Part 1
God Transcendent
And Other Selected Sermons
by J. Gresham Machen
INTRODUCTION
For well over a decade before his untimely death on January 1st, 1937, J. Gresham Machen was recognized by many as the most valiant and eloquent spokesman for orthodox Christianity in America, if not in the entire world. Speaking on the background of many years of collaboration and intimate friendship, but also as a well-informed and keen observer of theological and ecclesiastical developments, Professor Caspar Wistar Hodge of Princeton characterized Dr. Machen as being, at the time of his passing, "the greatest theologian in the English-speaking world" and "the greatest leader of the whole cause of evangelical Christianity." At the same time Dr. R. A. Meek, a prominent Southern Methodist, hailed him as "the first Protestant minister in the nation" and "the ablest exponent
and defender of evangelical Christianity." More than a decade earlier Dr. John A. Hutton, influential editor of The British Weekly, introduced him most warmly to his readers and devoted an extended series of feature articles to the book What Is Faith?, which had been published in 1925. And the brilliant Religious Editor of the Boston Evening Transcript, Albert C. Dieffenbach, himself a Unitarian, eulogized him as being "as learned and valiant a spiritual warrior as the Protestant Church has produced in modern times, … a Christian of apostolic ardor," and as one who "sought the truth diligently, devotedly, and with dedication."
Nor was the recognition of Dr. Machen's eminence as a Christian spokesman restricted to the ecclesiastical world. Walter Lippmann, speaking of Christianity and Liberalism, which had been published in 1923, said: "It is an admirable book. For its acumen, for its saliency and for its wit, this cool and stringent defence of orthodox Protestantism is, I think, the best popular argument produced by either side. We shall do well to listen to Dr. Machen. The Liberals have yet to answer him." And H. L. Mencken, himself a skeptic of the deepest dye, singled out Machen on more than one occasion for his heroic defence of Christianity in which—so Mr. Mencken judged—he had every advantage, both logical and moral, over his modernist opponents.
The reputation of Professor Machen was most firmly established by the impact made by his widely read books. His trenchant The Origin of Paul's Religion (1921) and his masterful The Virgin Birth of Christ (1930; rev. edit. 1932) are monumental contributions to the exposition and defence of the Christian Faith, and constitute the chief evidences of his profound and articulate scholarship. New Testament Greek for Beginners (1923 ff.), while designed for elementary instruction, is an admirably concise and lucid textbook
which could have been prepared only by a master of the subject and has proved a delight to teachers for twenty-five years. The other books from his pen, though far from superficial, soon gained and still retain a wide popular appeal. In addition to the two works mentioned in the preceding paragraphs, they include especially the volumes of radio addresses entitled The Christian Faith in the Modern World (1936) and The Christian View of Man (1937), in which he presented a fresh and effective exposition of the Christian Faith from his standpoint of whole-hearted commitment to Calvinism as constituting consistent Biblical Christianity.
However basic these books are to a true estimate of Dr. Machen's significance, they do not tell the whole story. Although he was a scholar and teacher of the highest rank, and had few equals in giving perspicuous literary expression to the results of meticulous research, he was far more than a master in the academic sphere. As a preacher and speaker on conference platforms his services were in constant demand. Moreover, he was frequently in the public eye because of his timely and vigorous utterances on the issues of the day. He was one of the most colorful and controversial figures of his time, and it is doubtful that in the ecclesiastical world of the twenties and thirties any religious leader was more constantly in the limelight.
It is these wider and somewhat more popular aspects of Machen's career that are brought especially to view in this collection of sermons and addresses. Moreover, this volume serves the purpose of making available to the reading public a considerable body of materials which otherwise would not be generally accessible. A few of the items published here have indeed become fairly widely known due to circulation in pamphlet form, but merit inclusion in this collection for the very reason that they were among the most influential of his briefer writings. Many others, however, found
publication in magazines and newspapers which are not generally available. And a large number owe their presence to the fact that access to the files of Dr. Machen has brought to light manuscripts of sermons and other papers which were not published by the author but which, in many instances, were widely used in the pulpit and on public platforms over a period of many years.
The descriptions which follow provide more specific information concerning the character and occasion of the individual items.
The twenty sermons presented herein, with a few notable exceptions, were not prepared for publication by Dr. Machen, but by the editor of this volume. Several were printed in The Presbyterian Guardian; others now appear in print for the first time. Though not intended for publication, their value is enhanced by the consideration that they were prepared to be preached. And they were preached, most of them time and again. A printed sermon perhaps never is as effective as one that is spoken, and that is surely true of Dr. Machen's sermons. Yet his preaching was so free of the orator's tricks, so simple and unaffected, that it does not share the common fate of the printed sermon when seen in cold type. For his preaching was never a shallow or hollow assembly of words. The message was not contrived to adorn the messenger; the messenger was the mere instrument to herald forth the Word of God.
Although the sermons presented may be regarded as more or less representative of Machen's preaching over a period of two or more decades, the order here is broadly speaking chronological. The first eight sermons, for example, though preached on many occasions, are known to have been delivered in the sequence given during the year in which he was Stated Supply in the First Presbyterian Church of Princeton, 1923–1924.
The two following sermons (IX, X) belong to this same period, although specific evidence is lacking that they were preached in the Princeton series of 1923–1924.
The remaining sermons are distinctive in that they were prepared for special occasions. "The Gospel and Modern Substitutes" (XI) is given substantially in the form in which it was utilized as an address before the 54th State Convention of the Y.M.C.A. held in Indiana, Penna., on April 14th, 1923, but has been edited with the help of another manuscript. It is grouped with the sermons because it was used as such on a number of occasions, and though it is hardly a typical sermon it is assuredly most original and arresting. The three following sermons have in common the fact that they were first delivered in Miller Chapel in Princeton in fulfillment of the responsibility devolving upon the professors to preach to the students once a year. The first of this group (XII) was preached on March 8th, 1925. Soon thereafter thousands of copies in pamphlet form were circulated throughout the world. "Prophets False and True" (XIII) was the chapel sermon for the following year, and, upon invitation of Joseph Fort Newton, editor of Best Sermons, 1926, was included in that volume. "The Good Fight of Faith" (XIV) was preached on March 10th, 1929, and was the last sermon delivered at Princeton, for it was in that year that Dr. Machen resigned his position there. "Constraining Love" (XV) was delivered at the Second General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of America, later known as The Orthodox Presbyterian Church, on November 12th, 1936.
