THE HISTORICAL METHOD 
 IN THE STUDY of RELIGION 
 
 By SHIRLEY JACKSON CASE, Ph.D. 
 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ^^ 
 
 An address delivered on the occasion 
 of his inauguration into the professor- 
 ship of the Philosophy and History 
 of Religion in Cobb Divinity School, 
 Bates College, Lewiston, Maine, June 
 Twenty -Six, Nineteen Hundred Seven 
 
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 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
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 ase, Shirley Jackson, 1872- 
 1947. 
 The historical method in th< 
 study of religion 
 
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THE HISTORICAL METHOD IN 
 THE STUDY OF RELIGION 
 
 By SHIRLEY JACKSON^'cASE, Ph.D. 
 
 An address delivered on the occasion of his 
 inauguration into the professorship of the 
 Philosophy and History of Religion in Cobb 
 Divinity School, Bates College. Lewiston, Me., 
 June Twenty-Six, Nineteen Hundred Seven 
 
 LEWISTON. MAINE 
 
 Press of the Lewiston Journal 
 
 1907 
 
ORDER OF 
 
 Inaugural Exercises 
 
 iflitstr 
 
 Record of the Action of the Trustees, 
 
 by the Secretary Hon. F. INI. Drew 
 
 Induction, by the President 
 
 George C. Chase, D.D.. LL.D. 
 
 Welcome to the Fellowship of the Faculty, 
 
 by the Dean Rev. James A. Howe, D.D. 
 
 Inaugural Address : 
 
 The Historical Method in the Study of Religion 
 
 Professor Case 
 
 iHusir 
 
The Historical Method in the Study 
 of Religion 
 
 It seems appropriate at this time that I should set forth 
 the fundamental principles underlying my particular depart- 
 ment : The Philosophy and History of Religion. 
 
 The scope of my work, the method to be pursued, and the 
 results to be sought are all matters which seem to demand 
 some exposition on this occasion. With this end in view I 
 shall discuss the Historical Method in the Study of Relig- 
 ion, and thereby introduce you to the character of the work 
 that falls distinctively to my hand as a teacher in Cobb 
 Divinity School. 
 
 RELIGION DEJ"INED 
 
 A glance at our latest catalog will show that my depart- 
 ment proposes for itself no less a task than the study of the 
 science of religion. It thereby regards religion as a science, 
 and so must take it in a broad sense. Consequently a com- 
 prehensive definition of religion is essential to further 
 enquiry, but this is not easily obtained. True, there are 
 numerous definitions already in existence but most of them 
 are inadequate — they are either not broad enough to include 
 all varieties of faith, or not comprehensive enough to 
 embrace all the elements in a single variety. If, for exam- 
 ple, you say religion is the worship of Jehovah you have 
 excluded some who are religous though they are neither 
 Jews nor Christians ; and if you call it the worship of any 
 being or beings regarded by the individual as superhuman 
 the definition is still unsatisfactory, for worship is not really 
 religion but is merely one of its forms of expression. The 
 individual worships because he is religious, and not z'icc 
 
versa. Another popular statement defines religion as "the 
 life of God in the soul of man," but this might lead one to 
 infer that it is an exotic plant transferred from its native 
 heavenly atmosphere into the frigid zone of the human soul. 
 On the contrary, investigation seems to show that man is 
 inherently and incurably religious. We propose to define 
 religion as the God-ward consciousness of the human race, 
 the soul's sense of its relation to deity. It is the God-faculty 
 of man. This is comprehensive enough to include all peoples 
 of every shade of faith. It embraces, indeed, the entire 
 human race, for we have yet to find a people absolutely 
 devoid of this consciousness. Some tribes, low in the scale 
 of civilization, have been thought to be entirely without it, 
 but a better acquaintance with them has shown that the sup- 
 position was erroneous. Sometimes this religious faculty is in 
 a very crude state, resulting in a low conception of the deity 
 and false ideas of the relation existing between him and the 
 creature. But in Christ we see this religious consciousness 
 in its highest activity ; it is he who sees the Father with clear- 
 est vision, and the ideal relationship of man to God is set 
 forth in his familiar words : *'Thy will not mine be done." 
 The noble Christian conception of God, and the Christian 
 struggle to attain unity of will with the Father, seem a 
 great distance removed from the faith of the savage, and 
 the terror and superstition which control his attitude to the 
 unseen, but in germ the intelligent attitude of the Christian 
 and the blind groping of a primitive man are one — instinct- 
 ively there is in each the God-ward leaning of the human 
 spirit. 
 
