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can take power from a live wire is a machine made like the dynamo that produced it, a machine that is itself a small dynamo. In wireless telegraphy messages can be received only by wires that are attuned to those of the sending station. So the recipients of the grace of Christ must be, in a measure at least, ethically attuned to His character of love. The illustrations are inadequate because it is the Spirit Himself that attunes the hearts of believers. Yet it is in our power by developing character and intelligence to reduce the resistance in the medium that conveys to us the currents of the power of God.

In the physical sphere electricity is the greatest of mysteries. What it is no one really knows. But we do know most accurately the conditions under which its power may be utilized. In like manner the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. This power of God is not to be resolved into ethical processes or any constituent elements that may be rationally apprehended. It is a simple, irreducible fact. It is attested by the best of witnesses in all ages. Never was it more amply attested than it is now on the missionary field.

The conviction that the human factor in the work of the Church is subordinate and relatively insignificant does not excuse the lethargy that now characterizes the attitude of the Church toward the fearful ethical problem of modern civilization. While Christendom in the providence of God is now spreading roots and branches over the whole world the increased resources of this expanding life will all be required to cure the social evil that threatens the heart of the Church. We may even dare to say that in the present period of economic change it becomes theologians to devote their energies mainly to the task for which the temper of the age best fits them, the study of the application of Christian truth to the new practical social questions that confront us. We should love not dogmatics less but ethics more.

The Epistle of John, which we may well regard as the last

word of the New Testament, is a perfect model of the union of the two elements. "He that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him and He in him. And hereby we know that He abideth in us by the Spirit which He hath given us." “Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God." "Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." LANCASTER, PA.

II.

POETIC POINTS OF VIEW.

BY THE REV. EDWARD S. BROMER, D.D.

The modern spirit is at last entering upon its creative period. A new sense of possession always brings with it a new consciousness of spontaneity. The search-instinct has by its very nature in it the creative and constructive faculty. Homeric insight and Baconian experiment cannot be far separated. The hypothesis of the imagination and the scalpel of investigation are twin-tools, never ends in themselves but tools for building. The very wealth of experiments and facts in modern science and of experiences and deeds in modern social and religious life, challenge the creative and constructive instinct of the prophet to proclaim the new ideals and of the poet to sing new songs.

The prophet and the poet are now sympathetic friends; though in times past they looked askance at each other. Both are feeling the force of Mr. Stedman's statement in his Victorian Poets: "In fact, the new light of truth is no more at war with religious aspiration than with poetic feeling, but in either case with the ancient fables and follies of expression which these sentiments respectively have cherished." Both have been and are being subjected to the tests of universal truth. Are they found wanting? "A spark still disturbs our clod" and the prophet and poet are coming to their own. The message of the new age is positive, constructive and realidealistic.

The pathway of theology, beginning with the seventeenth century forms and systems, through eighteenth century Deism, Rationalism and political and social revolution, passing into the temporary absorption of nineteenth century reaction, scien

tific research and skepticism, and out again into the light of a new idealism, so ethical and democratic in its emphasis, is familiar to many of its students who persisted in its course and are rejoicing in a new and enthusiastic faith and hope both for the individual and society. In philosophy, social and political science, art, and in religion the star of idealism again ascends. Aristotle's head, even though his feet are still standing fast on the earth, is crowned with Plato's glory. In the new age realism and idealism are inseparable. At length the logic of evolutionary thought must confess that it begins and ends only in the Absolute which for Herbert Spencer is "unknown," for Matthew Arnold "makes for righteousness," and for Robert Browning is both "The Allpowerful and The All-loving too."

There is a vital parallel in the history of theology, political and social science, literature and art. Various gifts but of the same Zeit-Geist. Democracy and science are the master ideas of the nineteenth century. At first they seemed iconoclastic in spirit and method but a reactionary period in both Church and State could not dim the vision of the faith that believed in a higher individual and a truer social democracy. The parallel between the Prophet's and Poet's way is closer than any other. Goethe's faith impelled both of them: "Die Geister Welt is nicht verschlossen." However low their murmur in the "dreadful night," it told the truth of life beginning and ending in God; and now with the breaking of a new day it is no longer an infant crying in the night and with no language but a cry" but the clear message of faith, "God's in his Heavens; All's right with the world." Nor is their message unheard. Dr. Cuthbert Hall in that remarkable article in a recent issue of the Atlantic Monthly on "The Ideal Minister," truly says, Ministers like poets are born not made. They arise, as parts of the essential structure, as modes of the progressive action of human society; and however many there be of spurious and perverted occupants of the profession unblessed of God and rejected of men—where

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one arises having the true vocation, the hearts of men answer to his influence, as the viol to the bow."

The purpose of this paper is to study several of the English poets of the nineteenth century, in order to get a glimpse of their struggle toward a sense of reality and a mission in this great century of new light, upheaval, transition, and convictions. The preacher may well turn to the poet as a companion spirit; for our age has taken from him the pulpit tone, the ecclesiastic garb, the refuge of fixed dogmatic statement, even the reverence for tradition and antiquity, and makes him stand face to face with his fellowman to tell the truth of the image of God in his own soul and the race as he knows it as a reality. Never was preacher put to severer test of message and of mission in Jesus Christ. This first-hand method and spirit have ever been the true poet's. His mission and the prophet's are, as Emerson says, " to teach men to live at first-hand with God."

Now just a word about "points of view" as used in the title of this paper. We have in theology these days heard much about the theory of knowledge and its importance to the science. Taking the three ultimates of thought: Subject, object, and the source of each-the soul, the world and Godas centers we get the six following possible points of view of reality. To aid clearness of conception make the subject and the object the foci of an ellipse and regard the whole of the ellipse, the Absolute. Two of the points of view center around the focus, object-the real-sensationalism of Locke and the ideal-sensationalism of Hume. Two others center about the focus, subject-the real-rationalism of Plato and the ideal-rationalism of Kant. Assuming both foci, subject and object, we have in "judgments of value" or heart-judgments, the neo-Kantianism of Ritschl. Going still further, involving feeling, intellect and will, we have the immediate perception theory of Lotze, Greene, Caird, James, Royce, etc. These terms are inadequate, to be sure, but they indicate the paths which the human mind has found to what it calls knowledge

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