The final five items in this group (XVI–XX) were radio addresses rather than sermons, but their right to a place here will perhaps not be seriously disputed. In The Christian Faith in the Modern World and The Christian View of Man we possess the popular expositions of
Christian doctrine that had been prepared for radio audiences over a period of two seasons. Dr. Machen had expressed the hope of continuing the series for at least two more years and thus of rounding out a survey of Christian doctrine that might prove helpful especially to college students and classes in Bible study generally. In the midst of the third year of this radio ministry, however, he was struck down, and this hope failed of fulfillment. The five messages included here are a selection from twelve manuscripts employed for the broadcasts. Although they were prepared under terrific pressure of responsibilities of many kinds, and were left in an unpolished form, they constitute valuable additions to our knowledge of his message. "The Creeds and Doctrinal Advance" (XVI) was one of the first addresses in the fall of 1936; the final four were delivered on the final four Sundays of his life, the last being given on December 27th, only five days before his death.
Special interest attaches to the next to the last address which was devoted to "The Active Obedience of Christ." For it provides a most illuminating background for a telegram dictated on the last day of his life to his nurse for transmission to his colleague Professor John Murray: "I'm so thankful for active obedience of Christ; no hope without it." Prior to the delivery of that address on December 20th, he had been discussing this precious doctrine with Mr. Murray, and now as he lay at death's door he could not but bear testimony to the confidence that, through the substitutionary atonement of Christ, he enjoyed assurance, not only of full remission of sin and its penalty, but also of being accepted as perfectly obedient and righteous because of the perfect obedience of Christ to the divine will. An exultant note of triumph through the merit of his Saviour was thus sounded forth as he was about to enter the divine presence.
Acknowledgment is hereby made to Harcourt, Brace & Co. for permission to reprint "Prophets False and True." (XIII) from the volume, Best Sermons, 1926, edited by Joseph Fort Newton.
I wish also to express my gratitude to Miss Margaret S. Robinson for assistance in preparing copy and to my wife and the Rev. Leslie W. Sloat for their help in reading proof.
My prayer is that this volume not only may serve to enlarge the understanding and appreciation of the heroic witness of J. Gresham Machen, but also may contribute positively to the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to which he gave his life.
N.B.S.
March 1, 1949
God Transcendent
"It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in" (Isa. 40:22).
THE fortieth chapter of Isaiah in the King James Version is one of the noblest pieces of prose in the English language. The simplest means are employed in the production of the effect; common,
homely English words are used; and some of the grandest sentences are written in words of one syllable. After the lapse of three centuries there is nothing strange or archaic in the language of this chapter; the words are those that form our common English speech in the twentieth century just as in 1611. But if the materials used are simple, the total effect is sublime. There is in this chapter a rhythm that never degenerates into metre, a combination of simplicity with grandeur, which uplifts the soul. It is quite impossible, the wondering reader will say, for prose style ever to attain heights greater than these.
The marvel is that the truly English beauty of the King James Version is attained without any of that freedom—not to say license— in translation which modern translators pronounce necessary. The original in this version is followed with admirable closeness; paraphrase is eschewed; and yet the result is an English masterpiece. The fortieth chapter of Isaiah in the Authorized Version is a masterpiece not because it is a new work—as some of our recent alleged translations of the Bible really are—but because it has reproduced faithfully both letter and spirit of the majestic original. The author of this chapter was a true poet.
That fact may well cause the devout reader to rejoice. The central worth of the Bible does not indeed depend upon literary form; the Bible is the "best seller" not because it is a collection of inspiring literature but because it records facts. It is valuable primarily because it records the facts about God, about the lost condition of man, and about that mighty divine act—prepared for in all the long dealings of God with His people in Old Testament times—which took place outside the walls of Jerusalem nineteen hundred years ago when the guilt of sin was washed away and a new face, for believers, was put upon the world. If the Bible does not really record facts, then
its literary beauty, though it may save it from utter oblivion, will succeed only in preserving a taste for it among a few select souls; and the love and veneration of the race, which it now possesses, will certainly be destroyed. The Christian religion is no mere form of mysticism, but is founded upon a body of facts; the facts are recorded in the Bible; and if the supposed facts were not facts at all, then Christianity and the Bible would certainly sink into a common ruin.
Nevertheless, though the primary importance of the Bible is found in its recording of facts, the way in which the facts are recorded is by no means a matter of indifference. A bald, dry record of the history of redemption might possibly have convinced the mind—though even that, because of subtle moral factors involved, may be doubtful—but it would at any rate never have touched the heart. As it is, God has been very good; He has spoken to us in gracious fashion; He has condescended to persuade where He might have spoken only in a tone of cold command. He has condescended to win our hearts by the variety and beauty of His Book. In the Bible there is that which meets every need of man, which answers to every mood, which speaks to every heart. No one who comes to this feast need go empty away; and there are times in every life when even the least considered of the things that the Bible contains are just what is needed by the soul. So there is a place in the nurture of the Christian life, among other things, for the majestic poetry of Isaiah.
The fortieth chapter of Isaiah was written by a prophet who revealed the truth; but the prophet was also a poet. And this poet—unlike some poets whose worth lies altogether in the music of the form and not at all in the matter—this poet had a great theme. The theme is the living God. The prophet celebrates especially the awful transcendence of God, the awful separateness between God and the world. The God of Isaiah is not the rather pathetic finite god of Mr.
H. G. Wells—not a god who works merely in and with striving humanity—but the sovereign King. "It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers." "Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding?" And this sovereign Person is Lord not only of mankind but also of all nature. He is very different from what modern men are accustomed to call, by a perversion of a great truth, the "immanent" God. He pervades all, but He also transcends all, and He has never abandoned His freedom in the presence of the things that He has made. "To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth." This is the very pinnacle of natural religion; the heavens here indeed declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork. The living God, according to Isaiah, is revealed through the things that He has made.
