to employ their language when kneeling in prayer before God. They "have not so learned Christ." To pray as the author of the 109th Psalm does, "that his enemy may die, and his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow; that his children may be continually vagabonds and beg; that they may seek their bread in desolate places; that none may extend mercy to him or favor to his orphaned children; that his prayer may be counted as sin, and the sin of his mother not be blotted out"; -this, for many Christians is utterly inconceivable. It does not tally with the Master's example on the cross; it does not conform to the requirements of His precept,-"Love your enemies, pray for them which despitefully use and persecute you." To such, our author's attempt to vindicate the heartless cruelty of using such imprecations, even by the writer of the original," on the ground of a sense of the solidarity of the interests of the individual servant of God, with those of the nation of Israel and with the religion of God himself," will fail to commend itself as valid. There is an element of truth, no doubt, in saying that "no one knows what love is, who cannot truly hate," and that "it is a weak and sickly individualism which shuts its eyes against the wrath of God and of the Lamb and of the Church the Bride of the Lamb, against evil and incurable sin," but for one, the present writer does not believe that this element of recognized truth, warrants Dr. Briggs' inference that there "is therefore a place for imprecation in the highest forms of Christianity, and that it is only more discriminating than in the Old Testament religion and much more refined."

But this question aside, it is believed that this latest and greatest of Dr. Briggs' publications will long be esteemed as one of the noblest monuments of painstaking American scholarship, and as one of the most serviceable expositions of the book treated that the Christian Church owns. It deserves and will surely find an honored place among the treasured volumes of biblical students everywhere.

BALTIMORE, MD.

VIII.

EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.

SCIENTIFIC VERSUS RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE.

I know

Mr. Huxley, in a letter to Charles Kingsley, said: "It is no use to talk to me of analogies and probabilities. what I mean when I say I believe in the law of the inverse squares, and I will not rest my lifelong hopes upon weaker convictions. I dare not, if I would." President Lincoln held similar views in reference to the objects of faith. His biographer, Mr. Herndon, says the following of his earlier habit of thought: "As already expressed, Mr. Lincoln had no faith. In order to believe, he must see and feel, and thrust his hand into the place. He must taste, smell, or handle before he had faith or even belief." The testimony of these men is valuable because they were doubtless sincere and have won universal respect for their devotion to truth and their service to humanity. They may be regarded as representatives of a type which is found in every age. They confess their inability to believe unless convinced by sight or by logical demonstration. They stand by the scientific method and practically deny certainty to any statement that cannot be scientifically proved.

One need not go far, however, to find equally representative men, whether they are measured by their intellectual power

by their historic achievements, whose conviction of invisible and divine realities is as firm as their belief in the law of the inverse squares, or in the existence of the sun above or the earth beneath.

The Psalmist speaks for an innumerable multitude when he says: "Nevertheless I am continually with thee; thou hast holden my right hand. Thou wilt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me into glory. Whom have I in

heaven but thee?

And there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee" (Ps. 73:23-25). (Ps. 73:23-25). A profound sense of the Divine presence is evidenced in the second epistle to Timothy (1:12): “For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." Augustine said: "God is more truly thought than he is uttered, and exists more truly than he is thought."

Testimonies from the collection made by Professor Starbuck and quoted by Professor James in The Varieties of Religious Experience serve to illustrate the convictions of men in the present generation. A man aged forty-nine writes: "God is more real to me than any thought or thing or person. I feel his presence positively, and the more as I live in closer harmony with his laws as written in my body and mind. I feel him in the sunshine or rain; and awe mingled with a delicious restfulness most nearly describes my feelings. I talk to him as to a companion in prayer and praise, and our communion is delightful." Another man of twenty-seven says: "God is quite real to me. I talk to him and often get answers. Thoughts sudden and distinct from

any I have been entertaining come to my mind after asking God for his directions." These are examples of scores of like statements from men and women of all ages and conditions.

A less hopeful and somewhat "coarse-meated" confession is made by one who answers Professor Starbuck's circular of questions. "What does Religion mean to you? A. It means nothing; and it seems, so far as I can observe, useless to others, etc."

"What comes before your mind corresponding to the words God, Heaven, Angels, etc.? A. Nothing whatever. I am a man without a religion. These words mean so much mystic

bosh."

"Have you had any experiences which appeared providential? A. None whatever. There is no agency of any superintending kind."

A.
I

"What things work most strongly on your emotions? Lively songs and music; Pinafore instead of an Oratorio. like Scott, Burns, Byron, Longfellow, especially Shakespeare, etc. Of songs, the Star-spangled Banner, America, Marseillaise, and all moral and soul-stirring songs, but wishy-washy hymns are my detestation, etc."

"What is your notion of sin? A. It seems to me sin is a condition, a disease, incidental to man's development not being yet advanced enough, etc."

"What is your temperament? A. Nervous, active, wideawake, mentally and physically. Sorry that Nature compels us to sleep at all." Professor James adds: "If we are in search of a broken and a contrite heart, clearly we need not go to this brother."

We may divide the race into two classes so far as their attitude to God and eternity is concerned: those who will not believe unless they can touch and see, i. e., scientific proof, and those who rest their faith on an intuition of heavenly realities, which transcends the experiments of science. These types have existed in a cruder or a more refined form from time immemorial, though the believers have always been in a large majority. They have looked upon each other with suspicion and at times with unconcealed contempt. The men of faith have condemned the men of science as rationalists. The men of science have charged believers with superstition. A third class has tried to mediate between faith and science and get the lamb and the wolf to lie down together.

But neither accusation nor compromise can settle the question. Of the latter method Sabbatier says in his Religions of Authority: "The effort to reconcile the doctrines of authority with modern science, which knows no other method than that of observation and experience, is an attempt to weld together a clod of clay and an iron bar. This is why all past compromises and attempted conciliations have so miserably ended in shipwreck." The solution of the problem must be found in a theory of knowledge which will recognize the scope

and limitations of both science and faith. For the knowledge which is attained by scientific investigation and that which comes by the obedience of faith are equally real. The methods of attainment are different, yet each is suited to acquire genuine knowledge in its corresponding sphere of reality. They both are legitimate functions of the human mind. The one does not exclude nor will it supersede the other. One or the other function may be allowed to die in individuals for want of use, but mankind as a whole, if we may judge the future by the past, will always believe and enjoy the knowledge of faith. It will always investigate and have the certainty of

science.

Faith is, therefore, not a function of the primitive mind which passes away with maturity. On this point Sabbatier says: "It has even been claimed that this religion (of science) would do away with all others and reign in their place. This is not true, first, because science is no more the whole of life than thought is the whole of the soul, and again, because those who speak thus of science speak in the most irreligious way possible. The true religion of science is not that which deifies ephemeral results or material power, but that which holds research to be holy, the steady ascent of the spirit toward the larger light." Nor will the objects of faith become knowledge in the sense that what was once believed may later be scientifically demonstrated. The knowledge which comes by faith must come in that way through eternity. Even when we no longer see through a glass darkly but face to face, our knowledge of God and spiritual things will be faith knowledge and not scientific knowledge.

The application of the scientific method is not to be regarded as jeopardizing the interest of religion. Science and religion have to do with different spheres of being and different functions of the mind. The conflict arises when faith crosses the boundaries of science or when science enters the realm of faith. When men attempt to comprehend by faith what science alone can explain they fall into superstition and obscurantism;