lectured to empty benches; and in one of them a certain advanced critical professor, whose name is well known in Scotland, was forced during the past summer session to beg some students to make a class for him that he might get his lectures delivered. He got a class of two! I have reason to believe that similar accounts may be given of other German universities. (4.) I mention all this that I may urge upon you as theological students to make yourselves acquainted with the language and the literature of Germany. In this country we are apparently pursuing the same course of speculation as the Germans, but we are something like a quarter of a century behind. Works which in Germany are refuted or forgotten, are, through translations, and still more through adaptations into our language, producing their effect in Britain. It is not very creditable to us that we should be mere imitators; and I would fain hope that, if we are to follow Germans at all, we shall do so at a somewhat less humble distance. I would further hope that not a few of you will, by study at home, or, better far, by study in Germany,* so master the whole subject up to the present date as to help to keep the mass of the people from falling into a hard indifference like that in which the mass of the men of Germany are still sunk. If the theologians and ministers of Germany had been as earnest and enlightened Bible Christians thirty or forty years ago as they are now, the religious condition of that noble and learned people, whose mighty manhood on red battle-fields is astounding all Europe, would have been immeasurably better to-day. It will take years of toil and tears on the part of their teachers ere the people are brought back to the simple Bible faith of Luther's days, the very tradition of hich makes them great. And it is just because I long to see Scotland preserved from

The Church of Scotland has always recognised study in foreign Protestant universities as a qualification for being taken on trials with a view to admission to her ministry. Although this recognition has been of late limited (and I venture to think the limitation a mistake), it still applies to one of the three years' attendance on theological classes. I believe that a semester at Tübingen would cost a student considerably less-travelling expenses and every other outlay included-than a session in any Scottish Divinity Hall.

so deep a fall as that which has so severely injured Germany, that I eagerly desire to see you and such as you fully educated in the works of those theologians whose march over the realms of thought has been as rapid as that of their countrymen over the fields of France. Gentlemen, let no one take alarm at this as "dangerous." It is your duty to know German theology; and God, if we ask Him, will protect us in the path of duty. It would prove us to be unworthy of our time if we were afraid of studying the current literature of our subject. Besides, I believe that there is as much infidelity in any ordinary library in this country as in all the class-rooms of any German university.

And now, Gentlemen, I thank you for having listened to me so patiently. I trust there is before us a session of honest and serious work. May God vouchsafe us bodily strength, soundness of reason, and, above all, that faith which, working by love, will enable us to know Him and His Son Jesus Christ with the knowledge which is life eternal.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

THE PREACHING OF THE CROSS

AS IT IS IN

HOLY SCRIPTURE.

BY

C. F. CHASE, M.A.,

RECTOR OF ST. ANDREW BY THE WARDROBE, and ST. ANN, BLACKFRIARS.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY C. F. HODGSON & SON,

GOUGH SQUARE, FLEET STREET, E.C.

PREFACE.

IN the following pages, the Reader is invited to consider "the Preaching of the Cross," as it is set forth in Holy Scripture. He will find an important question raised, as to what is the true preaching of the Cross.

The Apostle Paul glories exceedingly in the preaching of Christ crucified. He regards this preaching as a weapon "mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds." He himself gained great victories with it. He witnessed its triumphs in Greece, in Rome, and throughout the world. Can the Church in these days (I speak of the Protestant Church) make the like glorying? Is Christ, in her preaching, proved to be "the power of God, and the wisdom of God"? On the contrary, is not the Church, in her preaching, found to be without power, and without effect? Is she not fast becoming an object of distrust and contempt, instead of veneration and of fear? If it be said, "See the wonders she is accomplishing in heathen lands!" I reply, What set-off is this to the signs of spiritual decay in faith, in love, in holiness, in power, at home? Does any branch of the Church shine with