Natural religion—the revelation of God through nature—is by no means dead. Recently I listened to an interesting lecture by a famous man of science. The lecturer traced the progress of scientific investigation and pointed out, if I remember aright, its material benefits. But then he paused to speak of another product of the scientific spirit; the true scientist, he said, is brought face to face at last with the ultimate mystery and at that point he becomes a religious man. There is endless diversity in the world; but the progress of investigation has revealed the electron; and the electrons, said he, are all alike—they are machine-made. And their marvelous likeness reveals the existence of a mystery into which man cannot
penetrate; in truly religious awe the man of science stands at length before a curtain that is never lifted, a mystery that rebukes all pride.
Many questions, naturally, remained as I listened in my utterly ignorant mind. I might have asked, had I been so bold, how the lecturer knew that the electrons are all alike, and if they are all alike how from them has come the endless diversity of the world. But I was sure at least that the conclusion was right. There is an ultimate mystery before which the knowledge of the wisest men is dumb. The presence of that mystery is revealed to different men in different ways. Certainly it is not obscured one whit by modern achievements, for the widening of the circle of human knowledge only increases the periphery of dreadful contact with the unknown. And even within the little circle of knowledge, mystery touches us at a thousand points. There is an aspect ever of the simplest things that is just as mysterious as those problems of electrons or quanta with which contemporary science is bold enough to deal. The modern scientist is humble and aghast in the presence of the electrons, and that is well. But Isaiah had really just as much scientific right to be humble as he contemplated in his way the starry spheres. There is nothing in modern science that has invalidated but everything that has confirmed his words: "Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number; he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth." Now as then the man who really thinks will stand in awe before God. We can never get away from natural religion. It is confirmed by modern science; it is confirmed and enriched by the Bible; and it is confirmed by the example of our Lord.
But is that all? The mighty prophet who wrote the words that we have read did not think that it was all. He did not content himself
with standing in awe before God; but he claimed this mighty God as his. He added to the realm of nature the realm of grace. "Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?" There is the God of mystery before whom men might well stand forever in silent fear. But that mighty ruler of the world to the prophet was also the covenant God of Israel; He was a God who had loved His people and whom His people could love. Hear what is said of this terrible God (can it be the same?): "He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young." This goes far beyond all natural religion; in all the realm of nature there is little hint of this; this is revelation and revelation alone.
And can we do without it? Can we really be content with the awful mystery that nature presupposes if it does not reveal? Natural religion is indeed not to be despised. Well may lesser men emulate the example of the scientist who stands in humble awe before the dreadful curtain that veils the being of God. The awe of the true man of science is an emotion not to be despised. But can we bear to stand even before that curtain? Are we worthy even to contemplate afar that mystery that explains the world? We have offended even against nature's laws; we are unclean. Not for us the uplifting emotion of awe that is man's highest glory! We are unworthy to lift our eyes unto God, we can only grovel in the filthy sty which our baseness is making of the world.
But as we shrink in guilty fear from these high things, God has put forth His hand to draw us near. He has not concealed from us the uncleanness of our sin; He has confirmed in letters of flame the condemnation of our hearts.
But He has conquered sin and guilt by an act of love. He has come in the person of the Son and borne our guilt; God's love has cast out fear. Isaiah had not seen the Saviour with the bodily eye; but being true prophet he saw Him with the eye of faith. There is in the Bible a grand continuity in the economy of grace. God's gracious dealings with His people of old were an anticipation of the coming of the Lord. "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God"—these words with which our chapter begins are fulfilled and completed in Christ.
So the dreadful curtain has been lifted. It has been lifted by a revelation which is the explanation of an act. Only a look has been granted beyond, but the look is sufficient to give life. And what is revealed in those mysterious depths beyond the veil? Something that nature could never tell. The heart of the Eternal, it is found, is most wonderfully kind. "He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young." The gracious revelation can never destroy our sense of mystery in the presence of God; the Lord who is our shepherd is also the dreadful ruler of all nature whose counsel none can tell. But the curtain has been drawn gently aside. But to whom has a look been granted beyond? Here is the wonder of our religion; here is the strange condescension of God. Not only to the wise and the mighty has a look been granted, not only as a reward for those who by the greatness of their knowledge and their diligence in research can lift themselves above details to philosophic contemplation of the mystery of the whole, but to plain people whom wise men despise. It is not man's way but God's way. "I thank thee, O Father," the Saviour said, "Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight."
Isaiah's Scorn of Idolatry
"He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied: yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire: And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image; he falleth down unto it and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my God" (Isa. 44:16, 17).
THIS passage expresses the scorn of the prophet for idolatry. And it would be harder to find more scathing irony in all literature. Nothing could possibly be more completely plain.
Yet even plainness such as this requires in the reader some receptiveness of soul. It might seem impossible for anyone to misunderstand; yet modern men do succeed in doing so. I remember a sermon which I heard a few years ago. It introduced those verses which voice the scorn of the ancient prophet for the man who makes an idol by cutting off a piece of a stick of wood. "He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied: yea, he warmeth himself and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire: And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image; he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god." Such words, it might be thought, are plain enough; surely it is impossible to misunderstand. But what did our modern friend make
of these devastating words? "These are very useful verses," he said in effect; "they show that the church should satisfy the material as well as the spiritual needs of man. That artificer of whom the prophet speaks made a god out of his stick, and that is well; but he also made a fire of it and roasted meat, and that also is well. So we should emulate him; we should in our church have worship—that element is well enough if it be kept in its proper place—but we should also have material service; in worshiping the god we should not neglect the making of the fire and the roasting of the meat."