 But religion is more than an inherent thought germ — it is 
 a life. This God-ward consciousness has an objective con- 
 tent, an expressive vitality, and a character-determining 
 power. Objectively it includes every picture of deity that 
 has ever been painted by the imagination of man. It has 
 
prompted him to see the Ahiiighty sometimes in a freak of 
 chance, sometimes in an unusual display of nature's powers, 
 and sometimes in the still, small voice. Moreover, it will 
 not remain unexpressed. Ceremony, creed, ritual, the 
 diverse forms of worship from the superstitious practices of 
 the savage to the sane devotion of the Christian find in it the 
 main spring of their life. And it, of course, is the basal 
 factor in determining personal conduct and character. 
 
 Religion, then, is not to be consigned to some hermeti- 
 cally sealed compartment of the human heart, it is an inte- 
 gral part of the man. It colors his thinking, regulates the 
 devotions of his soul, and determines the balance of his 
 entire life. 
 
 THE STUDY OF RELIGION: ITS SCOPE 
 
 If religion must be thus broadly defined, what limits are 
 to be set to the study of it? Such study will fall into three 
 general divisions. First, an examination and comparison 
 of the historical data of all religions, commonly designated 
 the History and Comparison of Religions. This field of 
 investigation is as wide as the distribution of the human 
 family and reaches back to primeval man. Every element 
 that is included in the religious life of all men, past and 
 present, must be sought out, and the results of the investi- 
 gation formulated. To these results the comparative method 
 is then to be applied, that the fundamental conceptions of all 
 religions may be ascertained, and the religious ideas of the 
 race be thus reduced to their lowest terms. This compari- 
 son must deal with the relation of certain ideas in the same 
 faith, or similar ideas in the faiths of different peoples. 
 Take, for instance, the parallels that have been observed to 
 exist between certain beliefs common to the Babylonians 
 and Hebrews, or between Buddhism and Christianity. It is 
 
the business of the student in this department to determine 
 whether these similar ideas are proof of original interde- 
 pendence, or whether the likeness is due to the working out 
 of a common religious impulse. With his broad outlook it 
 will not disturb him to find some phases of Christian thought 
 anticipated in the historic faiths. Why should not human 
 beings with a common religious instinct come to think alike, 
 without borrowing from each other? Their resemblances 
 in religious thinking may be but additional evidence of a 
 common native impulse. This wide study of the historic 
 religions is of especial importance for theological students. 
 If they are to be the spiritual surgeons for their own gener- 
 ation they should understand the religious anatomy of the 
 race. 
 
 This then is the first item in our study, the sifting and 
 comparing of the objective elements in the religions of the 
 world. 
 
 There is also a second important item : A study of the 
 religious consciousness in the life of the individual. What 
 are the laws which govern this God-ward gravity of the 
 human mind? What are the conditions which stimulate its 
 activity, or what the circumstances which retard its growth ? 
 This is a study of the personal element sometimes called the 
 Psychology of Religion. Here, too, the ministerial student 
 will find material for reflection. Possibly we make some of 
 our gravest blunders by assuming that the mind of another 
 must deal with religious problems just as ours did. Noth- 
 ing could serve better as a corrective for this error than a 
 study of the personal element in the religious experience of 
 the past. To illustrate, suppose you wish to explain the 
 nature of true conversion, what is the mental process that 
 you would require in the individual? Would it be some- 
 what in this wise : an overmastering sense of the burden of 
 sin, a feeling of absolute helplessness under this burden, and 
 
