peculiar type of theological thought which some school was founded to represent passes away and is forgotten; the controversies, local, theological or personal, which gave rise to competing institutions die out, and upon those who come after and who wish merely to prosecute theological education in the most effective way, are entailed the limitations and embarrassments arising out of ancient and extinct controversies. I make all due allowance for the fact that we have many denominations, and that, in the nature of the case, each of these must have its repre sentative schools. But even then we have too many. There is scarcely a denomination which has not more schools than it can properly support. *** This increase in the number of schools means weakness on all sides-insufficient support and an insufficient number of teachers, difficulty in commanding the services of the kind of men who are needed as teachers, inadequate equip ment in general, and, worse than all, a keen competition for students, the effect of which upon the make-up of the student-body and upon the ranks of the ministry is far from wholesome." These are words of truth and soberness; and they should be carefully weighed by men who are responsible either for the origin or continuance of theological institutions which have no cause for existence other than the vanity or bigotry of a few self-conceited theologians, who imagine that the coming of the kingdom of God depends upon the acceptance of their theological views. Such institutions must exercise an unwholesome moral as well as intellectual influence upon all who are connected with them.

The American Journal of Theology, edited by the Divinity Faculty of the University of Chicago, is one of the leading theological quarterlies of the country. The January number of the current year contains an able article by L. Henry Schwab, of New York, entitled A Plea for Ritschl. The author says it "is unfortunate that up to the present time, the English and American reader, if he is limited to literature in the English language is almost wholly dependent for his knowledge of the

The author of

We see clearly,

German theologian upon unfavorable criticisms." this article is in sympathy with his subject, and presents Ritschlianism in an altogether favorable light, because he understands it. One of the peculiarities of Ritschl's thought is the distinction between theoretical judgments and value judgments, the former depending upon a merely intellectual process, the latter upon a process of thought and feeling combined. As bearing upon this point we present the following paragraph: "Apply this theory to the central truth of Christianity, the divinity of Christ. The older theology sought for proof-texts and built upon the record of the resurrection. But the texts themselves need to be proved true, and if the resurrection can be proved as a historical fact, there is an end of all argument. But in that case people could not refuse to believe it, as many do. therefore that Christianity can not rest upon such weak premises, neither in fact does it except in the imagination of theological logicians. If, on the other hand, following a safer method toward the solution of the Christological question, we allow ourselves to come under the spell of the character which the Gospel depicts for us, if we measure the lofty claims He made, and if then we feel it to be a psychological impossibility that He whose life was so beautiful, and who, withal, was so sober, should have been either a deceiver or self-deceived-in the mental process through which we pass in forming this judgment we base our conclusion upon the truth of those feelings which the story of Christ's life excites in us, of which we can give no logical account; and this is the value judgment.' And from this first impression, this 'value judgment,' we proceed, by a process which is more of the nature of dialectical reasoning, to the divinity of Christ."

IX.

NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

[Any books noticed in this department will be furnished, at the lowest prices, by the Reformed Church Publication Board, 1306 Arch St., Philadelphia, Pa.]

JESUS CHRIST AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION. An Examination of the Teaching of Jesus in its Relation to Some of the Problems of Modern Social Life. By Francis Greenwood Peabody, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals in Harvard University. Pages, vii +374. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1900. Books like this are becoming numerous; and they are signs of the times, pointing to a peculiar social condition. They imply that the social and economic world is not in a state of profound peace. In fact it is the very opposite. It is in a state of agitation, discontent, uncertainty and questioning, such as has never existed before. The elements of society are largely arrayed against each other-the laboring classes against the employing classes, the poor against the rich, the servants against their masters. This social unrest affects all social spheres, the family, the state, and the economic and industrial world. The two most immediate causes of this unrest are the exploitation of labor and the concentration of capital. And the remedies proposed for this condition of things are numerous. We have offered to us anarchism, communism, socialism in a great variety of forms. These the world refuses to accept. But does this imply that the evil against which these theories are aimed does not exist-that all is sweet and lovely in the social and industrial world, and that the socialists and communists are merely idle agitators, clamoring without reason against the very best social system? That may be the conviction of many, who deprecate all reflection and study of the social state. They believe that all speaking and writing on the subject must necessarily do harm. But there is an ever-increasing number of good and able men who can not be satisfied with this view. They can not accept the communistic programme, and yet they can not be satisfied to let things remain as they are. They look to all possible quarters for light and relief; and a rapidly multiplying number are looking to the teaching of Christ and the apostles for the help which is needed. Among this num ber is Professor Peabody, the author of the volume which is here introduced to the notice of our readers.

