detaches Him from His place in history and rests upon Him as a timeless presence, the ever-accessible incarnation of the highest. There is indeed peril that much of this will be cleared ruthlessly away by levelling and modernizing habits of thought which criticize religion as if it had the function of science and neglect the needs of the inner life as if it were an impertinent and disturbing beggar, or by a complaisant religious modernism which yields too far to these habits. It is truth that for the soul the intervention of centuries is irrelevant and that Christ is a present and intimate saviour. For it was true that in intent His compassion and will to understand knew no limit and that He reserved a delicate sympathy for every soul that might come to Him. That He asks men to repent, brings them forgiveness, gives them strength to amend, and is with them as consoler and support, has a truth far profounder than the barriers of historic time that divide Him from us. It is true that simple souls (and in this all souls are simple) may cast their cares on Him and feel relief. In this light, as the instantaneous deliverer of the spirit, an air of the transcendent and miraculous justly clings about Him-an air of one "supernatural, superrational, supereverything." To tamper with it seems to threaten His power and competence as a deliverer. The philosophy does not exist, nor the delicate justice to the facts, which would fully interpret and vindicate all this. In the interests of the soul during a difficult period of transition it may for some be far truer to surround the doctrine of the virgin birth with a wide and inviolate circle of reverence and caution, than to enter, as here, upon analysis. It is unpardonably wrong to teach something untrue because it will do good, but it may be right to refrain from teaching something true to certain persons because it will do harm; that is, because it would be asking too much to expect them to discern it without further intellectual experience, in its true perspective. No false word should be said, but-any word, in this sphere,

paralyzing to the spiritual life is a false word. Few critics appear to grasp the whole function of symbolism. It is common to say “Oh that is symbolism, is it? Very well. But putting symbolism aside and speaking seriously," etc. It is not perceived that a symbol may be an instrument of knowledge, a means to practical truth, that its office is to exert forthwith the power upon life that philosophic truth ought to exert when at length secured and seen in all its true proportions.

Thus the bishops were hastening to the defence of a life, a habit of spiritual devotion, a source of power. Minds accustomed to an accepted body of ideas and not to its analysis must feel the whole threatened if rude hands are laid on any part. None the less the deep truth in Christian dogma must in its own interest be freed as soon as possible from literal misstatement of historical or cosmic fact and relieved from any conflict with the discoveries of intelligence. The gospel of intelligence must fully be joined to the gospel of the spirit. The task of complete synthesis is perhaps the most arduous that the human mind has ever attempted and it is but too easy for the advance-agents of enlightenment to "substitute a rude simplicity for the complexity of truth." Still, those who say, "This is a difficult time of intellectual transition" must not proceed, by a policy of persistent silence, to make that time as long as possible. Reserve within the church, which every mind of judgment and weight knows to be sometimes indispensable, should have its limits and never be taken up as a permanent attitude; it should keep watch for the opportunities to carry the transition forward.

Still more firmly must it be said that to disregard Christian morals in the attempt to preserve Christian doctrine is of unhappy omen. The bishops address an emphatic admonition to conscience, declaring that a nonliteral interpretation of the clause concerning Christ's birth is "plainly an abuse of language," implying that it is "to trifle with words and cannot but expose us to the suspicion and danger of dishonesty and unreality."

Indeed they go further and appear to imply or suggest that it is flatly inconsistent with "honesty in the use of language." To conscience they appeal, let conscience speak. To bring such charges by plain implication against so many men of long service and honorable standing without taking up, or hinting at the existence of, the case for the defence, as stated above and in innumerable other forms before, without considering the decisions of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the mother-church of England, without evincing any sense that such men must have something to say for themselves and that such a movement in history can hardly have been oblivious of moral considerations; this was to risk using their authority, as unhappily they have actually used it, to promulgate or suggest an injurious slander.

The bishops continue: "Objections to the doctrine of the virgin birth [meaning the literal doctrine] . . . have been abundantly dealt with by the best scholarship of the day." They have of course been "dealt with" by scholarship of various grades, but the bishops evidently mean, not merely dealt with, but effectually met. What a curious conception of the legitimate grounds of belief is betrayed by assuring us that all is well because "objections" "have been abundantly dealt with!" To prove an alleged historical fact what we need is sufficient evidence that it occurred: to controvert the objections that happen to have been made by this or that person or even to offer an explanation of the difficulties presented by the records, is not the primary requirement. That we are entitled to assume an alleged occurrence to have taken place until objections are made to it, which then have to be "dealt with," does indeed appear to be the impression of many minds but it receives no encouragement from logic. If the testimony of the church is invoked as the initial authority then that authority must first of all be validated from the ground up as adequate in respect of this particular event.

It would have been a more congenial task to write this article without a word to intimate that one position

on the historical question was better intrenched than the other. But the bishops in an official document have undertaken to pronounce that the position they oppose is based on inferior scholarship. Once more, we have no right by our considerate reserves to prolong the period of precarious transition which they are intended to safeguard. The Pastoral Letter has precipitated a necessity. for plain speaking under which we can no longer courteously cloak the fact that no thoroughly educated man believes in the literal virgin birth;-though many men do so whose spiritual life, ability and efficiency command our admiration. By education I do not mean learning, but the possession of a competent common-sense training in judging of ordinary matters of evidence. It by no means follows that all who do not believe are thoroughly educated. Loyalty to the clergy is a fine thing, so long as it is consistent with loyalty to the church and to humanity. It is sometimes said that the literal version of the doctrine is rendered so highly probable by certain presuppositions that it does not require such ample evidence as is supposed. But the presuppositions themselves rest upon the slenderest basis of evidence. It is not until we recognize that here too are stern matters of moral principle, that the faithful pursuit of truth by the path of sound method and intellectual honor-a well-marked path for those who sufficiently desire it-is the one hope of mankind for the solution of its problems that we shall escape from the welter of arbitrary opinion.

THE FAITH AND THE CREEDS: LETTER TO THE ALUMNI FROM THE FACULTY OF THE EPISCOPAL THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL AT CAMBRIDGE, MASS.1

We hear that many of you want to know how we as a faculty feel in regard to the problems at present before our church.

1 From Christian Work. 116: 150-2. February 2, 1924.

Our first word would be this: Let every thought that Cambridge men utter be constructive. Let every one of us remember that in time of crisis he should show forth the spirit of Christ even more clearly than when all is going well. May we all take the opportunity to seek out those with whom we disagree, and in conversation and conference talk things over with the utmost candor, remembering that we are brothers in one family, assuming that the religious experience of him with whom we talk is as deep and as rich as ours, striving to see that the heart of his conviction and ours may be the same. May we use these days for preaching and living the gospel as never before. While honest in thought and frank in speech, let us be humble in dealing with the mysteries of God. May alumni and faculty unite in this endeavor.

Secondly, let us turn at once to the questions which the publication of the Pastoral Letter has suggested.

The bishops would be the first to assert that they have no canonical authority to define the faith, and therefore, that their message is one of guidance rather than one of command. They themselves spoke of it as a message of reassurance. They have, we are confident, earnestly tried to allay the fears of many who believe that the faith of the church is in danger.

Furthermore, the bishops bear witness to the rich spiritual meaning which underlies a strict construction of certain clauses of the creeds, and particularly that regarding the virgin birth. Although they would not say that the incarnation is dependent upon the method by which our Lord came into the world, they would say that His life plainly points to such a miraculous advent. Men and women have lived, are living, and will live under the comforting assurance that this is a way in which God has revealed Himself to men.

We would at once acknowledge the wealth of such experience. History is filled with it; saints have been made by it; conduct is controlled by it; theories of life