then a sudden feeling that the burden has been removed 
 by beHeving in the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ? But 
 the mental make-up of some men is such that they do not 
 seem able to entertain this point of view. They are not 
 conscious of being great sinners, for their lives have not 
 been stained by vicious habits; and the moral law has been 
 kept as carefully by them as by yourself. ]\Ioreover, they 
 do not feel that they are helplessly worsted in the struggle 
 with sin, for they are aware of a certain moral fibre within 
 them which strengthens them to resist evil. Nor can their 
 sense of justice (so they say) consent to the validity of pun- 
 ishing the innocent instead of the guilty. And yet they 
 seem to be honest and sincere, and are interested in things 
 religious. What shall we do with such men? Shall we 
 demand that their thought be cast into our mental mold, or 
 else that they forever remain outside the pale of the church ? 
 If we are sure that our interpretation of the psychology of 
 conversion is absolutely infallible then we must demand that 
 it be accepted as the only condition of entrance into the 
 kingdom. But before we become dogmatic upon such mat- 
 ters, we should make a careful study of those elements 
 which, at this point, entered into the experience of well- 
 known persons in the past. Can we verify our theory by 
 reference to the initiatory experiences of James, John, Peter, 
 Matthew, Nathaniel, Justin Martyr? Is the vital thing in 
 conversion the attainment by all individuals of a uniform 
 psychological state, or is it the conscious fusion of the spirit 
 of a man with the spirit of God under a psychological state 
 that may be peculiar to each individual? At any rate the 
 most valid information on this question, as well as on many 
 others, will be found in a study of personal experience in its 
 historic manifestations. 
 
 And another very profitable side to this psychological 
 enquiry is the insight which it gives into the mental activi- 
 
ties of great religions leaders. What is more enlightening 
 and personally helpfnl than to follow their mental pro- 
 cesses as they struggle with the problems of their day ! So 
 to study the thought of Christ is to get for oneself the 
 mind of the Master, and the ability to think his thoughts 
 after him. 
 
 But our task is not yet complete. We have dealt with the 
 data of religion drawn from history and psychology, and 
 our next undertaking is to discover if possible a common, 
 fundamental religious instinct in man, to formulate the laws 
 which govern it, and to test the validity of these laws in the 
 light of common rationality, and in relation to the great 
 world order. This is technically denominated the Philos- 
 ophy of Religion. It used to be supposed that one could 
 philosophize upon this subject without much regard for 
 objective facts, it was the duty of the facts to accommodate 
 themselves to the theories which an elaborate system of 
 philosophy had enunciated. But this method is fast becom- 
 ing obsolete. Not long ago a late authority, speaking upon 
 this topic, said : "The time has long since passed wdien people 
 fancied they could philosophize about religion without car- 
 ing for its history. Of the absolute indispensability of his- 
 torical studies I need not remind you." 
 
 Such in general is the scope of my department. It deals 
 primarily with the religious consciousness of humanity as 
 expressed in history. It seeks, therefore, to investigate all 
 facts in the realm of the religious life, and to enquire into 
 the mental activities of religious personages, and finally to 
 show that its formulations satisfy .the intellectual curiosity 
 of the race, and accord with a rational interpretation of the 
 universe. 
 
 THE HISTORICAL METHOD DEFINED 
 
 Thus it is evident that we are committed to the so-called 
 historical method in the entire study, and it is now our inten- 
 
 9 
 
tion to view this method at closer range. We shall seek to 
 define it more exactly, to show its bearing upon some of the 
 more important points in Christianity, and to set forth the 
 ends which it should serve. 
 
 History deals primarily with facts. It may content itself 
 with a simple narration of past events, or it may comment 
 upon their relations and explain the causes which produced 
 them, but essentially it is a factual science. As applied to 
 religion (and we shall now speak of it in connection with 
 Christianity more especially) it is a method of study which 
 scans the past to ascertain matters of certainty — exactl}' what 
 was thought, said, or done. Now is it true, as one said not 
 long ago, that "there are well-meaning Christians all over 
 the world whose eyes are unable to stand the full glare of 
 facts?" Are the devotees of Christianity more loyal to tra- 
 dition, to prejudice, to dogma, or to creed than they are to 
 truth ? I cannot think it is so. Indeed, we are sometimes 
 dogmatic, and show scant courtesy toward him whose opin- 
 ions differ from ours, but we each think we are standing 
 upon the facts, though it is evident that someone must be 
 mistaken. The historical method seeks to set aside all blind- 
 ing prejudices and to look with steady eye upon the relig- 
 ious truth of the ages. If there is anything discovered that 
 calls for remodeling of ideas it stands ready to follow the 
 light — it loves light rather than darkness even though to 
 walk in the light requires the sacrifice of some of its long- 
 cherished opinions. 
 
