THE ARENA.

GRIERSON ON MATTHEW ARNOLD.

I WOULD not appear in the rôle of a special pleader for Arnold. His superciliousness is sufficiently exasperating, and his perversity seems often ultra enough. He is worthy, however, of a just and discriminative criticism; and this, it seems to me, the writer who is quoted in the Summary of Reviews, January, 1903, does not offer. It is to the heroic, iconoclastic tone of the critic (which, it seems to me, is too much the tone of modern criticism) that I would object. The tendency of such writing, with many undiscerning readers, I feel, must be entirely to discredit the subjects of discussion. My native impulse is to go "for the under dog in the fight." Arnold was partial and unfair, which perhaps furnishes a precedent for the same thing in his critic; but the critic's heat is not more agreeable than his caustic subject's coldness. Such charges as those of "brutality," and of general bloodlessness in his dealing with authors, appear to me overstatements of the real truth. With all the defects of judgment and the tendency to prejudice that beset him, I believe that Arnold was in the main a sincere, kindly-hearted man, not altogether unbrotherly and not altogether unjust. Moreover, the tone of our criticism, it seems to me, should be modified by the fact that he has now no power to defend himself among men. So my heart went out a little to him whose earthly mold has for several years been reposing in Laleham churchyard. I recognize in Mr. Grierson a capable writer, and a critic who might do better than in this case I think he has done. He has a trenchant pen, and is not without the knowledge and insight necessary to an instructive writer. But I think a very wise, and at the same time genial, man would have scored some of his own passages, such as, for instance: "Arnold was no seer. . . . The labor-saving, machine-made thought of the time made a nonchalant pessimist of Tennyson and a purblind preacher of Arnold." How easy, how fatuous, often how untrue, such generalizing phrases become! "Crossing the Bar" does not sound much like "nonchalant pessimism," so far as Tennyson is concerned.

...

Again: "Matthew Arnold, as a poet, has plenty of brain and muscle [no inconsiderable thing to have], but the blood is the life; and his poetry lacks the crimson element." Deficient in passion as Arnold was, eminently intellectual as his poetry undoubtedly is, I challenge the above as a misleading statement. How can "plenty of brain and muscle" be manufactured without blood?-if we may use the critic's materialistic figure. I think, perhaps, to carry it on a little farther, that the blood did not run quite so freely and visibly in Arnold's capillaries as perhaps in those of his critic; but when I

read his elegies and some of his sonnets, and also his letters, I cannot help thinking that he had a heart, and that the genuine lifecurrent beat steadily at its center. Perhaps, also, had Arnold's mantle of calm fallen on the shoulders of his critic, and had he been subjected to some of the rigorous self-criticism which caused Arnold to reject "Empedocles on Etna" from his collected poems, that had not been an unhappy thing. Then such statements as that "Universality made Shakespeare; imagination and style made Milton," etc., appear to me the very commonplaces of criticism, which he might have learned from Arnold himself not many years ago. Nor am I able to see wherein Arnold and Wordsworth are imitative in any other sense than that in which Milton himself is imitative. Poetry is an imitative art; and, with all his originality, the great poet never gets wholly away from his models, his predecessors.

This frank, free speech is not in any ungenerous or carping spirit. I do not shrink from blame applied where there is blameworthiness. I know well the ill service Arnold has done the Church; I have felt the weight he sometimes hangs upon the human spirit. But, nevertheless, he was a man, with a man's weaknesses, needing a Redeemer and a basis for his faith; and I pity as surely as I challenge and blame him. I try to follow Whittier's rule in respect of Burns with regard to all my authors. I seek to sympathize with the good, and, by repugnance, to profit even by the bad.

Pemaquid, Me.

Dear Soul of Song! I own my debt
Uncanceled by his failings.

ARTHUR J. LOCKHART.

A FURTHER WORD AS TO THE RESURRECTION.

Ir will doubtless be conceded by all who believe in the doctrine of the "resurrection of the dead" that St. Paul had this great doctrine in mind when he wrote the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians. This being conceded, it follows also that the various expressions he uses in this chapter, such as "resurrection of the dead,” “rose again," "be risen," "raised up," "dead rise," "dead shall be raised," "this corruptible must put on incorruption," and "this mortal must put on immortality," all are intended to be but varying modes of reference to this same great doctrine. It will also be conceded that, whatever may have been the great apostle's idea of this doctrine, he uses this idea in the same sense throughout the entire chapter. Any other interpretation vitiates his logic and devitalizes his entire line of reasoning concerning this doctrine. But St. Paul, in this chapter, stakes the verity of the whole structure of the Christian faith on the genuineness, the reality, of the resurrection of the Christ from the dead. If this be so, then the true interpretation of this doctrine must be as applicable to the Christ as to the Christian, to him who is at once God and man as to him who is man, and man only. This compels us to set aside as unscriptural that interpreta