The contents of the volume are arranged in seven chapters with the following headings respectively: The Comprehensiveness of the Teaching of Jesus; The Social Principles of the Teaching of Jesus; The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Family; The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Rich; The Teaching of Jesus

Concerning the Care of the Poor; The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Industrial Order; The Correlation of the Social Questions. The first chapter deals largely with the origin and nature of the social questions which are agitating and disturbing our age. "There lies at the heart of the present age a burdening sense of social mal-adjustment which creates what we call the social question," says our author, and then observes in the language of Prof. Wagner, that this social question "comes of the consciousness of a contradiction between economic development and the social ideal of liberty and equality which is being realized in political life." The one social question, however, resolves itself into a number of subordinate questions; and these are different from the social questions of any previous age. The age of Jesus had its social questions, too, but they are not just the same as those which oppress our age. How, then, can the teaching of Jesus be appealed to in order to the settlement of any of our modern questions? Only on the supposition that his teaching is of so comprehensive a nature that while it answers the questions of his own age, it answers in principle the questions of all ages. And this is the case in fact. Jesus in his teaching presents no social methods or rules, just as He presents no scientific or theological conclusions. Jesus lives among men; and in His life and teaching is the revelation of God; and that revelation contains all the light that men need for their social redemption, as well as for the redemption of their souls. This implies, of course, that Christianity is not merely an arrangement to make men happy in the other world, but to redeem their lives from the curse of corruption and vanity resting upon them here. Jesus' teaching concerning the Kingdom of God clearly involves this conception.

What, then, is the principle of the social teaching of Jesus? Our author answers that it is the idea that "the social order is not a product of mechanism, but of personality, and that personality fulfills itself only in the social order." Let personality be right and the social order will become right. The author sums up what he supposes to be the leading principles of the teaching of Jesus in the following terms: "The view from above, the approach from within, and the movement toward a spiritual end; wisdom, spirituality, idealism; a social horizon, a social power, a social aim." Jesus, according to our author, takes His position quite above the plane of our earthly social life, in the sphere of the personal and spiritual, assuming that if men's personal life were right, they might be happy in any social order. It is not so much the nature of the social constitution as the moral character of men that determines their weal or woe. "Much social suffering is due to the social order; but much and probably more is due to human sin." So we are told, page 117. This is doubtless true; but is it not true also that sin has produced some mal-adjustments in the social order, which a right adjustment of personality would remove or modify? We are constantly told by the defenders of the old

order, including economic trusts and the exploitation of labor, that if men were not sinners they could be happy under any social conditions. This may be true, but would there be trusts and exploitation if men were not sinners? There has been a tendency among theologians and preachers, and our author is not quite free from it, to preach too much to the poor and unfortunate sinners and not enough to the rich and prosperous sinners. The laborer, whose toil is exploited to make his employer rich, has been told that it is a sin to be discontented with his wages, and to suppose that his happiness will depend upon the amount of goods which he possesses; but it is not so often that the employer is told that it is a sin to exploit the labor of his fellowmen as if they were but soulless cattle. We believe that a more thorough study of the social teaching of Jesus would give a somewhat different tone to the social teaching of many modern theologians and preachers from that which now characterizes it.

The principle which, according to Professor Peabody, governs Jesus' teaching concerning the social order in general is, of course, supposed to govern His teaching concerning the family. He had frequent occasion to discuss the subject of the family. But He never approached it from the earthly, legal standpoint. The question of divorce was for Jesus not a legal question, to be settled by inflexible legal propositions. It was a moral and spiritual question, and Jesus never supposed that the kingdom would be made to come by refusing all applications for divorce. He viewed this question, too, from above and approached it from within; and the only true solution of it now must be reached in the same way. The same is supposed to be true in regard to Jesus' teaching concerning the rich and the poor. In regard to this subject our author points out a difference in tone of the teaching contained in St. Luke and in other parts of the New Testa ment. In St. Luke Jesus is much more severe upon the rich than He is in the other Gospels. This implies that His teaching may have been modified somewhat by the minds of the different evangelists before it came to be fixed in writing, and that we must now often apply critical methods in order to get a probable conception of His exact words. There is, however, no difference in principle in His teachings as found in different evangelists. Everywhere Jesus shows Himself to be the friend of the poor, whom the common people hear gladly, and everywhere He sternly warns the rich of their perils. But Professor Peabody points out that "there is certainly no ground for believing that Jesus proposed to array the poor against the rich. *** His teaching moved in a world of thought and desire where such distinctions become unimportant. * * *He gathered about Him all sorts and conditions of men and women. * * * He was equally at home at the table of the prosperous Zaccheus, in the quiet home at Bethany, and in the company of the blind beggar." This is true, and yet it misses somewhat of the whole truth. In such language the unrighteous