 Is it, then, the champion of every would-be new theology ? 
 Our ears are sometimes assaulted by a babel of voices that 
 would have us think Christianity has never been properly 
 understood until now, but to the student who pursues the 
 historical method these new nostrums are not particularly 
 palatable. If they relate themselves properly to the age- 
 long stream of truth he accepts them, otherwise he rejects. 
 
His is the scientific attitude. He thinks it shows an inordi- 
 nate conceit on the part of the theologian to assume that he 
 knows all the truth that is knowable, and that it is equally a 
 sign of empty-headedness to be chasing balloon-fashion 
 every new fad that appears on the theological horizon. His- 
 torical study is a sober science. It calls to its aid the criti- 
 cal historian, the trained archaeologist, and the competent 
 student of literature. Of the first it asks accurate informa- 
 tion about the happenings of the past; it demands of the 
 second all available knowledge regarding the life and cus- 
 toms of primitive peoples, as a key to the comprehension of 
 their religious ideas ; and to the third it looks for reliable 
 information concerning the origin and trustworthiness of 
 the extant religious literatures. Incidentally, too, it seeks 
 the aid of the psychologist and philosopher in interpreting 
 the mind and thought of individuals. Nor is it concerned 
 with the past alone. If that were the case it might be con- 
 tent with establishing a museum of antiquities, a collection 
 of theological curios ; but it labors in the interests of the 
 present, hence it aims to put its results in such form that the 
 present may reap full benefit therefrom. 
 
 Perhaps we shall understand this historical method better 
 by observing its manner of procedure in some specific 
 instances. We shall take three illustrations : How does it 
 deal with the Bible? How does it study the historical per- 
 son, Jesus Christ? and how does it handle the problem of 
 authorit}' in religion? 
 
 THE HISTORICAL METHOD APPLIED TO THE BIBLE 
 
 When one approaches the Bible from this point of view 
 he is apt to be dubbed "higher critic," and that is an oppro- 
 brious epithet often thought to be almost coterminous with 
 infidel. Xow the student mav be a higher critic and he 
 
may not be. Very likely he is. however, but what of that? 
 You know there are critics and critics. Luther said of some 
 interpreters, who were even among- his own followers, that 
 they reminded him of Solomon's trading ships : some came 
 back ladened with gold, others brought only apes and pea- 
 cocks. If one is a historical investigator he finds no delight 
 in exploiting freakish hypotheses, but he will conduct a rigid 
 research for the truth. Occasionally some one snaps up a 
 fact that has been brought to light by the archaeologist and 
 flaunts it in the face of the public as evidence that refutes 
 the folly of the higher critic. Some of our otherwise reput- 
 able religious journals are not entirely free from this sort of 
 jingoism. Do they not know that it is the higher critic, if 
 his method is genuinely historical, as is usually the case, who 
 is most ardently backing this work of research ! When the 
 result corroborates the scriptural records his joy is great, and 
 when it is contradictory he loyally sets to work to deal with 
 the situation. It is the avowed purpose of the historical stu- 
 dent to shed all possible light upon the book. 
 
 And how does he go about it? One of the first queries 
 he raises is. How did the sacred book come into being? He 
 traces the history of its translation back to the ancient man- 
 uscripts, but here he is dismayed to find what at first sight" 
 seems to be utter chaos. He may discover 100,000 varia- 
 tions of reading in the New Testament manuscripts alone. 
 He must then sift and compare and select these readings 
 that seem to be best authenticated; but here he must trust 
 his own judgment at many points, for he will not find the 
 original copy written by Matthew or by Mark or by John, 
 nor will he at best get within a couple centuries of the 
 autograph. He cannot know what alterations in copying 
 may have taken place during that time; but thanks to his 
 tireless industry and the saneness of his judgment he has 
 convinced us that our present revised version represents in 
 
all essentials the truth as it was recorded by the authors 
 themselves. The process, however, has destroyed any belief 
 which he may have held in a doctrine of verbal inspiration, 
 but it has given him instead a more faithful representation 
 of the meaning of the original documents. 
 
