There are books that have what is termed a "springing and germinant accomplishment." The longer you linger with them the more perennial they are.

Epigrammatic writers, too, like Emerson in all his books, like Carlyle in some of his pages, and like Victor Hugo in some of his novels, cannot be read by the page or paragraph. They must be read line by line, word by word, and between the lines and words.

We may close this article, which is to be followed by another on the art of reading books, with this rule: Read and skip. Skip the known only, not the unknown; and skip nothing because difficult, but much because comparatively useless and irrelevant.

THE STUDY OF SCIENCE.

We have in mind a young man who has not had the advantages of a liberal and professional education, whose Conference appointments have been on the prairies or among the mountains, back-woods and the brierwood districts, who nevertheless wishes to do noble work for the Master, who has a laudable ambition to extend hereafter as far as possible his sphere of usefulness, and who is willing to climb the hill, though beset in a measure with downright difficulties. Have we now the eye and ear of one such young Methodist preacher? We dare say not of one, but of one hundred.

In the first place, under the topic before us, we may say that clergymen, except in rare instances, are not expected to be experts or masters in science; for this, at the present time, would require one to give one's self entirely to scientific subjects, and to make "original investigations." This the preacher cannot do; his professional duties demand his chief attention. But by conversation with men of science, and by the reading of the recent literature of the scientific world, together with an occasional excursion in fields and on hill-sides, he may acquire in a briefer time than he imagines that amount of scientific information which the pew has a right to find in the pulpit.

It may be a matter of encouragement for our young friends to be assured that scientific men will gladly talk with clergymen who are seeking for information; popular scientific treatises, too, are within easy reach of almost every one; and the appliances required for field or hill-side excursions need not at the outset be either elaborate or expensive.

With some elementary treatise, for instance, on mineralogy, a hammer, a few chemicals, and a pocket magnifying-glass, the preacher is prepared to begin work on the soils, sands, rocks, and ledges of his neighborhood. With Lessons for Beginners in Botany, a close tin box for collecting flowers, and a magnifying-glass, he is prepared to study the world's flora, and to find much pleasure and profit in every valley and on every hill-side. More than one distinguished naturalist laid in his school-days, with such a kit of instruments, the foundation for his future cabinet of minerals or of natural curiosities.

The following encouraging words are from one who is well qualified to speak them: "Half an hour a day for ten years would make you fit company for philosophers. Are you willing to pay the price? If so, advance and conquer; if not, you must remain ignorant."

As in the study of other subjects, so in the study of science, there are three general methods open to the preacher.

*

The first method is to select one branch of science, and then master it, both by reading every thing written on it, and by conversation with persons who are well acquainted with it. Other things being equal, the preacher would better select some science which is involved in religious controversy. Still, if for a time the preacher has for a neighbor or a parishioner one who is a specialist, for instance, a botanist or an astronomer, or if at a given time he has rare library privileges, it may be wise for him to avail himself of such providential advantages and map out his studies accordingly.

The second method is to aim at a general acquaintance with such scientific matters as are of interest to the public mind. In carrying out this method a deservedly popular writer and preacher gives the following directions:

By the aid of a good dictionary let the student thoroughly comprehend the root ideas in names of the great leading sciences.

Let him next procure elementary school-books, or science primers, such as the Appletons have published, and, without haste, master them one by one.

Then if he has access to a good cyclopedia, the American or British, let him master the articles in them.

Next let him classify in his mind the scientific miscellany which he reads in magazines or papers.

In addition to this let him hear scientific lectures when he can, or read them when published.

The third method combines the other two. That is, a preacher may be specially devoted to one branch of science and at the same time keep up a general reading acquaintance with other branches. Which is the best method is a question that cannot be settled arbitrarily, for much depends on one's mental peculiarities and on one's surroundings. As a rule, however, this third method, if the preacher has time, is the best one.

