the love of God in whom we are to live forever.

Mightier triumphs are yet to be thine, O soul of man, when thou dost rise o'er selfish thought and will, when thou dost consecrate thy power and purify thy heart. Then shall the mind penetrate further into the hiding places of God's truth, and learn, letter by letter, the record of his ways. Then shall our sight be clear, and then shall we find our highest delight in doing good. I be lieve in thy higher destiny, O human soul! I know thou art born for some rarer work. Thou art the strangest thing on earth. Thy thoughts climb the farthest reaches of heaven itself, but thou dost dwell in dust. Thou mayest share in the counsels of the Eternal, but thou dost follow the whims of animal desire, the elusive dream of thine own pleasure. Waken from this lethargy, break the chains that in slum ber were forged upon thy frame, and rise into thy native air, the air of liberty and loyalty, of hope and trust. CHARLES J. STAPLES.

St. Cloud, Minn.
THE DOCTRINE OF VICARIOUS
ATONEMENT.

Liberal Christians do not accept the common doctrine of the vicarious atonement, that is, the teaching that in our room and stead Christ died, suffering the penalty that was due to us. Ac cording to our conception of the char acter of God and of the nature of for giveness, no such atonement was either necessary or possible.

1. To us it seems to be in direct conflict with the doctrine of the divine mercy. Let us see. God would not forgive the sinner till the penalty of his broken law had been visited upon some one, and God himself actually inflicted that penalty upon his son Jesus Christ! Thus the innocent suffered instead of the guilty! This completely reverses our instinctive idea of both justice and mercy, and destroys, were it possible to destroy, the relations between innocence and internal comfort, and crime and its legitimate consequences. There is neither justice nor mercy in punishing the innocent instead of the guilty.

2. This doctrine is irreconcilable with that of the parable of the prodigal son, given by Christ for the purpose of illustrating the forgiving love of God. Solely through the promptings of the true, fatherly heart, and not because an innocent person had suffered the penalty due to the foolish and wicked young man, he was received back into the dear old home. And does not this settle forever the question as to the condition of the divine forgiveness, as Christ understood it?

3. We fully believe that this doctrine is immoral in its tendencies, since it presents a substitute for moral charac ter and personal worth, and appeals to low and selfish motives. It says in so many words that dependence upon conformity to the moral law, as a condition of salvation, is offensive to God and dangerous to the soul; that our only hope of heaven is in the blood of Christ. A bishop of the Church of England recently bemoaned the low standard of morality among Christians; and a few years ago the great Wesleyan body of England appointed a day of fasting and prayer in consequence of the same deplorable condition. But how can it be otherwise when from the pulpit and in the sacred name of religion, the sterling moralities are declared to be of no account in the salvation of the soul? Individual worth is as filthy rags! We are to be saved because Christ suffered in our stead, not because we are worth saving!

About fifty years ago, in western New York, there was a school in which was a large, coarse fibered, headstrong boy who was full of malicious mischief and low, vulgar tricks; and another of exactly the opposite temperament and tendency, auburn haired, light complexioned, blue eyed, high-minded, thor oughly truthful, but still a fun-loving boy. One day, while the back of the master was turned, a circumstance occurred which greatly enraged that dignitary; and, as the two boys above described were sitting side by side, the master assuming, of course, that the first named was the guilty one, prepared to punish him: and in those days punish

ment in school meant something. But just as the great cherry ruler was about to fall with awful force upon the open palm of the first named boy, the second sprang to his feet and exclaimed, "Sir, John did not do it, I did it. I intended no harm, did not think what I was doing, and I am very sorry: but. sir, do not punish John for what I did. Please punish me."

I ask whether in declining to accept salvation from punishment through the suffering of an innocent party, that boy did not manifest a spirit incomparably finer and nobler, a sentiment vastly more creditable and more truly religious, than he would have done had he allowed John to receive the penalty due himself. Horace Mann, one of the noblest souls that ever dwelt in flesh, once said that if he were to accept the orthodox conditions of salvation, and thereon enter heaven, he should be eternally ashamed to look Christ in the face.

