received the Ussherian chronology; he threw that chronology out of the window. When Drew was founded it was the universal opinion that the days in Genesis i were indefinite periods of time, an interpretation that was forced by the discoveries of geology. Strong was too good a Hebrew scholar to believe any such gloss of the days in Genesis i, and he repudiated that interpretation, and believed the account of the creation told simply the sequence of appearance of the phenomena in a small section of the East.

It is the fashion in some quarters to represent Drew as mossback, so conservative as to lean backward. These brethren are ignorant of Drew's history. No seminary in the country has meant more for a conservative progressiveness, for a vitalizing reinterpretation of Methodist theology which, while conserving all the essentials, makes that theology at once more consistent with itself and more open to all new truths and to profounder apprehensions of all old truths. So as we stand facing the new century as professors of Drew we say: So far as we are concerned we gladly and from our heart of hearts devote ourselves to the defense and propagation of the old faith of the fathers, the faith that has made the Methodist world what it is, and is behind this magnificent history which we celebrate this year. And, on the other hand, we are not as parrots repeating sentences, but as living students whom the truth makes free we shall endeavor so to understand and explain and apply this faith as to make it a faith for this age, a faith that meets present-day problems, a faith that shall conquer, we trust, the twentieth century, as it did the nineteenth, a faith which in its essential characteristics is like the Master that gave it-the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. Madison, N. J.

JOHN ALFRED FAULKNER.

HERBERT SPENCER'S GREAT MISTAKE.

IN speaking of human consciousness Herbert Spencer, in his last book, entitled Facts and Comments, said, "We can only infer that it is a specialized and individualized form of that Infinite and Eternal energy which transcends both our knowledge and our imagination, and that at death its elements lapse into the Infinite and Eternal energy whence they were derived." This was the great scientist's way of saying that the soul of man at death is to be annihilated, that our souls are not immortal, and that no man should expect to exist beyond the grave. It is the doctrine of despair, a doctrine that is without a ray of hope or a gleam of happiness or a spark of kindling zeal.

By what means did Herbert Spencer arrive at his conclusion? He was a great student of science. He was regarded as a master. A more scientific mind has not existed in modern times. He scaled the lofty mountains and explored the deepest valleys and dove into the depths of the mighty oceans of the scientific world. Is it not plausible, then, to believe that Herbert Spencer was right and that we are wrong? If the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is a doctrine that we should expect

science to teach us this is the conclusion that we must come to. But this doctrine is a doctrine that science neither declares nor antagonizes. That great preacher Frederick W. Robertson said: "If the chemist, geologist, physiologist come back from their spheres and say we find in the laws of affinity, in the deposits of past ages, in the structures of the human frame no trace nor token of a God, I simply reply, I never expected you would. Obedience and self-surrender is the sole organ by which we gain a knowledge of that which cannot be seen nor felt" (Complete Sermons, p. 305). This accords with the teaching of Jesus Christ, who said, "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." A study of nature, an acquaintance with science may have a tendency to cause one to believe in the existence of a supreme Intelligence, in a divine Creator, for one of the conclusions that the scholar is bound to reach is that there can be no effect without an adequate cause, but science does not demonstrate the truthfulness of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul or the reality of the religion of the Christ. Consequently, while a majority of the great scholars of the modern world have been believers in the claims of Jesus and in the reality of his religion, there have been some who, like Herbert Spencer and the great Darwin, have rejected the teachings of the Scriptures, refused to accept Christian truth, and plunged headlong into the midnight darkness of agnostic gloom.

The skeptical Pilate asked sarcastically, "What is truth?" The Christ did not attempt to answer the question. The question is not answered in the Scriptures. There is only one way by which man can have the question satisfactorily answered to himself, and that is by coming into harmony with God and following the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. Had Herbert Spencer endeavored to discover truth in this way the conclusion that he came to regarding the doctrine of the immortality of the soul would have been different than it was. The great mistake of the scientist's life was in looking for spiritual truth where spiritual truth cannot be found. J. NARVER GORTNER.

