revealing Spirit of God, in the discovery of the truth. And whatever the truth may be, it is God's truth and therefore preferable to human error, however venerable.

The following communications were then read :

The Rev. CHANCELLOR LIAS wrote:-There are only a few comments which I desire to make on the Bishop's paper, and those rather of a confirmatory than of a critical kind.

1. I cordially agree with him in thinking that there is not, and never has been, the slightest contradiction between revealed religion, properly understood and explained, and modern science, when kept within its proper limits. Science concerns itself with the laws which govern phenomena. With the cause of those laws it does not concern itself. It is here that religion comes in, and tells us that the will of an intelligent Creator is that cause.

2. I am glad to find myself in agreement with his lordship when he says (p. 170) that modern Biblical criticism has not always been genuinely scientific. No doubt the critic intends his methods to be such. But "the unbridled use of hypothesis" forms, I cannot but think, a very large part of modern critical processes. And the repeated assertion of the finality of such criticism is about as unscientific as any assertion can be. Science is continually correcting its data by the light of new discoveries. The discovery of a single additional inscription might overturn the whole fabric which has of late been so positively affirmed to be "demonstrated beyond contradiction." Such a possibility true scientific criticism would unreservedly admit.

3. I desire also to associate myself with the remark (p. 169) that the Divine freedom of action is not bound by laws which do not bind the freedom of God's creatures. Natural laws, though irreversible, are, nevertheless, found to be plastic in the hands of finite beings like ourselves. Cannot God control and use them without either suspending" or or "violating" them? Some of the greatest scientific discoverers have been unable to conceive of force except as the expression of will.

4. I have not had an opportunity of studying carefully the recent researches into psychology. But one has always felt confident that a purely mechanical theory of the universe must eventually fail to satisfy the intellectual and moral cravings of humanity.

Sir ROBERT ANDERSON wrote: I cannot but fear that the Bishop of

Down's paper will hurt many whom it is intended to help. May I venture to suggest a revision of one of his lordship's statements. I would read it thus: "It was inevitable that when the public were duped into supposing that scholarship was testing Holy Scripture in the same way in which it tests all other documents, that fact had an extraordinary influence" (p. 170, line 19). For the sham Higher Criticism has tested "scripture in a way that would not be tolerated in the case of other documents." The movement originated, as we all know, with German Rationalists, who with the skill and subtlety for which the German mind is famous, produced a "clear and complete" case against certain of the sacred books. And English scholars who have traded on their labours are the dupes of the egregious fallacy that "a clear and complete case makes an end of controversy." But no accused person is ever committed for trial in our Courts unless a clear and complete case is made out in proof of his guilt. The object of a trial is to sift that case, and to hear what is to be said on the other side. If the critics could be brought before a competent tribunal, their case would be "laughed out of Court." For it is exploded not only by facts which they ignore, but by a fuller knowledge of the Bible than any one of them has given proof of possessing. For no one with an adequate acquaintance with the typology of scripture, or with the scriptural scheme of Divine prophecy would accept their "assured results." Therefore it is that no archæologist of note is on their side. And though many book scholars and popular preachers help to distribute their German wares, not a single front rank theologian of our time in Britain has been with them.

P. 171. Then again, the passage discriminating between "the mere book" and the revelation which the book contains, will, I fear, be generally misunderstood. I am not sure, indeed, that I understand it myself. Renan would have accepted that entire paragraph, and in his Vie de Jesus he has expressed similar thoughts in glowing words. But while there is in such thoughts and words a basis for "the religion of Christendom," this is not Christianity. For Christianity is a revelation and a faith. A revelation of, and from, the Lord Jesus Christ as risen and ascended, and a faith based upon that revelation as contained in the God-breathed scriptures of the New Testament. The blind and bitter infidelity that refused belief in "Jesus Christ" as "the most vivid personality in history or literature," belonged to a

bygone age. But this is quite apart from that faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, which brings us the forgiveness of our sins and eternal life.

Professor LANGHORNE ORCHARD wrote: That much modern unbelief is traceable to one or more of the three sources, to which attention is directed in this able paper, there can be no question. Mistaken views as to natural laws, and disparaging (if not irreverent) treatment of the Bible, have combined, with a feverish thirst for pleasurable excitement, to blur the clear perception of Truth, and to chill love for that spiritual beauty from which some eyes have wandered.

Natural law has been imagined as a fetish, some mysterious entity, a phase or aspect of a stern inexorable necessity, toward which, as regnant in the universe, man's only fitting attitude is the submission of the slave and vassal. It has not been generally recognized that natural laws are simply force-uniformities, i.e., uniform manners of spiritual action, essentially expressions of Will which is not the less free that it chooses to act in certain uniform modes. Misconception as to the character of natural law has fostered a lazy acquiescence in the supposition of a blind deity called Fate, and led to indisposition to that will-effort without which can be no intelligent acceptance and belief of truth.