It might seem impossible that such interpretation in this supposedly enlightened age, should actually exist; yet exist it does, and it threatens to dominate our modern religious world. Prejudice and narrow obscurantism in the false garb of freedom are everywhere at work. They have produced their garbled or Shorter Bibles—I suppose Paradise Lost could be reduced to banality if the words in it were chosen and combined anew to suit the modern reader—they have produced their alleged translations of the Bible which are not translations but falsifications. The Bible under such treatment is becoming a book with seven seals. When will it be rediscovered? When will men again read it as it is, with all its scathing rebuke to human pride, with all its exaltation of the living God? We cannot say when the blessed day will come. But one thing is clear—if the Word of God again were heard, there would again be an upheaval like the Reformation of the sixteenth century. Now, as at the end of the Middle Ages, the Bible is obscured by an interpretation which really reverses its meaning; and now as well as then the rediscovery of the Bible would set the world free. That would be a beneficent upheaval; it would mean a grounding of the social edifice no longer upon the shifting sands of utilitarianism, but upon the rock of God's commands.
The fine scorn of Isaiah is not without interest at the present time. It is directed, indeed, against idolatry, and no one would seem to be in danger of idolatry today. But the glorious thing about the polemic of the Bible is that it is not merely negative. The Bible tears down only in order that it may build a better building upon the ruins of that which has been beneficently destroyed. So it is with this chapter. The prophet denounces idolatry not out of a mere love of denunciation, but because idolatry does despite to a positive thing that fires the prophet's soul. The prophet's scorn for what is false is a generous thing because it springs from a profound love of what is true. Idolatry is denounced because of devotion to the living God. The great underlying question of this chapter is the question whether we shall worship a god of our own making or the God by whom we have been made.
The question is very much alive today. We have not idolatry in the narrower sense, but of the making of gods there is no end. Turning from the living and true God, like Israel of old, we have preferred a god who will be content to serve our ends. We have built a fire and roasted roast, and we have promoted religion; and both operations are often on the same low utilitarian plane. Religion, men say, is a useful thing; it must be promoted in the interests of the state or in the interests of the community; God is the servant of man. Instead of seeking God first and testing our plans by His revealed will, we make our plans first and drag God in to help us carry them out. Religion ceases to be an end in itself and becomes a mere means to an end. Instead of the facts about God being the basis of religious experience, religious experience is made the basis of the supposed facts.
As I was walking through the streets of one of our large cities a year or so ago I saw, not an altar with this inscription "To An Unknown God," but a church with a huge sign in front of it to the effect: "Not A
Member? Come on in and help make this a better community." That is modern religion with a vengeance. It was an appeal not to sinners to seek salvation at the hands of God, but to persons, whose purposes are already all that they should be, to use religion as a mere means to accomplish their humanitarian ends. Many preachers and laymen today are busily engaged in calling the righteous to repentance. And it is just as futile an effort now as it was when our Lord first recited it in the days of His flesh.
Men are not interested in the facts about God, but in what use they can make of their thoughts about Him. Creeds may vary, men say; but a man can make any creed effective in his life. Theology, they tell us, is a mere expression of Christian experience; it is a mere interpretation of an attitude of the human soul. At the present time we may still find it useful, men say in effect, to conceive of God as a person; but there may come a time when some other conception may serve better the needs of men. Of course such pragmatism is really skeptical to the core; it is nothing but a dismal skepticism which instead of having the honest courage of its own negations decks itself out in the now meaningless language of devotion. But it is all in vain. God is quite useless if He exists only in idea. If a man regards the belief in a personal God as a mere interpretation of experience, useful only to this generation and destined to pass away as the forms of men's thought change, then even in this generation he no longer really believes in a personal God at all. Men say that we must not hold a static conception of religion; but, after all, facts, despite all our fine words, if they be real facts, are never subject to change. We may correct our errors; but if we have ever attained to truth the truth will remain true for millions upon millions of years. Shall we give up the search for truth? That is the real religious question of the day. Shall we content ourselves with the meaningless pastime of formulating
creeds which are intended only to be useful and not to be true? Or has God spoken and revealed the truth?
We Christians think that He has. He has, it is true, revealed but a little. We are but finite creatures, and God has not destroyed us by showing us the full splendors of His being. Certainly the things that we know not are vastly greater than the things that we know. There are many questions which we can never answer. I received a letter in yesterday morning's mail from a gentleman in New York, a stranger to me, who appeals to me "as a religious teacher" to reconcile the awful facts of earthquakes and tidal waves with an overruling Providence. And a stamped envelope is enclosed for reply! No, my friends, there are some things that God has not revealed. God has not invited us finite creatures to sit at the council table of the universe. He rules all things in accordance with His mysterious will. "Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him? With whom took he counsel and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding?"
But despite this infinity of mystery, there are some things that God has revealed; some things even with regard to the most mysterious of God's acts. We cannot explain the purpose of the earthquake and the fire; but we have been told some things about them. We have had our complacent judgments stilled. We have been told that we have no right to regard those horrors as indicating greater sin on the part of those who suffered than the sin of those who escaped; but we have been told on the other hand that we all deserved to suffer calamity ten thousand times greater than these; we have had revealed to us the full dreadfulness of sin in the presence of the holiness of God's being. And we have been told of the act of God's grace by which at infinite cost to God Himself—we have a right to utter these
stupendous words—mercy was extended to us who deserve it not. Great are the mysteries that are not revealed; they should ever make us humble. But greater also, and at least sufficient, are the mysteries that have been revealed. And these mysteries should make us more humble still.
When will men see that nothing but truth can satisfy the longing of the human soul? Religious conceptions which are merely useful and not eternally true are not useful at all. But as it is, a deadly blight of pragmatism has fallen upon the world. The intellect is dethroned and intellectual decadence is rapidly setting in. Men are following the will-of-the-wisp of a practical religion which shall somehow be independent of facts; they are trying to produce a decent, moral life in this world while denying the basis of morality in the being of God. They have embarked on a vain search for an authority which is merely man-made and can therefore never command the reverence of man. The words of Hosea are fulfilled in the modern conception of God, as in the idolatry of the eighth century before Christ. Of the useful, non-existent, practical God of modern times also it may be said: "The workman made it; therefore it is not God."
The world is restless today. There are many voices but there is no peace. Men are feverishly saying to a god manufactured to serve the social needs of man: "Deliver me; for thou art my god." They are trying to produce decency without principle; they are trying to keep back the raging sea of passion with the flimsy mudembankments of self-interest; they are trying to do without the stern, solid masonry of the will of God. When will the vain effort cease? Shall we continue on our wanderings? Shall we continue to stagger like drunken men? Shall we still fashion a divinity that shall serve our utilitarian ends? Shall we amuse ourselves with idols? Or shall we return unto God?
