especially those of the Old Testament—Hebrew Scriptures, and the New Testament or Christian Scriptures.

Preceding and after the era of the so-called Reformation, the intensities of opposition were such that the Catholic and Protestant creed-makers went too far in their ultra definitions of the creeds that both parties called orthodox, and the only orthodox.

This is the era of the Council of Trent on the Catholic side, when it was declared that the Holy Scriptures, all and every part of them, were the Word of God; so that God was the actual author of all parts of said Scripture; at the same time the Calvinistic elements of Protestantism declared in favor of verbal inspiration—while Mr. Martin Luther, being his own boss entirely, declared certain books to be inspired and others not so, as pleased his exuberant fancy.

Of course there were many protestors in each camp, and by and by these became Biblical critics, carrion birds, maggots of criticism, until not only the inspiration of Scripture was questioned, but all history was searched to prove that the received authenticity of the so-called sacred books was unreliable and largely fictitious, and if so, the truths based upon the teachings of these books? What was to become of said truths?

All this was of more consequence to the Protestant or the discarded branches of the old Church than it was to the Church of Rome. For the original Church preceded the sacred books, in fact, made them and compiled them, and the authority of the old Church was primary to the Scriptures and unbroken. Hence, when the Vatican Council disclosed as a dogma of faith the infallibility of the Popes, the Roman Catholic Church seemed to be more independent than ever of the dogmas of inspiration, revelation, divine authorship of the Scriptures, etc.

This independence, however, was only in appearance, for while the Roman Church has always held, as by historic truth it must hold, its own existence prior to the existence of the sacred Scriptures—that is, of the New Testament—it has always been careful in declaring a dogma, to assert its existence in the Scriptures, and to assert that the Church could not, and did not, pretend to declare or define any dogma of its own authority independent of the sacred Scriptures. Thus, the Roman Church has always acknowledged its dependence on sacred Scripture quite as seriously as the Protestant Church, though all the while asserting its sole authority as to what must be accepted as dogmas of the faith.

Unfortunately, this passion of the Church for dogma-making, rather than for character-making, has now and again led it by the ears and astray.

I believe in the dogmas of the Catholic Church, but if its definition of the dogmas of the divine Sonship of Christ, the co-equality of the three persona of the Trinity, etc., in the Constantine period, had been of such a nature as to express, what these definitions really were, a belief of the ruling elements of the Church, and not of such absolute certainty as to practically expel and denounce as heterodox a majority of the Christians of that era, why it is quite possible that Arianism, as a vital form of opposition, might never have developed into acute Sabellianism and Socinianism, or into the Unitarianism, Infidelity, Protestantism and Freemasonry of our own time.

"Chain up a child and away he will go." Not all the true faith and holiness of this world has ever been cooped up in the head of any one Pope or in any college of cardinals.

The misfortune of this passion for dogma-making has been strikingly illustrated by the dogma of the Council of Trent referred to. From Voltaire to Bob Ingersoll; from Luther to Dr. Briggs, the mind of the civilized world has been recasting its notions on all that. Strauss' "Life of Jesus," forty years ago, and all the old attitude of the Tuebingen school were set against that dogma. Renan's "Life of Jesus," and the total literary culture of France, with Renan as leader in one sphere and Hugo in another, were all set against that dogma. Matthew Arnold and Carlyle in England; Emerson and Theodore Parker in the United States, were all set against that dogma, and, in fact, against the whole dogmatizing spirit of a few excellent but by no means superior or infallible gentlemen who claimed to have the authority of dogma-making for the whole civilized world.

But it was always easier to tear down dogmas and temples than to build better ones. Emerson and Carlyle and Arnold and Renan were all sick of the skeptic spirit before their immortal illumination came.

The sunrise is not less divine because a black cloud—earthborn—darkens the morning horizon. The roses, and the daisies, and the pansies and all the fragrant flora of the world are not less divine because of the spots of fading that touch them. Spots on the sun?—Certainly 1 Errors in the sacred books?—'Beyond question! Still there is something in them that is not in Voltaire or Ingersoll or Emerson. Canst find that something, with or without the aid of priests—thy soul is beatific, and saved. Miss it, and thou art certainly doomed.

I think that the mission of any Church is to convey this winged touch of God to the soul, and not to bind that soul with illimitable red tape and too often with brutal tyranny.