Creighton, Neb.

A DELAYED CORRECTION.

IN the concluding paragraph of Professor Rishell's article in the Review of November-December, 1903, is the very puzzling declaration respecting Christ: "He must be preceded as the angel of Bethlehem, that first evangelist, preceded him; as Christ preceded himself; as the apostles and other early Christians preceded him." Now it is intrinsically incredible that the author of the learned and orthodox article intended to make such a bizarre statement as that. A sane application of the canons of textual criticism leads to the conclusion that the professor's manuscript could not have contained, in the given connection, the word preceded. It will be noticed that if the word preached be put in its place a perfectly intelligible sentence results. TEXTUAL CRITIC.

THE ITINERANTS' CLUB.

THE EDUCATING POWER OF PASTORAL SERVICE.

THE best type of ministerial education is that which prepares a minister to be a thoroughly good pastor. Other things being equal, a good pastor will be a more effective preacher of the Gospel than a man can be who, however eloquent and gifted in the pulpit, neglects so that he does not and cannot know the individuals of his church and congregation. A preacher must know human nature. He must know the particular types of human nature to whom he preaches. If he can know the individual specimens of it before him when he preaches-their condition, limitations, struggles, sorrows, opportunities-his power must be greatly augmented. The theological seminary at its best cannot give this training. But the wise student supplements his preparatory training in the seminary with a rigid course of self-education in the pastorate. He "graduates," but he does not "finish" his education when the diploma is placed in his hand. He believes in the Lifelong Educational Endeavor, and his whole career is embraced in his "course of training." He is always and everywhere a student-in his library, in his pastoral visitations, in his summer vacations, in his Sunday school teachers' meetings, in his official meetings. He may give less attention now than in college and seminary to linguistic studies; he may have outgrown the necessity that subjected him to certain processes and programs of intellectual gymnastics, but he thinks and reads and grows and produces as never before. He now develops sympathy-quite as important as intellectual vigor, literary grace, and logical precision. The training of one's heart in the midst of professional labors is a most important part of a minister's education.

And he is a wise man indeed who cares for the training of his heart as well as his head, who continues to be a diligent student long after he has left the "institution," and who becomes a teacher of his people in all things that make for Church power.

Austin Abbott was a young pastor. He had but recently arrived. He was wise, practical, ambitious, and ingenious. He was called an "idealist." That is, he had ideas, and his imagination put them into dreams and pictures. And these were prophecies of what he afterward wrought out into real life. Why should not one's imagination be consecrated to the service of God and man? And although one may not bring statues from marble blocks nor put pictures on canvas he may work out a nobler and more useful life by fostering worthy ideals, and by occasionally bidding his imagination show him how the ends he aims at will appear when

once they become the actual. Austin kept a "memorandum book" into which went the record of a hundred plans, more or less, of which, we must concede, but a small proportion were ever realized.

One thought that came to him was this: I may turn all my official duties as a pastor into opportunities for self-discipline and instruction. He could easily see how sermonizing and prayer-meeting talks and pastoral visitation could render this service. But when the possibility of gaining professional training from an "official board" meeting dawned upon him he smiled, then knitted his brow in thought, and thus gained a hint that proved of value to him and to his church. He made an experiment. He put his inventive powers at work, and the dull meeting was transformed. It became a department of Austin's own theological seminary. The brethren of the board felt the change. The meetings always began on time-"at the tick of the clock," as the pastor said. And they soon learned to feel sorry when the meeting closed. Austin had a program which he always followed. A list of questions was asked by the pastor-the same series at every session-and they elicited information, kindled interest, and sometimes started discussion. "He has a way of getting at the bottom facts," said Brother Ebell. "What a lawyer he would have made!" On the surface the conversation at times seemed to be simply a feeling after information about the Church-an unplanned, drifting talk in reply to formal and comparatively unimportant questions. But it was more than that.