III
The Fear of God
"And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him, which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matt. 10:28).
THESE words were not spoken by Jonathan Edwards. They were not spoken by Cotton Mather. They were not spoken by Calvin, or Augustine, or by Paul. But these words were spoken by Jesus.
And when put together with the many other words like them in the Gospels, they demonstrate the utter falsity of the picture of Jesus which is being constructed in recent years. The other day, in one of the most popular religious books of the day, The Reconstruction of Religion, by Ellwood, I came upon the amazing assertion that Jesus concerned Himself but little with the thought of a life after death. In the presence of such assertions any student of history may well stand aghast. It may be that we do not make much of the doctrine of a future life, but the question whether Jesus did so is not a matter of taste but an historical question which can be answered only on the basis of an examination of the sources of historical information, which we call the Gospels. And if you want to answer the question, I recommend that you do what I have done, and simply go through a Gospel harmony, noting the passages where Jesus speaks of
blessedness and woe in the future life. You may be surprised at the result; certainly you will be surprised if you have been affected in the slightest degree by the misrepresentation of Jesus which suffuses the religious literature of our time. You will discover that the thought not only of heaven but also the thought of hell runs all through the teaching of Jesus. It appears in all four of the Gospels; it appears in the sources, supposed to underly the Gospels, which have been reconstructed, rightly or wrongly, by modern criticism. It is not an element which can be removed by any critical process, but simply suffuses the whole of Jesus' teaching and Jesus' life.
It runs through the most characteristic parables of Jesus—the solemn parables of the rich man and Lazarus; the unrighteous steward; the pounds; the talents; the wheat and the tares; the evil servant; the marriage of the King's Son; the ten virgins. It is equally prominent in the rest of Jesus' teaching. The judgment scene of the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew is only the culmination of what is found everywhere in the Gospels. "These shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." There is absolutely nothing peculiar about this passage amid the sayings of Jesus. If there ever was a religious teacher who could not be appealed to in support of a religion of this world, if there ever was a teacher who viewed the world under the aspect of eternity, it is Jesus of Nazareth.
These passages and a great mass of other passages like them are embedded everywhere in the Gospel tradition. So far as I know, even the most radical criticism has not tried to remove this element in Jesus' teaching. But it is not merely the amount of Jesus' teaching about the future life which is impressive; what is even more impressive is the character of it. It does not appear as an excrescence in the Gospels, as something which might be removed and yet leave
the rest of the teaching intact. If this element were removed, what would be left? Certainly not the gospel itself, certainly not the good news of Jesus' saving work; for that is concerned with these high issues of eternal life and death. But not even the ethical teaching of Jesus would be left. There can be no greater mistake than to suppose that Jesus ever separated theology from ethics, or that if you remove His theology—His beliefs about God and judgment, future woe for the wicked and future blessedness for the good—you can leave His ethical teaching intact. On the contrary, the stupendous earnestness of Jesus' ethics is rooted in the constant thought of the judgment seat of God. "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee; for it is profitable for thee to enter into life having one eye rather than having two eyes to be cast into the gehenna of fire." These words are characteristic of all Jesus' teaching; the stupendous earnestness of His commands is intimately connected with the alternative of eternal weal or woe.
That alternative is used by Jesus to arouse men to fear. "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him, which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Luke records a similar saying of Jesus: "But I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear. Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, fear him." There are those who tell us that fear ought to be banished from religion; we ought, it is said, no more to hold before men's eyes the fear of hell; fear, it is said, is an ignoble thing. Those who speak in this way certainly have no right to appeal to Jesus; for Jesus certainly did employ, and insistently, the motive of fear. If you eschew altogether that motive in religion, you are in striking contradiction to Jesus. Here, as at many other points, a choice must be made between the real Jesus and much that falsely bears His
name today. But which is right? Is Jesus right, or are those right who put out of their minds the fear of hell? Is fear altogether an ignoble thing? Is a man necessarily degraded by being afraid?
I think, my friends, that it depends altogether upon that of which one is afraid. The words of our text, with the solemn inculcation of fear, are also a ringing denunciation of fear: the "Fear him" is balanced by "Fear not." The fear of God is here made a way of overcoming the fear of man. And the heroic centuries of Christian history have provided abundant testimony to its efficaciousness. With the fear of God before their eyes, the heroes of the faith have boldly stood before kings and governors and said, "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise, God help me, Amen."
It is certainly an ignoble thing to be afraid of bonds and death at the hands of men; it is certainly an ignoble thing to fear those who use power to suppress the right. Even the fear of God might be degrading. It all depends upon what manner of Being you hold God to be. If you think that God is altogether such an one as yourself, your fear of Him will be a degrading thing. If you think of Him as a capricious tyrant, envious of the creatures He has made, you will never rise above the groveling fears of Caliban. But it is very different when you stand in the presence of the source of all the moral order of the universe; it is very different when God comes walking in the garden and you are without excuse; it is very different when you think of that dread day when puny deceptions will fall off and you stand defenseless before the righteous judgment throne. It is very different when not the sins of other people but your sins are being judged. Can we really, my friends, come before the judgment seat of God and stand fearlessly upon our rights? Can we really repeat, with Henley, the well-known words: "Out of the night that covers me, black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be for
my unconquerable soul," or this: "It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul"?
Is this the way to overcome fear? Surely not. We can repeat such words only by the disguised cowardice of ignoring facts. As a matter of fact, our soul is not unconquerable; we are not masters of our fate or captains of our soul. Many a man has contemplated some foul deed at first with horror, and said, "Am I a dog that I should do this thing?" And then has come the easy descent into the pit, the gradual weakening of the moral fibre, so that what seemed horrible yesterday seems excusable today; until at last, at some sad hour, with the memory of one's horror of sin still in the mind, a man awakes to the realization that he is already wallowing in the mire. Such is the dreadful hardening that comes from sin. Even in this life we are not masters of our fate; we are of ourselves certainly not captains of our bodies, and we are of ourselves, I fear, not even captains of our souls.
