ing the real nature of the Bible. The higher criticism of our day, however, employs a method which is acknowledged in every other department of experience to put an end to mere fancies and prejudices, to narrowness and to whims, and to expose the truth as it is in itself, or rather as it must be discerned by the common reason of man. It is fair to say that the higher criticism is now, after two thousand years, for the first time revealing to man the purport and the secret of the energising power of the Old and New Testaments. Nor ought this to seem a strange and remarkable thing; for the same method has already revealed to us the qualities, chemical and physical, of matter, the motions of stars and planets, the processes of plant and animal growth, and the steps of the evolution by which the crust of the earth has been formed; and it is reconstructing for us whole epochs of history and types of ancient civilisation, and bringing to view the laws both of society and of the individual mind. Now, it was one thing that the Bible should be read and misunderstood; it is another thing that it should be read to a public trained to discriminate between its enduring elements and the survivals in it of human error. It cannot be said that to hear frequently the ancient records even of the superstitions and sins of bygone ages is without its disciplinary value as a warning; for it will be as difficult to keep as it was to attain the heights of humane science. Nor does the well-disciplined mind require of literature that nothing shall be embodied in it but what we in our day, true to our conceptions, would express; one test of mental training being that each utterance is judged relatively to the civilisation and epoch which produced it, and is placed on a par with the corresponding products and functions of other ages. It ought, then, to be borne in mind that to bring the higher criticism

to the people is at last-and for the first time-to bring the Bible to them.

I have spoken thus far as if English literature did not include the English translation of the Bible which constitutes the Lectionary; but of course, to speak strictly, that translation is a large and has been a formative factor in English literature itself. And it scarcely can be said now, after three centuries, that the English Bible belongs to foreign literature. Indeed, instead of wishing to place it outside of the sphere of English literature, I would plead rather that the revisers of the Lectionary should educate public opinion to such a degree of catholicity as to make it possible for them, when proposing innovations, to incorporate in the Lectionary equally well translated selections from Plato, Thucydides and Plutarch, from Goethe and Dante.

But this subject belongs not so much to the question of a Lectionary as to that of the compilation of a universal Holy Scripture. Towards such a work, the leading religious and educational authorities of all the nations of the world must co-operate. There can be little doubt, however, that they will select such works as the Apology, Crito and Phado, together with parts of the Republic; the Pericles' Funeral Oration and the Delay of the Deity in Punishing the Wicked, as well as the parts of the Bible which experience has proved to be most edifying. Oriental scholars will choose whatever portions of the Eastern scriptures are in their judgment worthy of incorporation. When such a universal Holy Scripture has been compiled, the work of constructing a Lectionary of superb beauty and irresistible cogency will present no insuperable difficulties.

Returning to English literature proper, let me add only two comments. After having for twenty years

studied it with special reference to the suitability of passages for a national Lectionary, I feel that the resources of our prose and verse, instead of being exhausted by the successive selections one may make, disclose ever new veins of wealth; for the insight of the reader only gradually becomes trained to discriminate the parts most fraught with edifying power in the way in which the tradition of centuries has made it easy for us to judge of the Bible.

But, notwithstanding the opening up of the sacred treasure of English literature, the feeling has grown upon me that England has as yet brought forth, out of her sufferings and hopes, only her Old Testament, so to speak. The Gospels' consciousness of fresh spiritual power, of moral energy, of being in the centre of great happenings which are worthy to be proclaimed with joy, is scarcely to be found as yet in native expressions of English experience. This is only to be accounted for by the fact that thus far the great masses of the people of England are still disinherited-shut out from participation in the liberty, the wealth, the leisure, the control and the security of the ruling classes. Let women and the working people be admitted to the national inheritance, let children be secure of food and sunshine and the aged of home comfort, and English literature will begin to thrill with the fresh joy of spiritual life, and, by expressing it, augment it and quicken its development. Perhaps it might be well, therefore, as the New Testament of England is not yet written, not to think at present of completing, with any sort of fixity, an elaborated Lectionary, or any other part of Divine Service, but to count all work of revision for several generations as at best tentative; that the genius of the new democracy may remember that the nation waits for it to say that which most deserves utterance, and which must be lived before it can be spoken.

CHAPTER XI

BAPTISM: SIGN OF INITIATION:

CHILDREN

RECOGNITION OF

THE ulterior end of every religious rite is plainly disclosed in the opening rubric of the service for the public baptism of infants. There it is declared to be most fitting that baptism should not be administered except upon Sundays and other holy days, because the greatest number of persons are then present and can testify that the child was baptised; in the second place, they will be put in remembrance of their own profession made to God in their baptism. This rubric also declares that it is expedient that baptism be ministered in the vulgar tongue. Such a declaration plainly discloses that the persons formulating the rubric were aware that a Church rite is a means towards a social end, and that the end is the commitment of individuals to the Church, or to some other human relationship or office approved by it. Were it not for this end, the rite might as well be performed in Latin as in the vulgar tongue, and when few were present as when many.

From the point of view of the purpose which ritual serves, the democratic superiority of the Protestant Churches to Roman Catholicism, through their having adopted the current speech of each nation, is evident. However much the Roman Catholic laity may be in

structed in the meaning of the Latin service, it is psychologically impossible that their attention could be fully concentrated upon the meaning of the ritual when given in a dead language. The retention of the Latin tongue furnishes proof of the spiritual monopoly and supremacy of the Roman Catholic clergy.

Baptism is the established rite for the admission of new members into the Church; it outwardly symbolises spiritual initiation into the organisation. This is clearly stated in the service itself. Immediately after the dipping or the pouring of water and the utterance of the baptismal formula, the priest says: "We receive this child into the congregation of Christ's flock, and do sign him with the sign of the Cross, in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under his banner, against sin, the world, and the devil; and to continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant unto his life's end. Amen." Then the priest exhorts: "Seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this child is regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ's Church, let us give thanks unto Almighty God for these benefits; and with one accord make our prayers unto him, that this child may lead the rest of his life according to this beginning."

A rite, being only a sign, can have no meaning to one who does not know the thing signified. And in proportion as one keeps the signification precisely in mind, one will be able not only to understand the rite, but to criticise it and, if need be, to revise it.

There is so little understanding of the psychology and the social economy of ritual in general, that baptism naturally comes in for its full share of misconception and depreciation. One who does not perceive the necessity for any formalities at all cannot be expected to