They understand that all stereotyped faiths and fixed creeds are doomed to be left behind, while the spirit that animated them must assume new forms under a widened and advancing religious experience. It is certainly a most remarkable result that out of the Scottish Church, in 1880, should come this weighty proclamation to the religious world, that the great law of continuity and evolution, as unfolded and established by modern science, is to become a foundation and bulwark of religious faith in the future. "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."
We should be glad to reprint half these sermons in the "Monthly," but, as this is impossible, we give a few passages illustrative of the standpoint of the book. The Very Rev. John Caird, Principal of the University of Glasgow, has the first discourse, on "Corporate Immortality," which is an able plea for interest in "The things of this life" as opposed to the overshadowing claims of another world. He says:
It needs little reflection to perceive that the whole order of things in which we live is constructed not on the principle that we are sent into this world merely to prepare for another, or that the paramount aim and effort of every man should be to make ready for death and an unknown existence beyond the grave. On the contrary, in our own nature and in the system of things to which we belong, everything seems to be devised on the principle that our interest in the world and human affairs is not to terminate at death. It is not, as false moralists would have us believe, a mere illusion, a proof only of the folly and vanity of man that we do not and can not feel and act as if we were to have no concern with this world the moment we quit it. It is not a mere irrational impulse that moves us, when, in the acquisition of knowledge, In the labors of the statesman and legislator, in the houses we build, the trees we plant, the books we write, the works of art we create, the schemes of social amelioration we devise, the educational institutions we organize and improve, we act otherwise than we should do if our interest in all earthly affairs were in a few brief years to come to an end. It is not due to a universal mistake that we work for a thousand ends, the accomplishment of which we shall not live to see; that the passions we feel are more intense, the efforts we put forth immeasurably greater, than if we were soon and for ever to have done with it all. Even the desire of posthumous fame, which has been the theme of a thousand sarcasms and satirical moralizing?, the passion that impels us to do deeds and create works which men will be thinking of and honoring when we are gone, does not rest on a mere trick of false association, which your clever psychologist can explain so deftly, but is the silent, ineradicable testimony of our nature to the share we have in the undying life of humanity.
Does any one press on me the thought that, say what you will of the future, death to each of us is near, and no ulterior hope can quell the nearer anxiety as to what is to become of us, and how we are to prepare for that fast-approaching, inevitable hour? Then, I answer finally that, to whatever world death introduce you, the best conceivable preparation for it is to labor for the highest good of the world in which you live. Be the change which death brings what it may, he who has spent his life in trying to make this world better can never be unprepared for another. If heaven is for the pure and holy, if that which makes men good is that which best qualifies for heaven, what better discipline in goodness can we conceive for a human spirit, what more calculated to elicit and develop its highest affections and energies, than to live and labor for our brother's welfare? To find our deepest joy, not in the delights of sense, nor in the gratification of personal ambition, nor even in the serene pursuits of culture and science, nay, not even in seeking the safety of our own souls, but in striving for the highest good of those who are dear to our Father in heaven, and the moral and spiritual redemption of that world for which the Son of God lived and died—say, can a nobler school of goodness be discovered than this? Where shall love and sympathy and beneficence find ampler training, or patience, courage, dauntless devotion, nobler opportunities of exercise than in the war with evil?
The Rev. Dr. Ferguson, of Strathblane, has a powerful discourse on "Law and Miracle," in which he says:
Christianity, then, is no rigid system of dogma, or of ecclesiastical forms elaborated long ago and incapable of growth or change. It is rather a living organism, drawing nourishment to itself from every side, and affected by the life pulsations of every age. Look, for instance, what a vast difference between Christianity in the first and in the nineteenth century! Then it was struggling for existence between Judaism on the one hand and paganism on the other; now it has conquered its position, and extorts recognition at least from its bitterest opponents. It has revolutionized the whole structure of society, and formed manners and customs and habits of thought.
Of the effects produced by this habit of sifting and winnowing which goes on in history, we have a good example in the doctrine of miracle. In our own day that doctrine does not occupy the prominent position it formerly had. It has fallen into the background, and lost its apologetic value; but, at the same time, its actual relations to the circle of Christian truth have been made clear. In the course of last century, on the contrary, the sharpest attacks which Christianity had to sustain were directed against