It is pitiable cowardice to try to overcome fear by ignoring facts. We do not become masters of our fate by saying that we are. And such blatancy of pride, futile as it is, is not even noble in its futility. It would be noble to rebel against a capricious tyrant, but it is not noble to rebel against the moral law of God.
Are we then forever subject to fear? Is there nought, for us sinners, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation? Jesus came to tell us No! He came to deliver us from fear. He did not do so by concealing facts; He painted no false picture of a complacent God who should make a compact with sin; He encouraged no flattering illusions about the power of man. Jesus did not leave the realm of divine justice as it was, and establish in opposition to it a realm of love. But He introduced unity into the
world by His redeeming work. He died not to abolish but to satisfy divine justice and reconcile us to God. In the days of His flesh He pointed forward to that act; He invited the confidence of man by the promise of what was to come. In our days we look back to what has already been done; our joy is in salvation already attained; our boasting is in the Cross.
Even the Christian must fear God. But it is another kind of fear. It is a fear rather of what might have been than of what is; it is a fear of what would come were we not in Christ. Without such fear there can be no true love; for love of the Saviour is proportioned to one's horror of that from which man has been saved. And how strong are the lives that are suffused with such a love! They are lives brave, not because the realities of life have been ignored, but because they have first been faced—lives that are founded upon the solid foundation of God's grace. May such lives be ours!
Perfect love casteth out fear. But if it be our love which casteth out fear, our love is only a response to the loving act of God. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins." There is the culmination and the transformation of fear. "Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men," says Jesus, "him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven."
Sin's Wages and God's Gift
"For the wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 6:23).
SOME time ago I heard a sermon on this text by a preacher who has now retired. The sermon was not one that I agreed with altogether, but the beginning of it, I thought, was interesting. The preacher said that during the preceding summer he had met in a chance sort of way, on one of the steamers of the Great Lakes, a gentleman who turned out to be a man of large affairs, but a man who had little to do with the church. Incidentally the conversation turned to religious matters, and the man of business gave to the preacher the benefit of a little criticism. The criticism was perhaps not unworthy of attention. "You preachers," the outsider said, "don't preach hell enough."
Usually the criticism which is levelled at the church by men who know nothing about it is as valueless as ignorant criticism is in other spheres. But in this case I am inclined to think that the critic was right. We preachers do not preach hell enough, and we do not say enough about sin. We talk about the gospel and wonder why people are not interested in what we say. Of course they are not interested. No man is interested in a piece of good news unless he has the consciousness of needing it; no man is interested in an offer of salvation unless he knows that there is something from which he needs to be saved. It is quite useless to ask a man to adopt the Christian view of the gospel unless he first has the Christian view of sin.
But a man will never adopt the Christian view of sin if he considers merely the sin of the world or the sins of other people. Consideration
of the sins of other people is the deadliest of moral anodynes; it relieves the pain of conscience but it also destroys moral life. Many persons gloat over denunciations of that to which they are not tempted; or they even gloat over denunciations, in the case of other people, of sins which are also really theirs. King David was very severe when the prophet Nathan narrated to him his sordid tale of greed. "As the Lord liveth," said David, "the man that hath done this thing shall surely die." But Nathan was a disconcerting prophet. "And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man." That was for David the beginning of a real sense of his sin. So it will also be with us.
Of course it seems quite preposterous that we should be sinners. It was preposterous also for King David seated on his throne in the majesty of his royal robes. It was preposterous, but it was true. So also it is preposterous for us. It seems to be a strange notion to treat respectable people as sinners. In the case of college men, it seems particularly absurd. College men look so pleasant; it seems preposterous to connect them with the dreadful fact of sin. Some time ago I was reading, I think in a journal published in London, a review of a book that dealt with religious conditions among university men or young people. The author of the book spoke of the moral ideals of the young men of the present day as being summed up in the notion of being a good sport. The young men of the present day, it was said in effect, may not use the old terminology of guilt and retribution, but they dislike the man who does not know how to play fairly a match of lawn tennis and does not know how to take defeat like a gentleman. The remark of the reviewer, I thought, was eminently just. Surely, he said, with regard to this very common lawn tennis view of sin—surely, he said, among university men "there are grimmer facts than these." He was right, and we know he was right. He was right about university men in England; he was right about college men in America; and he was right about the rest of us as well.
There are grimmer facts than poor lawn tennis and poor sport, regrettable though that no doubt is. There is, in general, in a thousand ugly forms, the grim fact of sin.
So when I speak of sin I am not talking to you about the sin of other people, but I am talking to you about your sin, and I am talking to myself about my sin. I am talking about that particular battle ground where you come to grips with the power of evil and where you meet your God.
Suppose that on that battle ground we have met defeat. What is the result? The answer of the text and the answer of the whole Bible is short and plain. "The wages of sin," says the Bible, "is death." I shall not pause just now to consider in detail what Paul means by "death"—except just to point out this interesting fact that if you want to find the most terrible descriptions of this eternal death you will find them not in Paul but in Jesus. It is the custom nowadays to appeal from the supposedly gloomy theology of Paul to the supposedly sunny practical philosophy of Jesus; but the strange thing is that it is Jesus, not Paul, who speaks of the outer darkness and the everlasting fire and of the sin that shall not be forgiven either in this world or in that which is to come. Paul is content in his Epistles to treat of the punishment of sin with some reserve—a reserve very impressive and very terrifying, it is true—but Jesus is more explicit. Jesus makes abundantly plain that the offender against God's law is facing something far more dreadful, to say the least, than mere annihilation would be. The teaching of Jesus has at the very centre of it the fear of God and the fear of hell. No human law without sanction is complete; a law without a penalty is an altogether worthless and pitiful thing. Are God's laws of this pitiful kind?
There are some people who seem to think that they are. But as a matter of fact God's laws have attached to them sanctions compared with which all human penalties are as nothing.
