The responsibility of the school to him is all the greater. How far it is possible to go, even in a boarding-school, in making special provision for members of other denominations must be within the discretion of the school authorities and determined by circumstances. At one or two great public schools it is found that something can be done. But the school must have some definite religious character. The chapel worship and teaching must be the worship and teaching of the Church or else of some other denomination. In fact, most of the great schools are, as the result of their history, in the hands of Churchmen, and their worship is that of the Church. In the unlikely event of any attempt being made to deprive them of this character by legislation, it would be the duty of all Churchmen to unite in opposition to such a measure. It is their more practical and immediate duty to give to the authorities of the schools in which their children are such sympathy and encouragement, even if need be to apply to them such pressure, as to secure that the religious training of their children, which is yearly improving in value and efficiency, should be maintained at the highest point. Thus only can they pass into the temptations and the controversies of a larger world, intelligent believers in the doctrine, and practical adherents of the discipline, of the Church which claims them for her own.

In conclusion, the purpose of this essay will have been secured if it has been shown that education, viewed in the spirit of Anglican Christianity, is a very solemn responsibility and a very noble work; that the Church in England, while she desires liberty to do her proper work for her own baptised members, is not merely willing to concede, but demands on principle an equal liberty for all other religious organisations; that Anglicans not merely welcome, but wish to take their fullest share in furthering the work of national education, because they believe that

all patient study, all earnest teaching, all careful training of character will bring more light and more strength to the English people, will tend to the glory of God, and will advance the manifestation of the Truth as it is in Christ. It is their principle that where there is liberty there is truth, and "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

XI.

The Bible and Modern Criticism

By T. B. STRONG, B.D.

HE Bible is the sacred book of the Christian Church.

THE

In it are to be found the limits of true doctrine, the principles of worship, the ideal forms of spiritual emotion, and the laws of moral life. As the Church of Christ covers the whole of human life, so the Bible affords the principles upon which man's various interests and powers must be guided. It is the source of all Christian thought, and is as wide as Christian life. It must be remembered, however, that this authoritative position did not always belong to it. In the earliest days of the Church many of the books of the New Testament were not in existence. Of those that now form part of the Canon, some did not find their way there, at any rate universally, for some considerable time; and there are some books which seem to have had, as we may say, a good chance of a place in the sacred list, but were finally rejected by the Church. Thus the New Testament Canon was a growth -a list of books deliberately selected out of a larger number as representative of the spirit and doctrine of the Society to which they belonged, and as containing the teaching of the earliest followers of Christ. The New Testament was thus the product of the Church, and

THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE

311 not the Church of the New Testament. Or rather, the growth of the Church as a living Society, and the gradual disappearance of its original leading members, forced into prominence the writings, almost always occasional writings, which they had put out in their lifetime. These contained the doctrine of those whose living voice had passed into silence. For a few years there still echoed some few fragments of their teaching which had not been written in their books; but these sounds soon cease, and we are left with the collection of books as we now have it, containing all that is generally necessary for salvation.

It is probable that the formation of the Old Testament Canon was a work of considerable time, and it may be that the three divisions which still obtain in our Hebrew Bibles mark three separate collections of books; but we are not immediately concerned with this question. The Old Testament was taken over by the Christian Church practically as it now stands. Some have thought that the Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes were added later than the time of Christ, but there is no sign in any Christian writer of any knowledge that additions had been recently made. So far as positive evidence goes, it is safe to say that the Old Testament was received by the Church from the Jews as a whole, but it was received with a special intention and in a special sense. To the apostles the phrase "The Scripture" meant always the Old Testament. In this book they found a recital of the long preparation of the world for the coming. of Christ, indications of the methods of God's providence, and foreshadowings of the new dispensation which Christ had brought about. Thus the value of the Old Testament to the apostles first, and through them to the Church, lay in its distinctively Christian bearing. As a record of law, and history, and prophecy, it was fulfilled by the new

order of things. It had never been a dead record of past facts and dead men; it was alive through and through with future hope, so that at any point where it might be touched its main message would sound forth; even its details had significance, and bore on the future Messiah. It was taken over from the Jews, but not in a Jewish sense. To the mind of the apostles it was now for the first time interpreted adequately, seeing that the full and unclouded light necessary for understanding it came from the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Thus the Old Testament, received from the Old Dispensation, and interpreted by the New, combined with the books selected gradually out of a larger list by the instinct of the Church under the Holy Spirit's guidance, forms the sacred book of the Christian Society. The disappearance of much of the literature of the early Church, and the consequent vanishing of almost all fragments of oral tradition outside the Scriptures, leave this Book or Collection of Books standing alone and authoritative. This position has been given them, in some form and in some sense, from the time when the Canon was fixed until the present day. The Bible has never been wholly ignored. The great heresies of the fourth century were defended as being a true interpretation of Holy Scripture. The Roman Church in the sixteenth century would have condemned itself if it had condemned Holy Scripture. It did attempt to forbid all interpretations of Scripture except its own, and disallowed the free use and interpretation of it by unlearned and unauthorised persons. But its defenders appeal to Scripture like anybody else, as may be seen in their works; only they appeal to it as glossed and explained by generations of accredited teachers. In some form or other Scripture has never fallen from its position as the final court of appeal, but it has been treated at every