Los Angeles, Cal.

ELI FAY, D. D.

THE HILL COUNTRY.

Life's duties call, and we must leave
A spot round which fresh memories weave
Of long, calm days that here were spent,
In rest, which unseen powers have sent.
Reluctantly we go our way

From where the clouds, forever, stray
Amid the great, reposeful hills;
While sighing pines, the singing rills,
The hoarse, old oaks, the mingled roar
Of all the forest, tell us more

Than the poor, human tongue can tell,
Still more than human heart can spell,
Of this deep mystery of our birth
To all the pain, and joy of earth.
JOHN P. HUBBARD, JR.

Elbert, Colo.
THE CHURCH "BEHIND THE

TIMES."

There is much talk-and very good good talk it is, sometimes-about the church being "behind the times." But is there not also a great deal of shallow and foolish talk on this subject? Very few men can explain to you what they mean when they say the church is behind the times. Perhaps they mean that it does not go hand in hand with every discovery; that it does not devote itself to preaching the latest criticism; that it does not become, in a word, a

kind of patent-office for the testing of every new thing under the sun. The only trouble has been that some churches have done this, and fallen behind in consequence. Let me tell you why the church is not what they call behind the times; let me tell you why it is ever new and fresh and helpful. The church is just where men are. It stays with them, and loves them, and tries to help them. It is behind their sorrows, because what you, and you, suffer is just what men have suffered for thousands of years. It rebukes your uncontrolled passions, your envy, your jealousy, your untruthfulness, your petty bickering, because they are just as old as man, and live today among us as of old. The church points you higher, because there dwells in you still the longing for a better life. It offers you consolation because you mourn. It tells over and over again the story of the good in 'you, the Christ in you, because these are still there, imprisoned as they have been for thousands of years. It bemoans the sin in the world; it rejoices at the heroism in the world. It stretches out its hand to

The

the poor, and helpless, and forlorn, because they are always new and always with you. The church can only be new when you are new; the church can only give up its psalms and hymns and exhortations, and take to picnics, criticism. and other novelties, when the cares on its shoulders have disappeared. church would be only too willing to devote itself to art, or literature, or new discovery, if its old enemies, vice, poverty, lust, intemperance, jealousy, untruthfulness, scandal, enmities, selfishness, were all dead. But it dwells among men, and will dwell among them so long as these are there. Men have not got beyond certain doctrines of the church. You need to be saved, you need strength from on high, you need repentance, you need to live a new life, that is, to be born again. Ah, indeed, we do! These may be an old story. But men and women are fighting down their temptations, straining in the conflict against temptation, longing for peace, crying out for rest, looking for a prophet, praying for faith, just as we know they have been

doing ever since they have existed. And to these wounds and terrors and sufferings comes the church of God, to dwell among men and help them by its stored up helpfulness ages old. These doctrines are ever new so long as the sins of men are ever fresh. And, therefore, to hold that the church is behind the times is only to say that men are not so far along the road of progress as they ought to be. To scoff at the tenets of the church is only to show your dislike of those phrases which stand for the weakness of men. The new problems, the new complications, and the new sorrows and troubles arising from these, these the true church recognizes, and tries in every way to help men to overcome. But, I take it, the grandest virtue of Christianity is that it stands persistently in the same place, dwelling among men, slowly, surely, and ever reminding them of their responsibilities and their possibilities. And it has been a great prop to mankind to know that there is always something to turn to which changeth not at every breath of novelty, that is not discomposed by every excitement.

