude myriads enjoy respecting the unseen. They have a sure confidence, on the strength of which they live, and for which they are, if needful, ready to suffer the loss of all things, and to die. In their abundance of faith and paucity of language they will often exclaim, "I know Him whom I have believed." But if you ask a theologian of the most dogmatic kind whether he has a scientific knowledge of the unseen, he may cautiously insist that he has some knowledge based on the data of consciousness which is more certain than any other, and also that he has a system of methodized beliefs which he claims to call scientific, but while thus guarding his meaning, he will rarely, if ever, hesitate to answer "No" to your question. If you ask an illiterate cottager the same question in a different form-i.e., translating it into a language he can understand-he will give you a similar reply. If you ask him whether he knows heaven in the same way as he knows his native village, whether he knows God as he knows his earthly master in yonder mansion on the hill, or whether he knows the place of his expected future life as he knows the burial-ground where his father's bones are laid, he will smile at your absurdity in making such inquiries. No Christians to-day profess to be Gnostics, like those early sects which claimed to know the numbers and names and ranks of angels and all the secrets of eternity. As distinguished from them we are all Agnostics—i.e., men who say We have but faith, we cannot know, To test the soundness of the distinction thus insisted upon, we may imagine Tennyson's verse just quoted being submitted as a creed for the acceptance of a mixed assembly of Christians and Agnostics of Mr. Huxley's type. Putting the clauses separately, and of course on the understanding that all were to be viewed in relation to the Christian Revelation, there would be at once a divided vote on the words, "we have but faith." There are some who call themselves Agnostics, or "Christian Agnostics," who would accept the clause, but assuredly Mr. Huxley would not, and he justly claims "patent rights" in the Passing to the second clause, "we cannot know," every hand would be uplifted, as acknowledging an obvious fact, and there would be equal unanimity in voting for the third clause as an explanation of the fact, "For knowledge is of things we see." The remaining lines would have no meaning as proceeding from either Gnostics or Agnostics, but beautifully express the blended trust and aspiration of those who "have but faith." name. "And yet we trust it comes from Thee, A beam in darkness: let it grow." I fail to see why Agnostics should be unwilling to admit that the absence of this faith constitutes the real difference between themselves and Christians. I rejoice to see how eagerly Professor Huxley labours to avoid the necessity of saying point blank that he does not believe Jesus Christ, or believe in Him. In this honourable anxiety he is a true representation of many who do not bow their knees at the name of Jesus, and do not put their trust in Him as a divinely commissioned leader, commander, and witness of mankind. To spare him and them all needless pain, I will call them by almost any title they prefer; but, in the name of all that is definite and clear, let us avoid cloudiness of thought and speech, and keep it before us that an Agnostic, as defined by the author of the name, is a man who is con"I do not know," and to make that answer a shield against all appeals for religious faith. The old-fashioned infidel was a man who scoffed and denied; he was indeed a Gnostic, who knew the negative of almost all that Christianity affirms. Sneering alike at Deism and Christianity, he boldly said: "There is no God, no future tent to say, |