The fact appears even in the course of this world. There is a deadly inexorableness about the laws of nature. Offend against the laws of health, and the result follows with a terrible certainty; no excuses will avail; crying and tears will count nothing; the retribution, however deferred, is sure. In the sphere of the physical life, it is certainly clear that the wages of sin is death. But many people think that the paymaster can be cheated, that after a life of sin we can present ourselves hopefully at the cashier's window and be paid in some different coin from that which we have earned. Do you really agree with them? Do you really think that in this accounting you can cheat? Do you really think that by care in the physical sphere you can avoid the consequences of sin? There is something within us that tells us that such is not the case; there is something within us that reveals the abyss over which we are standing, that brushes aside our petty excuses, that reveals in the inner, moral sphere, as in the physical realm, the same terrible inexorableness of law. God grant that we may not deceive ourselves! God grant that we may not hope to cheat! God grant that we may learn in time that the wages of sin is death!
There is a definiteness and certainty about wages. Wages are different from a spontaneous gift; wages, unlike a gift, are fixed. A man has done his week's work; he presents himself at the paymaster's desk, and is paid off; the matter is not discussed; the employee does not try then to strike a bargain with the cashier. The amount of the payment has been determined beforehand, and the payment itself is a purely formal, impersonal affair. So it is, somewhat, with the wages of sin. The wages have been fixed already. I do not mean that all sins are punished alike; no doubt at God's
judgment seat there is a delicacy of discrimination quite impossible under human laws. And I do not mean that the penalty of sin follows merely by a natural law that is independent of God. But however the law has been established, it is, when once established, inexorable. It is quite useless for a man to argue about the penalty of his sin; it is useless in the physical sphere of the laws of health, and it will be useless when we appear at last before Him who knows the secrets of the heart. Let us not deceive ourselves, my friends. The moral constitution of the universe is a very terrible thing. Let us not think that we can trifle with it. The world is governed by inexorable law. And that law establishes by an immutable decree the dreadful consequences of sin. The wages of sin is death.
At that point some preachers stop. Here stopped, for example, the noted preacher whose sermon gave us our text and our subject today. The terribleness of sin and the inexorableness of law—it is writ large in the physical organism of man and in the whole course of nature. It is also writ large in the Bible. But the Bible, unlike nature, does not stop here. "The wages of sin is death"—it is a great truth, but it is not the end of our text. The wages of sin is death—that is the law. But the Bible contains more than the law; it contains also the gospel. "The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
The free gift is contrasted with wages. Yet men persist in dragging it down to the wage level; they persist in trying to make the gift of God a product of some law. They persist in regarding salvation as proceeding by some natural process from faith or from some other quality of men. They regard Christianity as founded upon permanent principles of religion instead of being founded upon an unexpected piece of news. When will the vain effort be abandoned? Salvation is
nothing, or it is a free gift; it is not a principle that has been discovered but an event that has happened.
The trouble is that we are unwilling to take God at His word. We persist in endeavoring to save ourselves. If we have learned to any degree that lesson of the law, if we have come to have a horror of sin, we persist in thinking that it depends upon us to get rid of it. We try to make use of our own moral resources in this struggle, and we fall yet deeper and deeper into the mire. When shall we take God at His word? When shall we simply accept, in faith, the gift of salvation which He has offered?
It is certainly worth accepting. It consists in "eternal life." We need not now ask in detail what that means. But certainly it is as glorious as the "death" with which it is contrasted is terrible. It is certainly happiness as contrasted with woe, but it is far more than happiness. It involves service, and it involves the presence of God.
The free gift of God is an absolutely unaccountable event in the life of every man who accepts it. It is not the natural working out of a principle, but it is a thing that happens. But that happening in the soul is the result of a happening in the sphere of external history. The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. There we have the central characteristic of our religion; the central characteristic of Christianity is that it is not founded merely upon what always was true but primarily upon something that happened—something that took place near Jerusalem at a definite time in the world's history. In other words, it is founded not merely upon permanent truths of religion, but upon a "gospel," a piece of news.
The Christian preacher, be he ever so humble, is entrusted with that gospel. We could not hope to be listened to if we had merely our own thoughts; there are so many others in the world wiser and more
learned than we. But in a time of peril in a beleaguered city the humblest of day-laborers is more worth listening to than the greatest of orators, if he has news. So it is with the Christian preacher in this deadly peril of the soul. The wages of sin is death—that is the law. But at the decisive point Christ has taken the wages upon Himself— that is the gospel. Inexorable is the moral law of God. But God's mercy has used, and triumphed over, His law. We deserved eternal death; but Christ died instead of us on the cross. Shall we accept the gift? The result will be a fresh start in God's favor and then a winning battle against sin. "The wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
The Issue in the Church
"Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new" (2 Cor. 5:17).
THE world of today is hoping for something new. Things that seemed to be new have proved to be old; the newness of modern inventions has been found not to touch the depths of life. New situations, it has been discovered, do not make new men; a man is not made over by ascending in an airplane to the sky. Novelty has been sought in every sphere, but it is not so easy to find; rebellion
against accepted forms does not produce a new style, but sometimes only reveals a pitiful lack of invention; sensationalism has proved to be rather dull.
In the epistles of Paul one finds that joyous freshness which modern men are seeking in vain; the first Christians evidently were in possession of something really new. The conditions of life, it is true, were not greatly changed; social institutions in the early church were left very much as they were before. But beneath outward sameness there was a mighty inner change. The novelty of the early church was very different from the novelty of today. Today we have changing circumstances and humanity itself in a rut; then there was outward sameness, but underneath it there were new men. "Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new."
Many earnest men today are examining the future with some dread. Is humanity condemned to a hopeless dullness, or may there be even now a fresh start? A fresh start is certainly not easy to achieve. It cannot be achieved simply by taking things as they come; it cannot be achieved simply by tearing off the last leaf for this year and putting a fresh calendar on the wall. The new year may prove to be old before his time. How shall next year be made really different from this: how shall the new year be made really new?