I have not a doubt that men and women were meant to be happy and cheer ful here. I believe in every effort to make men better, in every amusement that makes them forget their cares and sorrows. But I believe the church for gets its first duty when it goes into the social business, when it makes itself a club, when it tempts men to God through various feasts and frivolities for their entertainment. I like the house of God to be, indeed, the house of God dwelling among them, trusting to its significance to make men come into it, remaining in the same place, echoing the prayers of saints, and pointing to the life of Christ with undeviating finger. I believe this is bound to tell upon the community. It may be years, centuries if you like, what are they to God?-but finally its influence will work its way into the life of men. They change, they run after new things, they fall in love with new leaders, they learn a new philosophy, they may even sneer at the old tabernacle standing there where it has from

the days of their fathers; but they can not rid themselves of its shadow of holiness. It falls about them, and they walk through it and heed it not, day after day; but some day they will seek it, and hide themselves in its coolness, and be thankful for its protection. When they have tried all the novelties, and run after this or that substitute for God and his church till they are weary, they will be thankful enough that there is one thing sure, dwelling ever in the same place, with all the old memories and all the pervasive sanctity, where they may go and rest.- -H. Price Collier in the "Boston Gazette.”

1. As a part of the Mosaic ritual. The baptism of John was no part of the Law.

2. Nor as a Baptism to Repentance: for Jesus did not need this.

3. Nor as an ordination of Jesus to be the Messiah; for this was not the idea of the baptism of John; was not so intended by John, nor so understood by the people; nor did Jesus intend to be recognized at this time as the Messiah by people generally.

The propriety was not founded in the Jewish ritual, the circumstances of the times, nor the position of Jesus: but lay in the universal need of human nature. There is a time in life, when. to one who has formed a religious purpose, a public and open profession of purpose becomes suitable and

that

proper.

We know, at present, where the bap tism of Jesus took place. It was at a

*The beginning of this lesson is from the notebook of James Freeman Clarke. Several pieces

of information.-as, for instance, about the wedding at Cana. -are obtained from Edersheim's extremely interesting volume, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

ford across the Jordan, about twenty miles from Nazareth, a little to the south of the Sea of Galilee. On the east of the Jordan lay the tract of desolate country which is supposed to have been the scene of the Temptation. The mention of the dove is something that seems to me to have been curious ly misunderstood a spiritual experience strangely materialized in the minds of readers. Matthew tells us: "The heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God, descending like a dove, and lighting upon him."

Mark: "He saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him.'

Luke: "Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended, in a bodily shape like a dove upon him."

John: And John bare record, saying, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him."

Notice here that Luke's is the only account which uses the expression "in a bodily shape." Matthew and Mark say: "The heavens were opened unto him;" "He saw the heavens opened." Matthew was an apostle; Mark received his account from an apostle-Peter. Luke was not an apostle, and his gospel is supposed to have been written somewhat later than the other two synoptic gospels. The words, "in a bodily shape." have the sound of an addition to the original story; one of those almost inevitable exaggerations or expansions which occur when a thing is repeated from mouth to mouth. A person who is gathering materials for a history is very apt to collect some interesting information; but the farther he goes from the original source the greater becomes the danger of interpolation.

Of the four evangelists, one only is likely to have been present at the baptism of Jesus-John. He says nothing of having seen a dove, himself. Indeed, he can hardly be said to have written an account of the baptism of Jesus; only of a conversation with John the Baptist concerning it. John the Apostle is sup

posed to have been a disciple of John the Baptist.

But John the Baptist does seem to say that he saw something "like a dove.” "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven, like a dove, and it abode upon him." Coming from the Baptist's own disciple, John the Apostle, and probably written down by one of his disciples, directly from the lips of the apostle, it has a very authentic sound. What are we to understand by it?

Comparing all the accounts I come to the following conclusions: 1st, That Jesus, at the moment of his baptismwhich was to him a moment of solemn self-consecration-had a deep, inward, spiritual experience; 2nd, That at that moment he first became conscious of his mission; 3d, That this consciousness was accompanied by a revelation of the protecting love and care of God, and of his own personal relation to him; 4th, That he endeavored to describe this experience to his first disciples, using a figure not very unfamiliar to them, since in the Psalms of David, and other parts of the Old Testament, similar expressions occur "the shadow of thy wings."

