Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/571

Rh movement, which, assuming an anti-Church attitude, is leading the people into unbelief; and he here lays down the lines along which he thinks the revision should be made. The points of evolution and the antiquity of man have already been conceded by the best thinkers in the Church, but Mr. MacQueary has outrun them by applying evolution to the soul as well as to the body of man. The doctrine of the fall of man is rejected as irrational and contrary to the theory of evolution, yet our progenitor sinned, or freely violated moral, divine law, and transmitted to us an inheritance of corrupt habits; but Jesus, by what he taught, did, and suffered, has more than repaired the evil which resulted from Adam's transgression. The books of the Bible are believed to be works of slow growth, or collations made from documents or notes left by earlier writers; but "even the most radical skeptics admit that the books of the New Testament furnish us the essential facts of our Lord's life and teachings." The question as to the miracles is made one of evidence; the scientific man does not deny the possibility of anything. The author believes in prayer and Providence and in miracles, or that God has actually wrought extraordinary events. Some of the recorded miracles are treated as cases of faith-healing, some as invested with a poetical significance, and some as exaggerated versions of older traditions. The resurrection is believed to be spiritual and not of the earthly body, and the resurrection of Jesus and his forty days' sojourn with his disciples is interpreted as an investment with a spiritual body like that described in St. Paul's chapter on the resurrection. The miraculous birth of Jesus from a virgin, though its possibility is not denied, is regarded as "a poetic description of a great fact." The theory of verbal inspiration is treated as of heathen origin and as contradicted by the Bible itself; but insomuch as God has sent religious as well as philosophic and poetic geniuses into the world, who, though not absolutely infallible, are infallible so far as they discover and reveal truth, we have inspiration. The doctrine of the Trinity is traced back to extremely ancient times, and may be looked upon as a symbolic description of the manifold Infinite Spirit of God. The divinity of Christ is resolved into "the closest and most vital union of the Spirit of Jesus with the Divine Spirit from whom it sprung," so that "he was the divine under the limits of humanity." Instead of the Calvinistic doctrine of the atonement, which is exploded by evolution, showing its inconsistency with any true idea of God, we are shown Jesus saving his people from their sins, "first by setting them an example of perfect obedience to God's will, and then by assigning a motive to virtue strong enough to enable men to live soberly, righteously, and godly. That motive is the fatherly love of God toward man, which love was manifested in the mission and person of Jesus." Heaven and hell are believed to be spiritual conditions, not places; future punishment, though real, to be limited by the possibility of the ultimate recovery of the soul by infinite power, wisdom, and love. Immortality is accepted. The author's purpose has been, not to stir up bitter controversy, but to help those who are troubled by the difficulties of traditional and popular theology to a plane of thought where all will be made more clear to them; and he anticipates as the result of previous discussions an elevation and purification, a dematerialization and spiritualizing of our views on all the subjects involved.

While no one may be ready to accept all the author's conclusions as he states them, the book must be hailed as an earnest and honest attempt to reflect the light of science and modern research on the most difficult points of Christian doctrine, and to make the way more easy for their acceptance in their true sense. Whatever may be the fate of his particular views, his essay will tend to stimulate thought, and that in the direction of freeing religion from the excrescences which traditional superstition has fastened upon it.

imitation as the most sincere praise, the International Scientific Series has received two very hearty indorsements lately, by the announcement of two series of scientific books, which follow its plan in part. One of these originates in England, and is also published in this country; the other is the Riverside Science Series, of which the