the great moral force of our times, it is but a new and dangerous condition imposed on moral forces, it only gives more mercurial and volcanic features to society, without furnishing those clues of truth, those well-defined and patent purposes by which these are to be controlled and utilized. The character of a journal should as thoroughly pervade its news-columns as its editorials, and its editorials should be the seat of its strength. The simple circulation of news undoubtedly plays an important part in the form of our civilization, giving breadth of influence to the forces rife among us, bringing facts and theories into quick collision, with a speedy elimination of truth; yet these results can only be complete, safe, and satisfactory when those who are instrumental in them understand them, and contribute material pertinent to the issues in hand. News may easily lose its office and value by its very bulk; and it is not the man who loves news as news that draws from it its lessons, and makes it the data of a sound social philosophy. It is not till a reflective power of some sort has appeared, observing and classifying facts with reference to an end of its own, that the news of the day assumes any especial significance, or is made to subserve any important purpose.

The commercial paper might as well hope to reach its object by a promiscuous circulation of all the items and facts of trade, as the journal to attain the ends of daily influence and instruction by mere news. It is the office of the journalist, at least in a rapid, preliminary way, to subject the news to that discrimination which sifts it, gives it character, and sends it on a definite mission.

There are two sorts of influence that belong to the press. The one is involuntary, and incidental to its very existence; the other is designed, and turns on the ability with which its duties are discharged. The first is that by which intensity, diffusion, mobility, are imparted to our intellectual and social states, and changes of whatever character are carried speedily forward. This result is a necessary consequence of the mechanical facilities afforded by the press, into whosesoever

possession it may have fallen. The second form of influence much better deserves the name, is directly due to those who employ the press, who give it the material it is to circulate. This material, like all intellectual products, will owe its power to the moral purpose and thoughts of those who produce it; and the journalist, like other intellectual laborers, becomes influential only as he is fruitful in thoughts, sentiments, theories. He is thrown back on individual power, soundness of judgment, integrity of moral nature, for the extent and direction of his control. Merely as a medium of influencing men, the journal has its gains and suffers its losses. If its words come often, they go quickly; if they reach many, they touch most lightly; if they have command of the critical moments in political events and public sentiment, it is, nevertheless, only unusual skill, preconceived and definite ends, that can enable the editor to harvest his opportunities.

We wish to urge the thought, that it is not to the press as the press to mere journalism, that we are to attach the notion of a great and overshadowing power. The evils we have spoken of are rather chiefly due to it-a perpetual trespass on the privacy of individuals, a useless consumption of leisure, a fretting tyranny of public sentiment, a reduction of individuality, a loss of political influence, a fresh trial of moral integrity, and the vanity of apparent power springing from the mere fact of publicity. These evils incident to the press are to be escaped by a more just and careful estimate of its real strength, and by the recognition of the fact, that it is only truly and permanently influential as it is the medium of a controlling purpose.

If what has now been said is true of the press as circulating items of news relatively indifferent in their moral character, in an enhanced degree is it true when its columns are filled with the details of crime. It does not follow, that because transgression is not to be covered up, it is therefore to be exposed. Exposure may as much be in the interest of vice as concealment. The one or the other is faulty ac

cording to the motives that prompt it, and the consequences that flow from it. A Police Gazette may be the most truthful and the most pernicious of papers, making the revolting incidents of crime a matter of gossip and idle curiosity. The reasons which lead us to the infliction of punishments in private should prompt us to leave in their natural concealment the disgusting details of sin. If we must at times unearth the dead, let us do it as much as possible by ourselves. A distinct moral purpose should preside over and direct all exposure of the delinquencies and crimes of public and private men, and on no other condition are the vices of our time to be offered as the news, the wholesome food, of the day. We protest against blind journalism, that closes its eyes to the results of its own action as if there were such candor and good faith in the mere exposure and aeration of the details of vice as to correct their evil effects. The journalist, in advertisement, item, or editorial, may not work within the field of moral influence, and yet place himself on a purely commercial basis. He has to do with the obvious consequences of his own action. Irresponsible journalism is a force, but one in whose development the editor becomes as unconscientious an instrument as the engine he employs.