 He will now push his enquiry still further to ascertain the 
 facts about individual books : When and why were they 
 written, and by whom? And have they undergone any lit- 
 erary history in the course of transmission? What were 
 the grounds on which certain books were chosen as author- 
 itative, and how and when did this idea come into being? 
 
 And then he turns his attention to the interpretation of 
 scripture, and finds that certain verses have here and there 
 been torn from their context in order to support some favor- 
 ite theological doctrine; and he forthwith records an 
 emphatic veto. He demands that every interpreter under- 
 stand the circumstances behind the individual book, and 
 interpret its meaning accordingly. Especially does he object 
 to having a priori hypotheses in theology foisted upon Paul, 
 or Peter, or Jesus. He demands that you interpret these 
 persons, and all others, in the light of their times and in 
 accordance with tha context, whether you can square the 
 interpretation with your own belief or not. The historical 
 student has great respect for the Bible but he does not treat 
 it as a fetish. He worships and adores the God whose truth 
 it reveals, and recognizes that the sacred word is not the 
 author of religion but rather is one of its products. His aim 
 is, therefore, to understand the book that he may ultimately 
 comprehend the truth which brought it into being. 
 
 JESUS STUDIED HISTORICALLY 
 
 How does the historical investigator proceed in his study 
 of Jesus Christ ? One of his first efiforts will be to eliminate 
 if possible those elements in the reported words and deeds 
 
 13 
 
of the Master that are colored by the individuaHsm of the 
 ditterent gospel writers. And here he is greatly aided by 
 the fact that there are four biographies instead of one. A 
 careful comparison may betray individual traits which could 
 never be known from one alone, and an original incident 
 or word that failed to appeal to one may have been preserved 
 by another. This effort, if successful, would show the real 
 Jesus of history as distinct from that special picture of him 
 painted respectively by Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. 
 
 There will also be a very earnest attempt to understand 
 the mind of Jesus, to trace the history of his religious devel- 
 opment as he met the great issues of his day, to appreciate 
 his view of the truth, to learn the secret of his power, and to 
 understand the full significance of his wonderful message to 
 mankind. 
 
 Then there is the person of Jesus, with the doctrinal inter- 
 pretation of which the historical student is not much inclined 
 to meddle. He does however recognize Jesus' uniqueness, 
 and he strives to investigate the facts which reveal its basis. 
 In so far as this demands an examination of- personality, or 
 a discussion of metaphysical problems, this method holds 
 that the data of modern research in the departments of 
 psychology and philosophy shall be consulted. The stereo- 
 typed phrases of some of the ancient theologians, whose 
 logic was sometimes verbal rather than rational, must often 
 be ruled out of court, for we recognize that psychology and 
 metaphysics belong to an exact science whose domain must 
 not be desecrated by word-juggling devices regarding like 
 natures, or identical natures, or unity of nature and dis- 
 tinction of personality, and the like. Historical study has no 
 difficulty whatever in recognizing the divinity of Christ, but 
 it sees his divinity more easily in the realm of the spirit than 
 in the physical or metaphysical spheres. 
 
 14 
 
HISTORY AND AUTHORITY 
 
 In the next place, how are we to deal with the problem of 
 authority in religion ? It is the dictum of historical science 
 that truth alone is authoritative, and that written records 
 have authority just in proportion to their truthfulness. By 
 this canon it measures all documents, even the Bible. It 
 regards the truth recorded in the Bible as finding its validity, 
 not primarily in the fact of scriptural canonicity, but in its 
 own essential qualities. In other words, a thing is not true 
 because it is in the Bible, but it is in the Bible because it 
 is true, or was thought to be true at the time the narrative 
 was written. This, on the strength of the best evidence 
 available, seems to have been the opinion of Jesus who 
 regarded some things in the book, said by those of old time 
 in the religious childhood of the Hebrew race, not as absolute 
 and eternal verities wdien placed under the searchlight of his 
 superior wisdom. Truth carries with it its own attestation, 
 and does not rest upon some arbitrary dictum pronounced 
 in the past. For example, what constitutes the binding 
 power of the decalogue ? Is it this, that God has decreed it 
 to be a law binding upon mankind for all ages? Would it, 
 therefore, be right to steal if God had not commanded other- 
 wise ? Of course not. There is really no such thing as cre- 
 ating law, law is discovered not made. Even physical law 
 which appears regnant in the universe is not to be thought 
 of as a separate thing due to a special creative act, but 
 inheres essentially in the very idea of a created universe. So 
 the decalogue is inherently authoritative, and is not merely 
 made so by the divine pronouncement. Had God pro- 
 nounced to the contrary, thus violating moral truth, he would 
 not have been God. Truth has rights upon which even the 
 Almighty may not infringe. In the very nature of things 
 it would be impossible for him to decree that error should 
 be truth. 
 
