Full Text for CTM Theological Observer 15-10 (Text)

# ple do not want tl em nor thi.nk th necessary. ie, there are exceptions in each group, but inarticulate exceptions. "Our school was successful because of two things. First, the hard work and self-sacrificing spirit of our teachers; and second, because of the loyal support of the parents whose children were under our care. Both of these groups believed so strongly in what we were doing and trying to do that they pushed the school forward in spite of the churches. "The idea which once I had tried to urge was not the establishment of parochial schools in the strict sense of the word, i. e., where the support and responsibility of the school would rest solely upon one parish (such a school in our Church would be rarely feasible) - but where one church, with the most adaptable parish hall, would house the school, and all the parishes in the district stand behind it. "Such was the setup of our school. After much persuasion, all the rectors in. the surrounding area - some ten in a11- agreed to allow envelopes to be given out in their parishes once a year for the benefit of the school. The result was comical. I remember the offering from the wealthiest parish - with over 1,000 communicants - $1.72. And so it went. --)U may possibly think that the rE for the a! ae churches had some local or personal angle. But the testimony of any parent, or any outsider who kne'w the work we were doing, would correct such a notion as that. I am forced to the conclusion that the real reason for the lack of interest on the part of the churches is that the people, like the priests, are not convinced that Church schools are important to the life and health of the Church. "This is a sad thing. Even some of our larger and long established schools have died for lack of nourishment. We believe that the Church is important and that our Lord intended that His Gospel be transmitted through this medium. We also believe that a child, nurtured and tutored by the Church, will have a better chance to understand the truths of our religion and appreciate its mysteries than will the grown-up whom we pounce upon to save his soul! . . . "Many of our boys and girls were not from Church families, but were led into the Church by instruction and confirmation. And some of them brought their parents with them. I remember one brilliant little first-grader, whose parents had no connection with the Church whatsoever, but who came to our school on the recommendation of an eminent New York educator. The child developed such an interest in the Church and took his instructions so to heart that both his father and his mother eventually came into the Church. "The boys and girls who come out or our Church schools may not seem different from those who come from other schools. But I am sure that undernc;:,.!~ ~:;,--,-~.:.:rwoven in~v ~:.I.'_.!. tern of thc__ __ __ . is a clearer picture of their Master and at least a better understanding of the Church's mission to the world." A. Superlative Reviews. - America (July 15) contains a sharp criticism of modem "superlative reviews" by Harold C. Gardiner, worth reading also in our circles by both reviewers and readers of reviews. 'Ve 698 Theological Observer offer the criticism in a condensed form: "A metropolitan paper's review of Thomas Mann's recent Joseph the Provider set me pondering a bit on the remarkable gifts of book reviewers in the matter of superlatives. Personally, I find that I am rather parsimonious with superlatives - after I have used 'fine' and 'splendid' or one or two others of similar rather neutral tone (1 bar 'outstanding'), I am about finished. Not so our fecund reviewers. A favorite trick, of course, is to indulge in a great deal of comparative literature, to state that the book in question will without doubt rank close to Tolstoy or Voltaire, that it is another Red Badge of Courage or a blood brother to Moby Dick. The eager reader, who probably knows little of Russian or French literature, or even of our American classics, feels that, oh boy, oh boy, here is the chance to keep up with the current output and to get the savor of other literatures - all for the price of one book. Now, the recent review in the New York Times (June 25) is characterized by the same intemperate use of superlatives; without so much as an 'in my opinion' the reviewer pedestals Mann as 'the greatest con- temporary master of narrative and the word.' Later, we hear that the book reminds us that 'God and man are mutually dependent upon each other in a common aspiration for development'; that God's chastisements 'become suspect in the light of His blessing or arbitrary favoritism' (the surprised italics are all mine). The point is that either this is a very bad review or, in this regard, at least, Mr. MalLTl is by no means a great master of the word. If Mann has not those woolly obfuscations in the book, then the review is bad; if he is so bemuddled, then his own thought lacks clarity, and his style betrays it and, despite all modern criticism that emphasizes the psychological, the psychiatric, the neurasthenic, the what-have-you 'overtones' of