We have a startling suggestion to make. How would it be if there should be a revival of the Christian religion? At that point, no doubt —to use a figure of Mr. Sunday—many of our hearers will begin to snap their watches at us; if we have no more novel suggestion than that, we shall probably find our audiences dwindling away. But the suggestion is not really so hackneyed as it seems; amid the many elixirs that are on the market today, it is astonishing how little
attention is being given to the gospel of Christ. Many modern men are like a contemporary British author of whom it has been said that he has sympathy for every religious institution on earth except one; he has the warmest sympathy for every pagan religion no matter how strange, but the Wednesday night prayer meeting he simply cannot stand. It was once remarked about a great encyclopedia how strange it was that the principle of that work, in accordance with which various types of religious belief were to be presented by their own adherents, was not applied to evangelical Christianity, at least in its consistent form. Other beliefs are presented in the great encylopedia by their friends; evangelical Christianity alone (at least in the form of the Reformed Theology) is presented by its opponents. The same unfairness prevails in many circles today. Various religious beliefs are given a hearing, but this tolerance is not allowed to extend to the gospel of the cross of Christ. The discrimination may perhaps be excused by the incorrigibly insistent character of the gospel appeal, but it should not be excused on improper grounds. It should not be excused on the ground of breadth or tolerance. The prevailing attitude toward evangelical Christianity may be necessary in order to avoid trouble; it may be safe and prudent: but tolerant, at any rate, it certainly is not.
The prejudice against Christianity may ultimately become beneficial. It may be that when the Wednesday night prayer meeting becomes as strange as dervish dances is will be revived as a great new discovery to which the attention of men will turn. Already there is the most abysmal ignorance of the gospel; the Epistle to the Galatians, even among scholars, is almost as much a sealed book as it was just before Luther's day. Yet it is really so gloriously plain. When will it be rediscovered?
When it is rediscovered there will be great revival of the Christian religion. None can say how soon that will come, and certainly it will not be produced by human effort. It will come not by might and not by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord of Hosts. Yet although a revival of the Christian religion is not the product of human effort, there are certain favorable conditions which the Spirit may first produce and then use for the accomplishment of His beneficent work.
Those favorable conditions fall into two classes. First, there are those conditions which may be expected to appeal to all men, whether Christians or not, provided only they are really seeking some spiritual advance; in the second place, there are those conditions which will be appreciated by Christians alone.
Under the former head may be mentioned tolerance or religious liberty—the freedom of any citizens to hold, propagate, and teach to their children any form of religious belief that they desire. Tolerance was a great achievement for our forefathers. But now, apparently, in America, it is being given up. It has been given up, for example, in Oregon, where a law soon to go into effect requires that all children up to sixteen years of age (until a certain grade has been reached) shall attend the public schools. Private schools and Christian schools are thus legislated out of existence, and children are taken forcibly from their parents and placed under the despotic control of whatever superintendent of education happens to be in office in the district where they reside. Similar legislation has been proposed in many other states, and the dangerous Towner-Sterling bill in Congress has as its ultimate tendency (whatever temporary safeguards there may be) the establishment of a uniformity of education which is the most appalling calamity into which any nation could fall. It would be difficult to imagine, at any rate, a worse tyranny that that of the
Oregon type. Place children in their formative years under the despotic control of experts appointed by the state, and you have a really more effective interference with civil and religious liberty than the Inquisition, perhaps, ever achieved. It is true that hopeful signs are not altogether absent. The abominable Lusk Laws in the State of New York, though by the scantiest majority, were repealed; and the decision written by Justice McReynolds, of the United States Supreme Court, concerning the Nebraska language law (which practically made literary education a crime) shows that the principles of American liberty are not yet entirely dead. But the danger is certainly very great. Unless there is tolerance on the part of the state, any great spiritual advance, whatever its direction may be thought to be, will be hindered. It will not, I suppose, be prevented. Men of real convictions now as always may perhaps maintain their convictions even under a hostile government. But why should the old battle for freedom be fought again? Why should we not retain the freedom which, at such great cost, our fathers won?
The second of the general conditions favorable to any spiritual advance is honesty—just plain old-fashioned honesty of speech. That condition in certain religious circles is largely absent today. Traditional terminology is constantly being used in a double sense. Plain people in the church are being told, for example, that this preacher or that believes that Jesus is God. They go away much impressed; the preacher, they say, believes in the deity of Christ; what more could be desired? What is not being told them is that the word "God" is being used in a pantheizing or Ritschlian sense, so that the assertion, "Jesus is God," is not the most Christian, but the least Christian thing that the modernist preacher says. The modernist preacher affirms the deity of Jesus not because he thinks high of Jesus but because he thinks desperately low of God.
Formerly when men had brought to their attention perfectly plain documents like the Apostles' Creed or the Westminster Confession or the New Testament, they either accepted them or else denied them. Now they no longer deny, but merely "interpret." Every generation, it is said, must interpret the Bible or the creed in its own way. But I sometimes wonder just how far this business of interpretation will go. I am, let us say, in a company of modern men. They begin to test my intelligence. And first they test me on the subject of mathematics. "What does six times nine make?" I am asked. I breathe a sigh of relief; many questions might place me very low in the scale of intelligence, but that question I think I can answer. I raise my hand hopefully. "I know that one," I say. "Six nines are fifty-four." But my complacency is short-lived. My modern examiner puts on a grave look. "Where have you been living?" he says. " 'Six nines are fiftyfour'—that is the old answer to the question." In my ignorance I am somewhat surprised. "Why," I say, "everybody knows that. That stands in the multiplication table; do you not accept the multiplication table?" "Oh, yes," says my modern friend, "of course I accept the multiplication table. But then I do not take a static view of the multiplication table; every generation must interpret the multiplication table in its own way. And so of course I accept the proposition that six nines are fifty-four, but I interpret that to mean that six nines are a hundred and twenty-eight." And then the examination gets into the sphere of history. The examiner asks me where the Declaration of Independance was adopted. That one, also, I think I know. "The Declaration of Independence," I say, "was adopted at Philadelphia." But again I meet with a swift rebuke. "That is the old answer to the question," I am told. "But," I say, "everyone knows that the Declaration of Independence was adopted at Philadelphia; that stands in all the history books; do you not accept what stands in the history books?" "Oh, yes," says my modern friend, "we accept everything that stands in the history books—hundred per