tion which sees in the resurrection only the raising of the soul from the death of sin to the life of righteousness, from the power of Satan unto God. For the Christ had never sinned-had never been dead in trespasses and in sins, had never been in the power of Satan, and yet the apostle most positively asserts that he had been raised from the dead. The fact of the applicability of this doctrine to the Christ also precludes that interpretation which accounts the resurrection to be only "the soul returning to God," or "the soul leaving the dead body and entering on its immortal career." Since, if this were the true interpretation, it then had not been at all necessary to bring the dead body of the Christ from the tomb in order to accomplish his resurrection, and his disciples could (and would) have jubilantly proclaimed his resurrection at once upon his soul's leaving the body. The absolute absurdity of such action in this case most clearly reveals the fact that such an interpretation of this doctrine must be of much more modern origin; while the fact that his disciples were overwhelmed with sorrow and disappointment, and only recovered their faith in him and in his kingdom when they had seen his risen body and had received his imparted Spirit, adds convincing testimony that this cannot possibly be the true interpretation of this great doctrine. But again. That interpretation of the resurrection which confines it to the soul alone cannot be the true interpretation, since the body is the only part of us which is mortal or corruptible in the sense in which St. Paul uses the terms in this "resurrection chapter:" "This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." This cannot be otherwise, since, if "corruptible" and "mortal" may have reference to the soul alone, we are then compelled by the apostle's argument to conceive of the soul of the Lord Jesus as corruptible and mortal. But this conception is impossible. Hence "this corruptible" and "this mortal" can only refer to the body, and the true interpretation of the doctrine of the resurrection cannot refer to the soul alone. It was the "how" of the "new birth" over which Nicodemus stumbled. The Master gave him no explanation of the manner, but insisted strenuously on the fact. The "how" of the "resurrection of the body" has been a "stone of stumbling and a rock of offense” to many. The Scriptures do not explain to us the "how," but they do insist strenuously upon the fact. We may confidently receive the fact, and await the explanation until our powers of apprehension and of comprehension shall be sufficiently enlarged and quickened to enable us to grasp and understand it completely. If the above positions are both "scriptural and philosophical," then to "believe in the resurrection of the dead" and not to "believe in the resurrection of this mortal body" appears to be both unscriptural and unphilosophical. Let us not limit the power of God nor fall short of the confidence which the word of God warrants.

Montrose, Pa.

A. W. COOPER.

FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD.

It is a pleasing thought, indulged by Christians generally, that one of the highest and most abiding joys of heaven will be the reunion of loved ones there. Bishop Gilbert Haven expressed it when he declared his intention on reaching heaven to lay his head in his Mary's lap and rest five hundred years. And who that heard him will forget with what enthusiastic earnestness the lamented Dr. Kynett, in Dr. O'Hanlon's Bible class at Ocean Grove, in 1897, proclaimed his joyous confidence as to this heavenly association with the dear ones gone? The humblest in the Church, not less than the great, look forward with the same happy anticipation. To many it is one of the strongest incentives to faithfulness in the service of God. Father, mother, brothers, sisters, husband, wife, children, having crossed over, what wonder that the Christian heart overflows with gladness as it sings:

We'll meet to part no more

On Canaan's happy shore.

But, blissful as shall be this recognition and association, are we quite certain that it will greatly surpass the joy of meeting and mingling with others of the redeemed with whom we may not have had the slightest acquaintance here on earth? Does the mere suggestion cause a shock? Still let us give it some consideration. Is there not a possibility of our conceptions of the heavenly life being corrupted by weaving into them even the best features of this earthly life? Are not our earthly relationships, however pure and sweet they may prove to be, in a sense almost accidental? At least it is true that, with many, close family relationship is but for a short time, even when compared with their full stay on earth; and shall that which is so transient become a marked feature of the life eternal? Is it not common experience that, as separation from father, mother, brothers, and sisters occurs and continues, and new homes are made and new relationships develop, the ties that formerly bound so strongly grow weaker and come to hold with comparatively little force even while we are yet in this brief life? Is it not true also, do not ministers of the Gospel especially find it so, that certain others with whom we may be associated but a few years become as dear as our own brothers and sisters? Do not sons and daughters in the Gospel sometimes share our affections almost equally with the offspring of our bodies, precious as our own children may be to us? How do these matters of experience affect the thought that earthly family relationships are to carry over and constitute a distinguishing feature of the joy that awaits when we all shall gather in the Father's house on high? Moreover, if we so magnify the value of the family relationship, is there not danger that the joy of heaven may be seriously marred by lack of completeness in the family circle there? For out of many homes of tenderest affection have dear ones gone into the ways of sin and death. And scattered here

and there throughout the land are souls embittered against God because they see no probability, should they themselves reach heaven, of meeting certain loved ones in that land. Is not this evidence that too great stress is placed upon this feature of the heavenly life?

What light do the words of Jesus throw upon this teaching? Does he make the family reunion in heaven one of its special joys? He emphasizes the sacredness of the family tie for this world, and yet he declares, "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." And to Peter's question he answers that the one who has left father, mother, wife, or children for his sake “shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, brethren, sisters, mothers, children, and in the world to come eternal life." Here is promise of an enlarged family relationship, including all God's children, but not a word about meeting physical kindred in heaven. "And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven." No word here as to sitting down with brothers and sisters and wife and children. When the Sadducees sought to overthrow his doctrine of the resurrection with the case of the woman who had seven husbands, "Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven." But marriage being the center and source of earthly family ties, is there not here implied their practical dissolution in the life beyond? Let us glance a little farther into the New Testament. When Stephen was dying he looked up and beheld not father nor mother, but Jesus. When Paul was about to depart he saw the crown of life awaiting not himself only, nor his own kindred-he makes no mention of them-but "all them also that love his appearing." When John saw heaven opened, near relatives were there, doubtless, but he only says that he "beheld a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues," who had "washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."

But this we

Shall we then infer that we are to have no special joy in meeting our own loved ones in glory? Hardly that. Indeed, our joy in meeting them may surpass our expectations. must conclude: that our greatest happiness in the heavenly relationship will not be because of kinship on earth, but because of our common redemption through the blood of Christ. Then shall we understand that word of Jesus, "For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother." His kindred shall be ours. And as the sunlight surpasses that of the incandescent lamp so shall the affection we bear in the heavenly state toward all the redeemed surpass the love we held for our dearest ones while tarrying with them here on earth. Peru, Ind.

J. W. CAIN.