One day young Professor Logan, of the public school, who was a member of the church board, said: "The pastor's conduct of a conversation is a study, really a study in pedagogy. And the best of it is the living, throbbing earnestness of the leader. Take to-night for an example," said the professor. "Take that short prayer with which the meeting opened. The pastor did not say, 'Let us pray.' He did not kneel. He rapped softly on the table as the clock finished its eighth stroke, and as we looked at him he closed his eyes and we all bowed our heads as he prayed: 'Lord, open our eyes that we may see clearly into the affairs of thy Church; and open our hearts that we may take into the very center of our being the interests we discuss; and open the windows of the all-encompassing heavens that this place and our inmost souls may be flooded with thy gracious presence. And this we ask in Jesus's name. Amen.''

Let us recall this evening session to which the young professor referred. After the prayer the pastor said, "Is anyone in our church ill, or absent from the town, or in trouble of any kind?" No one could recall any case of illness or absence or distress. The answer was, "None."

Then the pastor said to the recording secretary, "Will you please read the full list of members and probationers?" Some one objected that a list of nearly six hundred names would "take a long time." But Abbott insisted. He said, "Will some one take his watch and see just how long it does take. Let no one interrupt the secretary, but if you find that any name suggests a point to be made or a question to be asked we can bring the matter up after the reading." And the list of five hundred and ninety names was called. The reading did take between ten and twelve minutes.

Names on a "church record," with all that that means for time and eternity, are certainly worthy of at least a simple announcement at every meeting of the board appointed to represent them.

The reading had put several brethren in mind of cases they had forgotten. Five different notations were made. One old lady, a member of the church for over forty years, was ill. The pastor had not known of it. The leader who had been requested to notify him had forgotten it “until her name was read off." One brother was going to Europe on a sudden call. He sails next Saturday. He came from Germany years ago and goes back to see his venerable father, whose end is near. Another leader was reminded that a child in a family on West Street is very ill. Another brother recalled the fact that a fire in the shop of one of our hard-working and humbler brothers had caused loss and anxiety to one who had not been very faithful to the church. Again, a boy, a member of our Sunday school and employed by one of our members, had hurt his hand in a game of ball. The pastor kept his pencil busy, and the following memoranda went into his little pocket notebook: "Calls: Mother Snyder ill; Hans Grob goes to Europe; Fire in Sanford's shop; Child sick at Brother Stark's; Jim Saxton's hand injured."

There followed a spirited conversation. Question after question came from the pastor: "How old is Mother Snyder? To whose class does she belong? Is she poor? Loyal to the church? Who is her nearest friend in the church? Who can call on her to-morrow? Where is Grob from in Germany? Bavaria! Nuremberg! Well, well! I didn't know I had a man in my church from dear old Nuremberg! What about Jim Saxton? Converted in the revival! Has he been looked after? Who knows him? Not go to class? Does the class go to him? Not even the leader? This roll call is a good thing-an essential thing. Let us never once omit it again. Brethren, we must know our own members. We must all know them. They must know that we know them, and that we care. Now let us all call this week at all these places, but each one go when he finds it most convenient. Let us call, if we do no more. It is not a little thing just to show brotherly interest. It will do us good. And let us all

go to the steamer to see Brother Grob off next Saturday. It will be a comfort to him. And he will be the more interested to get back. God help us to be interested in individual members of the church-in all of them!"

The conversation of which I have given only the pastor's questions suggested to him the reading to the board of a selection from Henry Drummond's essay on "Spiritual Diagnosis," which he had copied in his pocketbook. Drummond says: "Men, not masses, have done all that is great in history, in science, and in religion. The New Testament itself is but a brief biography; and many pages of the Old are marked by the lives of men. Yet it is just this truth we require to be taught again to-day-to be content with aiming at units. Every atom in the universe can act on every other atom, but only through the atom next it. And if a man would act upon every other man he can do so best by acting, one at a time, upon those beside him. The true worker's world is a unit."