shows what the skeptic must believe in believing the Christian religion to be false: "Surely of him who can receive all these paradoxes and they form but a small part of what might be mentioned-we may say, 'O infidel, great is thy faith!" Accordant with that citation is the aphorism with which Lord Bacon opens his famous essay on Atheism: "I had rather believe all the fables in the [Golden] Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a Mind." Chiming in with Bacon's testimony is Sir Isaac Newton's devout utterance of adoration, with which he closes his Principia, whose composition in 1685-86 made those years "memorable in the history of natural science." He ends this most extraordinary of all mathematical productions with an expression of his creed, as gathered from his researches in the physical universe:

This admirably beautiful structure of sun, planets, and comets could not have originated except in the wisdom and sovereignty of an intelligent and powerful Being. He rules all things, not as the soul of the world, but as the Lord of all. . . . The whole diversity of created things in regard to places and times could have its origin only in the ideas and the will of a necessarily existing Being.

A simple illustration may bring all that we have written to a focus. I chance to go into a room and find there on a blackboard a diagram illustrating the salient characteristics of an ellipse; and another, demonstrating the familiar geometrical truth that the square described on the hypotenuse of a rightangled triangle is equivalent to the sum of the squares described on the other two sides; and a table holding wooden cubes, cones, cylinders, and globes; and the wall of the place covered with a long and intricate problem which turns out on inspection to be the calculation of an eclipse of the sun, giving the year and month and day and all other elements in the case. Unless I am an idiot or a savage I recognize my environment. This is the study and workshop of a mathematician: these are his tools and problems!

In like manner I turn my eye in one direction and then another in the world, and through the universe. I find symmetry, harmonies, ratios, definite numbers, specific appor

tionments by weight and measure, and countless mathematical data and relationships everywhere, the sciences and arts all testifying that these elements are fundamental in their structure and operation. No matter how far I explore, or how great my powers of mathematical insight and calculation may be, I find myself everywhere outrun and baffled by these data, which, notwithstanding the increasing skill of human genius in grappling with them, still transcend all human grasp. Ellipses, cycloidal curves, parabolas, and hyperbolas, with their extraordinary functions, definite numbers, and all manner of harmonious combinations, face me everywhere, written in the sky, outlining the courses of sun and comet, interpenetrating all branches of science, and challenging recognition and rewarding inquiry at every turn! How can we describe the folly of the man who remains blind to the conclusion, borne in upon the soul of the inquirer from all this vast array of data, that there is behind these mathematical phenomena a Creative and Infinite Being from whom they have come; and that man has been endowed with faculties wherewith to explore these data, and to recognize in them so many clear and countless manifestations of the wisdom and power of the Supreme Architect and Mathematician! With the mathematical universe before me I see new meaning in the testimony of the Epistle to the Hebrews, "He that built all things is God;" I understand better than ever the adoring word of the psalmist,

The heavens declare the glory of God,

And the firmament showeth his handiwork;

and I am moved to cry with Joachim Neander,

Ah, my God, what wonders lie

Hid in thine infinity!

Stamp upon my inmost heart

What I am, and what Thou art.

Jesse Bowman Young

ART. V.--THE ENGLISH WESLEYANISM OF TO-DAY.

WESLEYAN Methodism has found itself. In the days of Wesley it was but a "Connexion" of evangelistic and spiritual "societies." His purpose and the purpose of Fletcher, his "designated successor," was to make "a Church within the Church" of England. Wesley seems not to have understood that the very steps he himself had taken meant inevitable separation from the Church whose doctrine he held, whose liturgy he loved, whose discipline he approved, and whose rules he endeavored to obey. When his death had bereaved the societies of their leader and inspiration, formal independence was followed by a half-century of steady growth in numbers, but of uncertain development in Church life. Several schisms occurred, nearly all for ecclesiastical rather than doctrinal reasons, and all looking to a larger liberty than the parent body was willing to allow. But despite the warnings against priestliness given by these protests and departures, the attitude of the Wesleyan Church to the Church of England, even within the last fifty years, has been one not merely of kindliness, but of subordination. This assumption of the posture (to use one of Mr. Price Hughes's biting phrases) of a poor relation of the Established Church has perhaps ended in our day. It is eighty-five years since the Conference permitted its preachers to be called "Reverend;" it is only twelve years since the Conference formally approved of the general use of the term "The Wesleyan Methodist Church."