 IS 
 
But what capacity has man for comprehending truth? 
 There is, in the first place, the common reHgious faculty of 
 the race. This has uniformly borne witness to such articles of 
 faith as confidence in the existence of deity, an idea of the 
 relationship of the human and the divine, and some sense 
 of a future condition ; and its witness is not without weight. 
 But of more worth are the clearer visions of Christians in 
 past ages, to whom the great essentials of Jesus' revelation 
 have proven soul- satisfying. We are bound to respect the 
 Christianity of the past, and regard it an authoritative factor 
 in molding that of the present. 
 
 Then there is the authority of the individual. He comes 
 into conscious relation with God and, in so far as his spirit 
 receives the enlightening of the divine spirit, he considers 
 himself to be in the possession of truth. But what shall we 
 say of the extent and absoluteness of this test? We know 
 how tenaciously some men hold quite contrary opinions, 
 each equally confident that the other is in error. Calvin 
 declared Christ to be "the eternal son of God" while Serve- 
 tus believed him to be the "son of the eternal God," and 
 Servetus burned at the stake in loyalty to his faith while 
 Calvin thought God's will was thereby being performed. The 
 personal equation can never be entirely eliminated from our 
 thinking, but its presence may be recognized. But suppose 
 we say, "we are indoctrinated by the Holy Spirit and there- 
 fore are right ; we have the truth and those who do not agree 
 with us are in error." When we take this attitude very 
 likely we need to be reminded that there are some things 
 which, in the very nature of the case, God himself cannot do. 
 For instance, he cannot put the entire ocean into a teacup 
 and have it remain the ocean, nor can he instil a full reve- 
 lation of truth into a cranium whose thought capacity is of 
 narrow range and whose chambers are already occupied by 
 the demons of dogmatism, ignorance, prejudice and religious 
 
 i6 
 
intolerance. Perhaps the religious mind more than any- 
 other needs to give constant attention to mental house- 
 cleaning. But at best the limitations of a man forbid that 
 God should make an absolute and supreme revelation of 
 truth to him. It is not enough to say "this is the way it 
 seems to me and this must be the final test of religious cer- 
 tainty." Yet there is danger of our doing this without hav- 
 ing made an honest effort to free ourselves fro;n enslaving 
 limitations. 
 
 Thus historical study appeals for its authority to the self- 
 attesting power of truth, to the interpretations of the indi- 
 vidual and of the race, and to the scriptural records, partic- 
 ularly those which contain the message of Jesus. 
 
 THE STUDY OF RELIGION: ITS COMPREHENSIVE AIM 
 Finally, what are the ends which this entire study is meant 
 to subserve in the training of men for the Christian minis- 
 try? Time will permit us to answer the question only in 
 merest outline. Its comprehensive aim is to grasp the mean- 
 ing of human existence in its relation to the life of God. 
 What is the significance of a human life in its relation to the 
 age-long story of the divine economy ? 
 
 But at once we are impressed by the insignificance of a 
 human being. How insignificant is man physically! His life 
 hangs by a delicate thread that may snap in an instant, nor 
 can he compare in strength with the beast of the field or the 
 creature of the forest. The ox that he goads or the lion 
 that he cages ma\^ easily, worst him in a trial of physical 
 strength. 
 
 And how small man is in the vastness of the universe ! 
 Some starry night he wanders forth, in imagination, into 
 space. When he has reached the most distant planet his 
 journey is scarcely begun, yet he has passed many twinkling 
 orbs that far exceed in bulk his little mother earth ; and then 
 
 17 
 
he passes on to the nearest fixed star, only to find it the cen- 
 ter of a solar system as vast as his own. And beyond is a 
 labyrinth of worlds. Blinded by the blaze of immensity he 
 gropes his way back to earth and asks, What is man in the 
 vast universe of God? He is, as it were, only a mote on a 
 little grain of star dust whirling on endlessly through space. 
 