Disparagement of the Bible has produced a weakening of moral principle and a loosening of moral restraints. Sin has been made easier, and in many minds has arisen despair of finding certainty anywhere, truths the most solemn and most sure coming to be regarded as matters of opinion, or of probability only.

The modern" Higher Criticism," to which this disparagement of the Bible is due, is largely based on the theory of Evolution. The Evolution speculation is also to a great extent responsible for that thirsty craving after materialistic satisfaction which is a characteristic of our age, and of which the inevitable tendency is, as stated on p. 172 of the paper, "to concentrate attention on the visible and tangible, and to forget the unseen and spiritual."

But behind these "second causes" lies the love of the pleasures of sin in the fallen hearts of men. Difficulties of belief of God's word have their roots, and find their nourishment, here. We are reminded of this by Holy Writ, "... they do always err in their heart." "Out of the heart of man proceed evil thoughts . . . foolishness."

The CHAIRMAN in closing the discussion said: With regard to the contradictions among modern critics I should like to refer to The Quest of the Historic Christ by Schweitzer, where these contradictions are admirably shown in historic detail. The author criticizes each but seems to think that there has been some general result from the investigations. That result seems to me to be purely negative, and that it leaves us in the position of rejecting or accepting anything that Christ said or did, according as it suits any preconceived theory, until nothing is left at all.

We cannot get away from three facts: The fact of Christ, the fact of His teaching, and the fact of the results.

And in this connexion it is clear we must expect something unique in the circumstances of His earthly history.

He then called upon the Bishop to reply.

The BISHOP OF DOWN in reply said: Mr. Chairman and friends, I have to thank you very warmly for listening to my paper with such close attention and I have to thank the speakers for their kind words of appreciation.

Though certain criticisms have been made, I feel that I need not detain you long with any reply. A few words will suffice. Dr. Woods Smyth seems to me to underestimate the volume and amount of the unbelief which bases itself on the ideas and principles due to modern science. We must take account of things as they are. As regards modern criticism, I do not think it can be dealt with in the way he proposes. Criticism must do its work and do it thoroughly. Only thus can the truth emerge.

I cannot agree with his estimate of Bergson. There never was a great thinker, but people said of him, "We have heard all this before." But it is one thing to put forward an opinion, it is another thing to open up a path by which that opinion may be justified.

Some speakers have mistaken what I said about the laws of nature. A law of nature is, of course, only a statement of the way in which things are found to happen. Its constancy is a witness to the trustworthiness of the power which is manifested in nature. My point is that our experience shows that this constancy, instead of limiting man's freedom, gives to that freedom its great opportunity.

In connexion with the remarks of Mr. Drawbridge, while I agree with him that we should ever seek truth for its own sake, we must, I hold, consider that we prize our Christian Creed not merely because

we believe it to be true, but also because we have found in it the satisfaction of all the deepest needs of our spiritual nature. It is the greatest of our treasures. And just as a man will fight for his daily bread so a Christian will contend for his faith. He has found it so good that he must struggle to hold it fast when an effort is made to take it from him.

I must confess that I disagree considerably with Sir Robert Anderson. Christ says "I am the light of the world." He says “I am the way, the truth, and the life." He does not say "A book which shall be written is to be the light of the world, the way, the truth, and the life." The supreme value of the Bible is to be found in its witness to Christ.

Communication from Rev. A. IRVING, D.Sc., B.A.

While appreciating very warmly the excellent paper of the Bishop of Down on "Difficulties of Belief," and as one who for more than half a lifetime has given his best thoughts to the subject, I crave permission to offer a little friendly criticism on several points, on which I think the argument of the paper might be strengthened

1. There seems to me a certain weakness in Dr. D'Arcy's remarks about what he calls the "scientific creed" and "thinking in watertight compartments." They suggest the unsatisfactory position of those people who have a "mere reading acquaintance with science," as Professor Michael Foster, F.R.S., put it in his Presidential Address to the British Association at Dover, in 1899. To think in watertight compartments seems to me to set up a barrier to any advance towards the establishment of those harmonious relations between the scientific Geist and the theological Geist, which are essential to the working out of a Christian Philosophy, such as Dr. Arnold Whateley has contended for (Transactions of the Victoria Institute, vol. xliii)-a philosophy which shall include in one perspective the truths of Nature and the truths of Revelation.

2. "Pragmatism does not deny the validity of Science," writes Dr. D'Arcy (p. 167). It would talk nonsense if it did so. But surely Faith (which is wider in its scope than the mere intellectual process of "belief") has its pragmatic value.

3. Not having seen the recent articles in the Hibbert Journal, to which the Bishop refers, I may say that two years ago I suggested an affirmative answer to that question,-"Is there one Science of