When we read in the ninety-first psalm: "He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust," we do not think of real feathers and real wings. We understand the Psalmist to express the idea that the protecting love of God is as real to him as the wings of a mother bird are to her nestling.

It seems interesting to me, and worthy of notice, that this very psalm - the ninety-first-is the one which contains the words: "He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone." We know, therefore, that this psalm was in the mind of Jesus very soon after the baptism. It may have been a favorite one with him.

Jesus stepped out of the water "praying." It is an interesting suggestion of Edersheim that the only prayer Jesus taught his disciples may have been in his own mind at this moment. The opening sentences, at least, seem

definitely to express what must have been the desire of his heart, and the purpose of his life. "Our Father who art in Heaven; hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" expresses the coming of the kingdom of God (the hope of every pious Hebrew), the spiritual, nature of that kingdom, the personal relation of God to man; and with this cametthe conviction that upon him was laid he mission of making the truths which he saw so clearly, realities to his fellow men.

Jesus retired into the wilderness to prepare himself for his work, by prayer and meditation. During his absence John the Baptist received the deputation from Jerusalem. This event seems to have taken place on the last day before the return of Jesus from the wilderness. For

"The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him.” It should be noticed here that Jesus was on his way back from the wilderness; and that the place of the Baptism (where John seems to have remained) was on his road.

"Again, the next day after, John stood, and two of his disciples." These "two disciples" are supposed to be Andrew (who is mentioned by name, later) and John the Apostle.

In consequence of what John the Baptist said of him, they followed Jesus, and "abode with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour." Not the tenth hour, according to Jewish reckon ing, but, as is now supposed, according to Roman reckoning the same as our own. It was therefore about ten o'clock in the morning. John and Andrew therefore spent the whole day with Jesus.

We come now to an interesting point. What was the day that these two disciples spent with Jesus? We have fortunately the means of ascertaining that it was the Sabbath. Assuming the marriage at Cana to have been on Wednesday-the day on which the wedding of a young girl was celebrated we are able to fix the five preceding days. Widows were married on Thursday, quietly, without a great festival. From

the degree of festivity accompanying the marriage at Cana, it is safe to infer it was that of a young girl. We now find that Jesus returned from the wilderness to Bethabara on Friday; that he remained during Saturday for the needed Sabbath rest; and continued his journey into Galilee, the next day,Sunday, taking with him Philip of Bethsaida, probably also Peter, and Andrew, and John the Apostle. The meeting with Nathanael on the way is described; and the third day after, Wednesday, was the wedding at Cana.

Having traced these incidents, let us return to John the Baptist. Whence came the account of his sayings, narrated in the first chapter of the Fourth Gospel? From his own former disciple, John the Apostle. The other three gospels have not recorded them. Is it too much to suppose that after the memorable Sabbath spent with Jesus, the two disciples sought John the Baptist, and had a conversation with him about Jesus? Perhaps on the evening of the same Sabbath, Jesus may have retired alone, for rest and prayer, and John and Andrew returned, full of interest in what they had heard, to their former teacher.

If Jesus had told them of his experience at the time of his baptism, it would be very natural for them to speak of it to John the Baptist. When they began to tell him that Jesus "saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit of God descending like adove," and that a voice from heaven said, "This is my beloved Son," John, full of interest and sympathy, remembering the illumination of the face of Jesus, as he went up out of the water "praying," a radiance that was not a transient gleam, but remained-"abode" on him—and gave a mysterious spiritual beauty to his face,

John answered--"Yes, I saw it; I saw that; I was close to him, and I saw the spirit descend upon him; and I knew then that he was to be the Messiah. Not before that ["I knew him not" i. e., knew him not as the Messiah], but when I saw his face as he looked up to heaven, praying, I felt the conviction that he was the Son of God."