The political complexion of the Church has been changing from Conservative to Liberal. Standing between the Established Church and the Dissenting bodies-Baptist, Congregational, and the like-it has been slowly moving from the side of the Episcopal to the fuller fellowship of the Free Churches. Nonconformity within its own borders has become positive Dissent. The older and conservative leaders have died or are fast losing their predominant influence. They were not for the Free Church Federation, but providence and politics have

welded it firm. They were not for the Forward Movement, but it has become the very life of to-day. They are not for the reunion of the half-dozen Methodist denominations, but Mr. Perks is cheered to the echo as he advocates it. They are not against the Education Bill, but the rising tide of revolt against that muddled and mischievous measure sweeps over them. They are not for Disestablishment, but the aggressive spirits feel that the battle has been joined which can issue only in this. Younger men are coming to the foremore liberal and more vigorous-men under fifty, like Collier and Wiseman and Lidgett and Chadwick and Wakerley and Barber and Findlay and Jackson-men with the new blood and new fire of a new time. Their great leader, Hugh Price Hughes the greatest Methodist since John Wesley—is gone; but they, with help from a few older but progressive men, are making a new Church.

That bitter enemy of Dissent, the London Daily Telegraph, asserts that Nonconformity is a steadily declining influence in the land, but the facts do not appear to bear out the assertion. Principal Fairbairn, in addressing Mr. Balfour on the Education Bill, claimed that half the Christians of Great Britain were now to be found in the Free Churches, and it is believed that his claim was none too large. The Church of England, it may be admitted, has revived and gained since the middle of the nineteenth century. Whether this revival is due to its awakening to the social as well as the ecclesiastical and doctrinal problems of the time, as is said; or whether it depends upon the growth of ritualism; or whether, as is most likely, it is due to a new-kindled devotion in the hearts of the clergy, need not be determined. This, however, is sure, that the gain it has made has not been to any considerable extent at the expense of Methodism. Wesleyanism is no declining force. Its mission has been in part fulfilled by permeating old forms of faith with new life and power, but to-day, as never before, standing as an independent and legitimate Church, it holds a place of honor, and faces a vast work which is being bravely, wisely, enthusiastically attacked.

Among the Free Churches, the Wesleyan Methodist is easily first in numbers and in influence. The conspicuous preachers and scholars of Congregationalism and Presbyterianism may be thankfully remembered, but, when all is said, the oldest of the Methodist bodies is second, though a far-distant second, to the Church of England. The aristocracy it does not touch to any appreciable extent, but its hymns, its evangelism, its energy, its democracy, have, to quote an outsider, "made it a rival in the affections of the middle and lower classes" of the Established Church itself.

In its present condition some points of comparison or contrast with the Methodist Episcopal Church naturally suggest themselves. Any attempt at criticism of defects might be ungracious, but a few commendable characteristics of English Wesleyanism may be chosen for notice and comment.

1. Its Forms of Worship.-The genius of Methodism has never been wholly favorable to the maintenance of churchly forms. For Methodism is Protestantism carried out logically -the doctrine of a present God with whom personal communion is possible to all. Its teaching of the priesthood of all believers has meant on the one side catholicity, and on the other freedom in worship. It is doubtless true, as Bishop Vincent has stated, that there is in America a growing class of liturgy-loving Methodists who, with nothing of sacerdotalism in their thought, love order and beauty in public worship, and crave a more frequent employment of the rituals hallowed by age and association. But actually the use of ritual forms has extended little beyond the occasions of state, and has not affected the common Sunday services. The Order of Public Worship, even as revised by the General Conference of 1896, is devoid of the richness of forms for united prayer. The Joint Commission of the Churches North and South has apparently made no provision for this need. What is held good for the stately ceremonials of reception into Church membership, ordination to the ministry, and the Lord's Supper, for baptism and marriage and burial, is held unprofitable for the congregation in its ordinary worship.