Second Corinthians as one of the incontestable epistles of the apostle Paul. Now, the most probable date, 57 A. D., places this letter only twenty-seven years after the death of Christ. If Paul was thirty years old when Christ was crucified, he was only fifty-seven when he wrote this letter. Hundreds were yet alive who had seen Jesus and his works and heard him speak. Certainly there is no hiatus here between the record and the event. And to these living multitudes Paul appeals in an incontestable proof of the resurrection of Jesus: "For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: and that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: after that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also" (1 Cor. xv, 3-8). What do scientific speculations about the possibility, or philosophical questionings about the probability, of the resurrection of Christ amount to beside this impregnable rock of historical evidence? We cannot reasonably doubt the authenticity of this evidence without charging Paul with monumental lying together with absolute disregard for his own reputation for veracity. A conscious liar would not appeal to the names of all the twelve apostles and to five hundred brethren of whom the greater part were still alive, unless they were all liars like himself in solemn league and covenant to deceive the world. No unbiased person could accept either the hypothesis that they were deceivers or that they were subjects of hallucination. This would be a greater miracle than the resurrection. No unbeliever without an a priori theory to support can doubt the veracity of the New Testament writers.

Certainly, then, we have a large field for the exercise of judgment. Certainly we have not followed cunningly devised fables. Our feet are on the rock. The resurrection established, many important things follow: 1. Truly Jesus is the

supernatural Son of God. 2. He spoke with authority. 3. It is ours not to reason why; it is ours to trust and obey. The teachings of the New Testament do appeal in a wonderful way to the intuitive moral reason. If they did not we should be justified in suspecting the veracity of these writers. We rationally expect God's written and spoken word to harmonize with the Word that is in us as the Holy Spirit. The resurrection accords with the demands of the human heart. So with the doctrine of our own immortality. But these things per se are necessarily beyond the domain of perceptive reason. Otherwise the message of the New Testament would be no revelation; for that is no revelation which can be discovered by ourselves. Christ taught many things we cannot understand; but it is "folly to reject what God has revealed because I do not comprehend what he has not revealed."*

In conclusion, then, the proper sphere of reason in religion is the weighing of the genuineness and authenticity of the literature which alleges certain things as facts. It weighs historical, not scientific, evidence. The authority of Jesus and the reliability of New Testament writers once established by the method outlined above, it is the sphere of faith to accept implicitly what these scriptures contain. We are of course at liberty to use the discursive reason in speculation concerning the rationale of doctrines or in trying to discover a law in miracleş. This is the science of theology. As Christian believers we hail gladly any support to our faith the philosopher or the scientist may give us. But we are not dependent upon them. Theology is not revelation. Revelation presents facts, not explanations. We may accept men's theories of atonement, eternal doom, future rewards, and of the resurrection, or not; the facts we must accept. As to these, "Back again to implicit faith I fall."

*Wesley's sermon on "The Trinity."

Hillard N. Tobier

ART. VII.-THE FINAL FACTOR IN SOCIAL PROGRESS.

THE scientific spirit of the age is contagious. There was a day when the family physician could bleed and feed calomel indiscriminately and blunderingly-and if you died so much the worse for you. There has been a day when a man could be a blunderer in law, in business, in Christian work, and still attain a tolerable success. The discoveries of twenty-five years have revolutionized the physician's craft. He must be skilled to diagnose correctly. He must be prepared for every emergency. He is no longer a vender of pills, but a skilled student of disease. He knows that he cannot afford now to make blunders, for blunders are fatal. The lawyer of the present day has reduced his work to the finest skill-taking into account the differing temperaments and corresponding actions of men. The blunderer in business is forced out by the keen competition and skillful maneuvering around him. The preacher and the social reformer should not be blunderers. They dare not in this age deal with forces which they do not understand and the effect of which they do not know. The modern preacher wants to bring the kingdom of God among men, but it will be as profitable and as sane for him to preach the "Gospel," without reference to the times, the needs, and the temperaments of his people, as it would for the modern physician to insist on the good old gospel of calomel and blood-letting without discrimination or judgment.

It is necessary, then, at the very outset, if we would be moral reformers, to understand the tides of feeling as they are rising in the breasts of the men of the age, necessary to be a part, a living part, of our age. It is necessary to understand fully the meaning and intent, the worth or unworthiness, of the ideals and watchwords of the age. Above all is it necessary to understand the forces which are most effective in the progress toward righteousness, and how and when to apply them to the differing temperaments with which we must work. We must not work blindly, for to work blindly is to blunder.

To fall back into the embrace of a primitive or "Wesleyan"

gospel is to beg the question which is thrust upon us, and to miss the spirit of our founder. We must face the problem of moral reform and grapple with it in the scientific spirit of the age, and in the true spirit of early Methodism.

There has been of late a growing effort to understand from the scientific standpoint the true elements of social progress. Men are seeking to know what are the real forces of reform, their meaning, their value, on what authority they rest, and where they can best be applied. If we can only come to understand these things we shall work more intelligently and more successfully for social progress. From amid the varying forces which are at work in the development of the race we seek the supreme force, without which all others are inadequate. In the study of this question it is highly important that we understand the forces which have been at work in the social development of the past, and also that we be able to see clearly that which contains the highest promise for the future, with new attainments and under advancing conditions. For, while certain factors may have been supreme and lonely in the past, they have successively given place to other and higher factors as men have arisen in the scale of being. So that our aim is not to find some social force which is in itself responsible for all past progress and which alone must be responsible for all future advance, but to find that force which in the present development of society offers the greatest promise to the friend of progress.

Our view of this ultimate factor will depend to a great degree upon the ideal which we entertain for society. If our ideal includes only the perfect adjustment of the economic relations, that ultimate factor of progress may well be found in the self-centered struggle of social competition. Those forces which are adequate to bring about social organization for the furtherance of individual interests will be found inadequate to meet the higher and more complex demands of a social order such as is comprehended in the term "kingdom of God." Mr. Spencer in his Principles of Sociology com

prehended the whole order of social progress in the statement of the well-known formula of progress from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous through continuous differentiations and integrations, the factors in this differentiation being natural selection and the survival of the fittest. He admits, however, in another place that this is no explanation of that progress in the causal sense- -that back of all this must be the Unknown. The formula is but a statement of the order of human progress. And while we may admit the factors of natural selection, survival of the fittest, and the whole struggle for existence as a method of advance, there is nothing in the struggle itself which can account for progress unless behind it lies a great Infinite Purpose, which sees the end from the beginning, introduces new factors, and inspires to new hopes through human purpose and individuality. It seems strange that so many of Mr. Spencer's disciples as well as his opponents have failed to notice that he gave recognition to the place of individuality in progress, but this he does when he names the character of the individual, physical traits, degree of intelligence, and peculiar tendencies of thought as modifying factors in social development.

The failure to recognize the individual element has led one of his most materialistic followerst to assert that progress beyond a certain point is impossible and when once attained is followed by a corresponding reaction. Baldwint has pointed out that this biological explanation of social progress is insufficient because of the entering in of the new factor of individuality, and he says, "The individual produces the new variations, the new things in social matter," and "The particularizing by the individual supplies the essential material of all human and social progress." The deeper thought of moral inadequacy led Henry Drummond to affirm§ that the doctrine of the survival of the fittest through the selfish struggle for existence must be supplemented by the new doctrine of struggle for the life of others.

* Essays, "Progress, its Laws and Cause." Social and Ethical Interpretations.

+ Crozier, Civilization and Progress.

§ Ascent of Man.