The new conditions imposed on society by the press compel us, indeed, to look more anxiously for wise and sincere men to use these increased facilities of diffusion, but by no means put it in the power of one class greatly to control society, aside from a personal strength and integrity commensurate with the ends aimed at. The conditions of influence which belong to the journalist are precisely those which fall to every man; and if his position gives him more opportunities, it also puts his powers to a severer test. Real, creative acts are, as of yore, not found in an instrument, but in the mind that uses it; and as often attend, therefore, on silent thought as on busy, bustling execution. It is the child that mistakes noise for work.

ARTICLE II.

DESTRUCTIVE ANALYSIS IN THEOLOGY.

BY PROF. LEMUEL 8. POTWIN, WESTERN RESERVE COLLEGE, OHIO.

THE most perfect illustrations of analysis are found in the science of chemistry. You hold in your hand a piece of granite. What is it? It is a stone. That would be a sufficient answer for some minds. If you wish to throw it at a mark, it is only as a stone that you care for it. But if you wish to exercise the faculties of your mind upon it, you must answer very differently the question, What is it? Crushing the stone, you carefully separate the three kinds of material which, judging from color and hardness, appear to compose it. Applying the requisite tests, you discover that one part of this material quartz, or silica - is chemically an acid, and is composed of silicon and oxygen. These two, resisting all efforts at analysis, are called elements. Analyzing the other two constituents, - feldspar and mica, both of which are chemically salts and silicates of alumina and potash, you find that your piece of granite amounts to this: It is a certain combination of silicon, aluminum, potassium, iron, hydrogen, and oxygen.

You may carry on this analysis with such care as to determine the exact amount of each of these simple substances. When you have done all, however, if you want a piece of granite for use, you do not go to a laboratory and order these ingredients; for these things are not granite, though they compose it; and they cannot be made into granite by any human skill. You cannot think of them as granite. Ultimate analysis in chemistry is a destructive process. Its result does not even define the substance analyzed.

This is the more plain when you come to organic chemistry. Analyze all the organic compounds in an oak. The ultimate result is four simple elements- carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen,

and oxygen. Analyze animal tissue in the same manner, and you come at last to the same four. Not only does the infinite diversity of animal and vegetable organic composition come down to this humble monotony of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen; but some organic substances, quite different in properties, contain the same elements in the same proportions. After you have finished your analysis, which is of great value for certain purposes, you do not go to it to find out what an oak is, or an apple, or an orange. Ultimate analysis goes too far for this. If you stop half way, content with ascertaining the distinguishing organic compounds of each, you learn more about them. And for many purposes the five senses are better than any scientific analysis.

Something like this destructive, disorganizing analysis seems to have befallen theology. If I am not mistaken, it has been applied with damaging effect to the atonement.

The atonement is a fact. Like a granite foundation-stone, it sustains a moral and historical structure. The church of God is built on it. Now, philosophers analyze this fact. They find in it a manifestation of love, self-sacrifice, and justice. But here comes the trouble. These same qualities they find in human actions, in far inferior ones. In the analysis they have lost the whole in getting the parts. Somehow they have let slip the distinguishing feature, the property, the formative law, the historic life, of the fact. They have levelled the greater to the less, just as physical analysis destroys the difference between the oak and the cabbage, the diamond and charcoal.

That I may not seem to be "beating the air," I will quote from a theologian 'whom I admire and honor, but whose theology seems to suffer because his mind is, if the paradox may be allowed, too profound and too analytic, as well as too poetic.

Opening Dr. Bushnell's "Vicarious Sacrifice," the reader meets the following titles: "Nothing superlative in vicarious sacrifice, or above the universal principles of right and duty"; "The eternal Father in vicarious sacrifice"; "The Holy