 Or look at him, if you will, as he fills his place upon the 
 earth. He may boast of his divine origin, or exult in the 
 promise of his glorious future ; he may observe that the 
 Bible opens with a Paradise made for him and closes with 
 the picture of a grander Paradise that awaits him, but what 
 lies between these two mountain peaks of revelation? When 
 the gates of the first Eden closed upon mankind, he 
 descended headlong to the valley below and here he has been 
 left to work out his destiny. He is henceforth a creature 
 of the lowland, and must breathe the odors of its miasmatic 
 swamps that exhale the pestilential malaria of sin. Here, 
 too, lurks the evil serpent, which, grown bold with his suc- 
 cess over men, finally attempts to fasten his fangs in the very 
 Son of God. The story of human earthly struggle from 
 the beginning to the end is one of sore conflict and distress. 
 Surely there can be little wonder that the human spirit at 
 last should flutter at the windows of heaven as a bird with 
 sin-stained and bedraggled plumage. 
 
 Man, standing alone, is nothing. He may flourish to-day 
 and to-morrow and the day after, but ultimately is cut down 
 as grass and withereth. He finds the true significance of his 
 being only by linking himself zvith the Almighty. 
 
 The history of human progress has emphasized this fact 
 time and again. How does it happen that to-day the gigan- 
 tic steam engine plunges headlong across the continent and 
 the giant steamship cleaves its way through the ocean, eft'ect- 
 ing a speed in transportation of which our ancestors of a 
 few generations ago never dreamed? Has the Creator 
 
 i8 
 
endowed the universe with some new possibilities within 
 these recent years? No! From the very day of creation 
 the little drop of water held its expansive properties, but for 
 ages it had been waiting for some man to unlock the portals 
 of its power. To-day the electric wire encircles the globe 
 and we may send a message, in almost an instant, to some 
 far distant friend, or indeed converse with him. Has God 
 only recently surcharged the universe with electric power? 
 No ! From time immemorial the lightning has sported in 
 the heavens, waiting for some man, with Promethean cun- 
 ning, to lay hold of it and harness it. 
 
 This divine intention is further emphasized by the mental 
 and spiritual endowments bestowed upon humanity. When 
 an individual boasts that he is self-made, he can properly 
 mean only that he has made good use of the possibilities with 
 which God has endowed him, and the man whose powers of 
 spiritual perception are so keen that he becomes a remarka- 
 ble interpreter of the divine, will acknowledge humbly that 
 the secret of his ability is the leading presence of the divine 
 spirit. At best the rational and spiritual man is merely 
 thinking God's thoughts after him ; yet it is the man who 
 thinks, and this power to think and to worship has been his 
 ever since the instant that he became a man. If he fails to 
 realize these possibilities he not only thwarts the divine 
 intention but impoverishes the universe of which he is a 
 part. Yet how patiently God has waited for a Copernicus 
 to dethrone the earth and enthrone the sun in the interpre- 
 tation of the solar system ; for a Kepler and a Galileo to 
 spy out its secrets and a Newton to read its laws ; for an 
 Isaiah or a Paul to comprehend its spiritual meaning ! Here 
 was the world waiting to be understood and God desiring to 
 "be comprehended, and here were men possessed with the 
 very faculties necessary for the task if only they would use 
 them. ]\ran is a sluggard; he has been lamentably tardy in 
 
 19 
 
entering into the heritage that would give his Hfe its fullest 
 meaning. 
 
 To bring men to the consciousness of this mission is the 
 supreme aim of our study. We do not seek merely to 
 recover the exact situation which produced an Isaiah, a Paul 
 or a Jesus, or called into being the sacred literature of 
 Christendom ; but we strive to measure, to fathom, the spirit- 
 ual currents, which bore these upon their bosom. That 
 great "unplumbed, estranging sea" whose billows break on 
 the shores of time, but whose yonder edge placidly laps eter- 
 nity's strand, casts upon our coasts the flotsam and jetsam of 
 the ages ; and as we gather therefrom many a gem of truth, 
 we strive to comprehend the eternal, divine significance of 
 human existence. 
 
DATE DUE 
 
 ^;uJi 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 DEMCO 38-297