If the Catholic Church had had less passion for dogma-making it would never have declared that dogma on the Scriptures in the Council of Trent. And if it had never promulgated that dogma the more enlightened among its scholars would long ago have felt free to work side by side with the scholars of civilization, in order to find, first as to the authorship or authenticity of the sacred books; second, as to the nature and extent of their inspiration; third, as to what extent, with or without an infallible interpreter, they might be accepted as a true guide of the human soul. But it is true, as Father Hecker complained, that the Church is too slow with its initiative. If it looks as if a few yards of dogmatic rope or chain would do, it is always ready with the rope and chain. Now, what is the result as to this particular phase of dogma? The Church has not wanted to stultify itself, certainly not—therefore it should have been slower to pronounce its shibboleth. But after a hundred years' waiting till the books of Scripture have been torn to shreds alike by the enemies of truth and by its friends, the Holy Father, at last, in this twentieth century, in the second childhood of his life, sanctions a committee of revision or for examination of the sacred books and the bases on which they are founded, the inflammable volatile and divine or devilish elemental forces out of which they have come. It is almost certain that the scholars and others appointed to do this work will prove themselves trimmers trying to save the reputation of the Church and the dignity of truth by a non-committal pronouncement, leaving it to still other and better and braver men to make the final showing which will stand.

So much for the general view of the Scriptures referred to in our quoted abstract. The question is still open. No man, Catholic or other, has a right to call his brother a heretic because his brother may trip at an excrescence of the Council of Trent or the Westminster Confession.

Good God! if all the energies spent by the Italian elements of the Church in making and trying to formulate useless dogmas had been spent in trying to save souls to the simple faith in and to the following of Christ, the millennium would be so near that half the jargon of creeds, so loud and sonorous in these days, would be drowned in the glorious praises of redemption and holiness unto God. It is not that men hate Christ or the Christ spirit, but they hate the arbitrary authority of men who know little or nothing of Christ, but who, nevertheless, set themselves up as masters of the thought of the world, and would bind all mankind in the chains of a few self-contradictory creeds.

Give us broader lands and clearer seas. Again we assert that this changing attitude of the Church, of any and all Churches, regarding the Scriptures, is not in any sense the basis of anything like a new science of religion, and that, as a matter of fact, there is no such new science of religion in all the world at this time.

Nearly fifty years ago, when the new impetus came to study Christianity with a greater freedom than hitherto, and further to make comparative studies of all the historic religions of the world, and to determine how these were related to Christianity, Professor Max Miiller announced and gave in London a series of lectures, which, for want of a better title, he called "Lectures on the Science of Religion." He frankly admitted, however, that said lectures, which were afterwards published in book form, were simply preliminary thoughts on the subject. Before these lectures were published, I had announced and given a series of sermons on the science of religion, pursuing, without knowing it at the time, something of Max Miiller's own line of thought and argument. Previous to both of these attempts, Professor Peter Lesley, of Philadelphia—later Dean of the University of Pennsylvania—had published a volume called, if I mistake not, "Man's Origin and Destiny," more original than Max Miiller's work, but taking much the same line of thought and argument. Later still, the Rev. Samuel Johnson, of Salem, Mass., published an octavo volume pursuing much the same line. Later still, the Rev. James Freeman Clarke, of Boston, published a learned volume on the same theme. Still later came Herbert Spencer's "Synthetic Philosophy," a volume devoted very largely to the building up of a system of the science of religion, almost precisely in the line of my own lectures, given fifteen years earlier, and the truth is that anything and everything since done, that is, done during the last two decades, looking to the construction of the science or a science of religion, has been simply a weak rehash of the various works here referred to. The further truth is that not one of the authors mentioned, and certainly no others, in Germany, France or elsewhere, have contributed one iota toward any further or clearer science of the religions of the world than the attempts named. The further truth is that not one of the systems named has ever had a respectable following. But lesser men have made those attempts the bases and excuses for all sorts of half thought and unworthy so-called religious speculation; while the authors named have, in each case practically abandoned their theory of the science of religion and turned to a more or less liberal interpretation of Christianity as the pure and simple and divine light of the world. The fault and weakness of our newer men is that they began with skepticism and without light, and so are inclined to make the most of their so-called investigations. But the truth remains that there is no science of religion in the world to-day, nor do we seem to be making any approach thereto, but rather toward stupider and more vapid speculative nonsense all the while.

As to certain other statements in the abstracts given, we have to say that Buddhism is not, and never was, a religion in the true sense, but a beautiful system of moral philosophy and moral instruction. Our old professor of theology used to tell us that Zoroasterism explained, but Christianity redeemed the world. Buddhism was the natural inheritor of whatever was good in Zoroasterism and Brahamism. Among other inheritances it absorbed to some extent the Zoroastrian idea of the duality of the universe and the forces thereof—especially the forces of good and evil, but it made little practical use of this, being concerned with the ideals of good living as practiced and taught by Guadama, many of whose utterances have been favorably compared with the best sayings of Jesus, and there has been much useless argument in the world as to which was the orig