The next thought relates to the methods of using in sermons this class of materials. They are to be used, if we may employ the terms, poetically or popularly, rather than scientifically. The preacher is not to take his audience into the laboratory; nor is he in didactic speech merely to state facts; he is to popularize scientific matters. He is to present the results, not the methods, of scientific investigation. He is to show the audience a picture on the canvas, rather than the clutter of the studio. In other words, the processes in the study and in the pulpit are essentially different. In the study one is an investigator and a critic; in the pulpit one becomes an expounder; the method of the study is inductive, that of the pulpit deductive.

*At present there is less controversy between natural science and Bible theology than there has been before for the last three quarters of a century. The war-cry of rationalistic scientists is well-nigh silenced. The questions of chief importance now relate to Bible authority.

JOHN JANSSEN.

FOREIGN RÉSUMÉ.

SOME LEADERS OF THOUGHT.

IN the death of this ultramontane church historian, on the 24th of December last, the Roman Catholic Church lost one of its ablest literary defenders, and the Protestant cause one of its most dangerous foes. The estimate placed upon him by his Church may be seen in the fact that had he wished he could have been the successor of Cardinal Hergenroether, the continuator of Hefele's Conciliengeschichte, as keeper of the archives of the Vatican. This honor, however, was certainly not deserved, except as he was an uncompromising papal partisan; for as a scientific historian he falls far below both Hefele and Hergenroether. In fact, he wrote not as an historian but as a partisan. His principal work was, The History of the German People Subsequent to the Middle Ages, in seven volumes, of which six have been published, and the seventh would have appeared in the latter part of 1891 but for the author's fatal illness. The leading purpose of this work was to stamp the Reformation-which, from the Protestant standpoint, was the grandesi product of the German spirit-as the most ruinous revolution which ever took place in the domains of the Church, politics, civilization, and culture; to show that it broke in without regard to consequences upon the magnificently unfolding civilization of Germany, and brought to an end the luxuriant growth of science and the arts. The work deceives the unwary reader by its apparent gigantic learning and the astounding evidence of wide reading, especially in the first volume, which appeared in 1877. Janssen was a master in the choice of his reSources. He was very careful in his use of Protestant material, skillfully hiding some facts and barely mentioning, in a casual way, some others. As the volumes increased in number this partisan tendency grew. In fact, his method was at the farthest remove from historical honesty, and the judgment of succeeding generations will rank him as one of the learned demagogues of the world. His historical falsifications have already been largely exposed by such men as Köstlin and Ebrard. Now that his work is done it will be subjected to the merciless sifting of scholarship, and it will be disastrous to his fame. It is a pleasure to add that as a man he was congenial and benevolent. But this gave him all the more influence with those hesitating souls who are controlled by external appearances, and who are unable to penetrate to the real truth.

PROFESSOR DOCTOR JULIUS KAFTAN, OF BERLIN.

AMONG the younger systematic theologians of Germany Professor Kaftan holds a deservedly high place. He is not proving himself as yet a voluminous writer, although he has published several works which exhibit the keenest insight into the great problems of theology. Probably his most important work thus far is The True Nature of the Christian Religion. Kaftan rightly insists that the question concerning the true nature

of Christianity is the most important with which theology has to deal. Indeed, it may be said that the answer to this question determines all Christian theology. And it is doubtless true, as Kaftan says, that among theologians there is as yet no agreement as to what Christianity is. It may be possible, indeed, that theologians never will perfectly unite upon an answer, since every one comes to the study with certain preconceptions which he introduces into his system. That it will be a benefit to theology to study Christianity afresh from the doctrinal stand-point there can be no doubt. Heretofore systematic theology has not been so much concerned to show that its tenets are the teachings of the Gospel as that the doctrines proposed by the other school or party are not true to Christianity in its inmost character. Our doctrines have been a system of semi-philosophical deductions from certain general and generally accepted concepts, rather than the outgrowth of the study of Christ and his character, life, and utterances. Logic has but little to do with dogmatic theology, except to save us from error in the interpretation of our fundamental fact-the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In view of these considerations Kaftan's method of research is highly commended. Fortunate is it, indeed, that he does not have the field to himself, but that his mistakes are subject to correction by discussion at the hands of others. Personally he is a follower of Ritschl, with a decided conservative tendency. He believes that the question of the truth of Christianity follows rather than precedes that of its nature. His method is rigidly scientific, but is modified by the nature of the matter to be treated. In the examination of the phenomena of religion he remembers that these are the phenomena of the human mind, and not of unintelligent matter. This will serve to show how thoughtful he is in all that he writes or says. He is a good preacher as well as a learned theologian.

