From our Exchanges

with contributions from W. R. INGE

Our Christian and denominational schools must never allow themselves to be outdone by any other institutions in their ardor for the fullest light and their courageous pressing onward toward the last fact that can be discovered. The Spirit of Christ is the spirit of freedom, and a school that is dedicated to him dishonors his very name and is false to its ostensible purpose if it hangs back cravenly when new leadings to truth are beckoning ahead.

The professors in our Christian colleges and seminaries should be men not only of the widest and deepest learning, but they should have the very mold and disposition of seekers for the truth, undeterred by any external pressure, unhindered by any obstinate prejudices form within. A temperament which is always asking with bated breath "what may happen," if certain inevitable conclusions are accepted without reserve, hardly belongs to a fit teacher in the twentieth century.

And the youths who throng to our schools have a right to know the full truth that has been ascertained and verified —not that which is simply subjectively surmised in the unfounded speculations of any rash theorizer — in every department of study. For this very thing have they come to the school.

Even so there will of necessity be in many considerable mental disturbance and sometimes anguish over parting with the old forms for the new. It will frequently seem to some that they are being blown form safe anchorages in familiar harbors out upon wild seas, they know not whither; and their souls are tempest -tossed. But even this alternative must be faced. Such an experience, unhappy as it is is infinitely better than sitting, inert and content, with minds impervious to truth — hard and fast shut as a shellfish's case.
Western Christian Advocate.

Guard well the compass of conscience. It is a small thing, but the proudest ship cannot safely sail without it. Never let the salt spray corrode it or the rust of neglect settle on it. Keep it in sight, close by the helm and rudder of the ship. Study the chart of human experience; the past is our map to which we can go for guidance, surveying the collective wisdom of mankind, taking warning from the foolish and counsel from the wise. Let the bygone generations instruct us where the false lights may burn and where we may expect the reefs and the whirlpools. Watch the stars of the heavens. We may guide our course and measure our progress and check our wanderings by the lights above. Never be without the spiritual quadrant. — The Christian Register.

The Universalist Leader quotes the following from Dr. Washington Gladden :—

"What is religion? In its most primary sense it is a conviction that the spiritual world is the real world, and that the material world is temporal and ephemeral; that the things which are unseen, like truth, purity, honor, justice, integrity, fidelity, unselfish love, are the only enduring realities. while the things that can be seen and handled and weighed are counted our phantasms and vanities."

It would be an immense gain if we remembered that the one aim which is set before us is the production of the "perfect man," and that sin is whatever hinders this aim, whether in the individual or in the race. . In learning what divine Love means we are learning how to overcome evil with good. It was Jesus Christ who taught us the meaning of divine Love; and therefore it is he who saved his people from their sins.
Rev. W. R. INGE, D.D.
The Interpreter.

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