A ministerial correspondent in The Congregationalist boldly faces the question of Jesus' miracles, i.e., works of healing. He seems to admit that the belief in Christian healing in the time of Jesus can only be properly supported by healing in the churches in the present age. His argument is as follows:—

"The editorial in The Congregationalist, June 8, discussing the question whether the church needs miracles, marks an epoch in The Congregationalist, . . . Ought it not to be reiterated that Christ is greater than his alleged miracles, greater than any specialized records, greater than any ancient history of him? Miracles no longer attest him to us, whatever they may have been to his own age. His personality did not appear merely in the gospel records. The records were a comparatively late result of his personal greatness. They neither add anything to him nor subtract anything from him.... We ought to leave the credibility of ancient miracles to be determined largely by the quality and power of modern achievements in his name.

"It is a great question whether the church needs the ancient miracles. I, for one, do not know what to do with them. It is a greater question by far whether Christ is still working miracles. Modern records are more important than ancient ones, considered merely as history. What record of miracles is the church making now? If Christ is dead and works no longer, then we shall not care what he did in Palestine in the former days."

The (Episcopalian) Church Standard quotes the following from the "Reminiscence" of the Rev. William Rogers, a champion of popular education in England: One needs to pause and reflect sometimes to be sufficiently grateful for what has been accomplished. When I began my ministerial life nothing looked less likely than that education would some day be within the reach of every English child, and nothing certainly was more improbable than that its range would be as wide as it is now. Men did not realize that there was no darkness but ignorance. They saw darkness all around them, but they failed to see whence it came, and the few enthusiasts who labored for the children could never count on popular support. Schools were supported, of course, but mostly the motive was sectarian zeal; and I doubt if the thoughts even of many ardent educationalists often passed beyond the limits of their own efforts."

The (Baptist) Watchman prints a sermon by the Rev. Charles Cuthbert Hall, D.D., on "Knowledge of God and the Bible" which contains the following: "Can we know God in any real sense; and, if so, to what extent and by what means can this knowledge be increased? The importance of this question, in its bearing upon the religious life of the community cannot be overestimated. It is in vain that we erect religious opportunities if in the depths of consciousness is a philosophical uncertainty regarding the fundamental proposition: the knowledge of God. The growth of the religious life is conditioned on the antecedent confidence that God may be known and known ever more deeply and fully. Nothing could be more reasonable than the statement of Scripture upon this point: 'He that cometh to God muse believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.' "

In its column of editorial "Briefs" the Universalist Leader says: "The danger of a false step or a wrong act or a bad law is enhanced by the likelihood that its actor or enactor will pass through this means into alliance with evil. He has been on the other side, has stood up for clean hands and a pure heart and a just tongue. He has broken down his own defences now. The temptation to go into partnership with his deed is strong. He is silent where he used to speak. When he finds his tongue it is either to articulate a platitude or to say something in apology for wrong. Thus he slips down the greased grooves of the moral incline until he is fully launched on the awful voyage of degeneracy. This is the evil of evil,—that carries its victim along with it and commits him, body and soul, to the course he hates. But resist the devil and he will flee from you."

Richard M. Vaughan says in the (Baptist) Standard: "There are two types of obligation that constrain the Christian to obedlence and service; the obligation of the soldier to his commander, which grows out of a duty, a responsibility assumed, a danger to be met, and the obligation of love, which grows out of gratitude for benefits received and the recognition of kinship of soul. In some lives the military element will be dominant, in some the homage of love. They are not opposed to one another, but supplement one another. At different times one or the other will appeal more strongly to the disciple. When love loses its warmth, owing to neglect of the means of grace, even then the motive of obedience because one is a soldier in an army, a subject in a kingdom, loses none of its power. Even when we feel ourselves cold toward spiritual things, and the doing of religious tasks is irksome, we may recall ourselves to the right attitude by pressing this motive of obedience."

An editorial in the Young People's department of the Universalist Leader says: "When you are tempted to criticise a woman who talks loud and long, or to censure a man because he lacks in judgment, discretion would advise a quiet personal inquiry as to your own imperfections. It is certainly uncomely to imagine one's self free from defects; and an intelligent silence is not only merciful to others, but a safeguard to one's good sense. If one would be a bit more careful to acquaint himself with his own vagaries of conduct, and a bit more steadfast in correcting them, he would be less likely to observe faults in others, and more modest in drawing attention to them. One cannot cleanse a blot with blotted fingers."

The Hon. Wayne MacVeagh, in an address before the Harvard chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society recently, said: "It seems to me there is no better work to be done at present by an American university than to again unseal those fountains of idealism, where the human spirit has so often refreshed itself when weary of a too material age, to reawaken that enthusiasm for the moral law which we have all somehow lost, and to impress upon a people essentially noble, but now too deeply absorbed in the pursuit of wealth for wealth's sake, the advantages which the cherishing of ethical ideals may bring to all of us, even to those who pride themselves above all things upon being practical."

In a review of Dr. Elwood Worcester's recent book, "The Book of Genesis in the Light of Modern Knowledge," the (Episcopalian) Church Standard says: "It is as certain as anything in literature, ancient or modern, that Genesis is a compilation of different works, all very ancient, but some of them much more ancient than others, and all blended together by the uncritical hand of at least one later collector and editor. If Genesis were not a work of that kind, it simply could not belong to the age from which it professes to have come down; and so it may be said that the very proof of its composite character is likewise an evidence of its genuineness as a product of that distant time."

The (Unitarian) Christian Register, in an editorial headed by the question "Who Creates Our Ideals?" says: "This is really the most important social question that can be discussed, and it is a question that must be answered if we expect to escape social degeneration. It would not have been difficult one hundred years ago, or even seventy-five, to answer that the Church is doing this important work. But, whether we like to confess the fact or not, the Church at pres ent is doing something very different from its old work of moulding society and creating the ideals for our boys and girls."

The Rev. O. P. Gifford, D.D., says in the (Baptist) Examiner: "The Christian life, rightly lived, is a strenuous life. Christ calls no man to a life of ease. It is easier to be a fisherman than a fisher of men; easier to sit at the receipt of custom than to follow Christ; easier to accept things as they are than to turn the world upside down because it is wrong side up. Life means a struggle; when the struggle ceases life ends. The higher the life the harder the struggle."

Bishop Foss of the Methodist Episcopal Church, who carefully studied the recent Presbyterian General Assembly, calls attention to the fact that on the morning of the decisive debate the delegates sang Faber's hymn, in which occur the following lines: But we make His love too narrow

By false limits of our own;

And we magnify His strictness With a zeal He will not own.

The Congregationalist.

A writer in the (Baptist) Watchman says: "The lives of children are fashioned not so much by what is taught by parents as by what parents are. The hair-trigger temper, the broken promises and unbridled speech, are reproduced by unconscious imitation, while the precept upon precept, line upon line, have little or no effect whatever. We teach truthfulness by being truthful."