PROFESSOR A. KUENEN, OF LEIDEN.

THE recent death of this brilliant Dutch theologian demands that he be mentioned as one of the leaders of thought of his time. He was an originator and firm supporter of those ideas of the Pentateuch of which Wellhausen is the best-known representative in this country. In reality the late Strasburg professor, Eduard Reuss, was the founder of this school. He was followed by Graf, he by Kuenen, he by Wellhausen. The brill. iancy of the last-named scholar's work has made him more famous than any of his predecessors in the same line of thought. Kuenen's ideas were outlined in his History of Israel, and more fully in The Herateuch. In this latter work he intimates that the destructive critics can no longer be arrayed against each other, and that whoever gives thorough study to his and his coadjutor's investigations will become a convert to them. But this is far from the truth. While the number of those who coincide with the newer critical school has largely increased, the list of those of equal ability who still hold to the long accepted view does not diminish. In fact, the newer theories produce more difficulties than they settle; and while men who judge from the stand-point of scientific research alone may

be won over, those who see in the book a revelation to their own souls can never accept the results of the destructive critics. In fact, therefore, we can sympathize with Wellhausen when we must condemn Kuenen. The former is not a professor of theology, but of history, and must look at the Old Testament documents as a historian. But the latter was a theologian, and was supposed to look upon the Old Testament as a source of his faith. In destroying the credibility of these records he destroyed the foundations of his faith. If he felt the truth of his faith he ought to have been assured that its source must be essentially what it gave itself out to be. The great difficulty with these critics is, in many cases, either that they forget that they are Christians and think purely as scientists, or else that their faith has been so altered as that they no longer need any sure foundation upon which to erect it. Of the honesty of Kuenen there is no doubt. Of the injury he did to the cause of religion there is equal certainty. As a scholar he stood in the first rank, and he has left several monuments of his learning.

RECENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

AGRAPHA, BY ALFRED RESCH.

THIS is one of the most interesting as well as valuable publications of Harnack & Gebhart in their Texte und Untersuchungen. Resch defines Agrapha as those words of our Lord, and related utterances, handed down to us by the earliest Christian literature, but which are not contained either in the canonical nor the to-us-known apocryphal gospels. An example of one of the utterances is found in Acts xx, 35. The name Agrapha is scarcely correct, since, far from being unwritten, as the word suggests, they are all found in literature, and many of them cited as having been discovered in documents which are not handed down to us, as in 1 Cor. ii, 9; ix, 10; Eph. v, 14; Jas. iv, 5. Hence these Agrapha are unwritten only with reference to our canonical and apocryphal gospels. Resch finds sixty-two which, to him, scem genuine, while there are one hundred and three which appear to him doubtful or entirely spurious. The author's care in the determination of the genuineness of these Agrapha may be seen in the criteria by which he is guided, as follows: 1. The trustworthiness of the author who cites them. 2. Whether the citation is found in several authors. 3. The stability of the citation by the same author. 4. Whether the citation was intended to advance any particular theory. 5. The definiteness of the form of citation. 6. The language of the Agrapha, whether related to the synoptical gospels, whether Hebraisms are present, whether variations of translation appear which indicate a common ancient Hebrew text. 7. The contents of the Agrapha, their relationship with the canonical words of Christ, whether their contents coincide with the New Testament doctrinal writings, whether a satisfactory exegesis is possible, and whether a significant thought is expressed by them. That sixty-two reported utterances of our