an author, the first and indispensable and cardinal virtue of prose is to be clear. I fear that to a great extent Edgar Allan Poe unmasked the sycophantic nature of much of our American criticism and reviewing when he wrote his creed as a reviewer; he would, he said, yield 'no point either to the vanity of the author, or to the assumptions of antique prejudice, or to the involute and anonymous cant of the Quarterlies, or to the arrogance of those organized cliques which, hanging like nightmares on American literature, manufacture, at the nod of our principal booksellers, a pseudo-public opinion by the wholesale.' That must be the reviewer's creed, else American criticism sinks to the level of 'you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours.''' As clarity is the cardinal virtue demanded of an author, so sincerity and truth are the indispensable virtues of a reviewer, and this is true also in the field of definitely religious books. What the reading public desires to know is what kind of product a certain book is and what its strong points and its shortcomings are. In short, it wants to know the truth about a book. J. T.IVL Roman Catholic Mission Methods. - The correspondent of the Chris- tian Century for India, Mr. P. Oomman Philip, reports Ln the July 19 issue of the journal mentioned what a friend writes him on the work of the Roman Catholic missionaries among the Gonds, "an aboriginal Theological Observer 699 people of the Central Provinces." Mr. Philip states that according to information which - 'lim the for _ thods are i 11: "1. To teach Gond children in their school to say Jai Ishu (victory to Jesus) instead of Jai-Ramji-ki, which is the usual Gond way of grepting. "2. To sprinkle holy water on the faces of children and even adults. Naturally t..~e water sometimes touches the lips, and a few drops even enter the mouth. The general belief of the Gonds is that if they drink water from the hands of Christians, their caste is polluted, and they also become Christians. This belief is taken advantage of by the propagandists of the mission. "3. To call the 'sacrament' (Holy Communion) sakkar-meeth (sweet- meat) and give it to the Gonds. "4. To employ even illiterate persons as propagandists at inflated salaries. These persons are simply overzealous hirelings and employ all sorts of means to bring the Gonds into their net. "5. To offer and lend large sums of money, thus securing the Gonds in their grip. Sometimes the debts are written off if the Gonds accept Christianity. Most of the Gonds, being poor, fall a victim to this ~ The money=le! ,.; bait is tt mpting one ". ____ Ie Catholic missionaries are employing." A. The Roman Church after the War.-Looking mto the future and speculating on what conditions the Roman Catholic Church will find itself in after the war, America (Jesuit weekly) writes, "There is no reason to be unduly alarmed about this prospective state of "ff~ivo ~that is, the domination of the world by the United States, Great BritaLn, and Russia]. The association between religious strength and political power has grown very loose in our time. Governments of Catholic nations more often than not are Catholic in name only, if that. International relations are managed 'regardless of race, color, and creed.' The various religious communities have ceased to utilize state power as a decisive element in their growth, competitive and otherwise. The Catholic Church, in partic- ular, can very well dispense with the support which it derived in former centuries from mutually privileged connections with certain great powers of their day. As the States unite people regardless of creed, so the Church unites people regardless of citizenship. It must be noted, how- ever, that the disappearance of all major Catholic powers will coincide in time with the emergence of violent readjustments necessitated by the liquidation of totalitarianism. The Church, true to its eternal mission, had to find and did find a modus vivendi with the various anti-democratic and non-democratic authorities that got control over so many countries of Europe. It is inevitable that the ov£>rflow of these goverD_rnents will create numerous problems for the Church and the Catholic population. 'C_:~:~_, both friendly and hostile, have forecast a period of unprecedented anti-clericalism in Italy, believing that the long association of the Vatican with Fascism will reap its harvest of hatred and persecution.' This passage from Sherman S. Hayden's report on the foreign policy of the Vatican will probably apply to other countries. In France some bishops felt themselves constrained to lend their support to the 'forces of law 700 Theological Observer and order' against the underground movement. Then there is Spain. According to Newsweek (Feb.14, 1944) Russbr! foreign policy has not been neutral toward Spain since the civil war; but Russia has not been in a position to do anything about Spain. 'Reliable sources in London' indicated to Newsweek that Juan Negrin has offered to be the Soviet's man in Spain, working for the overthrow of Franco in favor of a regime acceptable to Moscow. In the case of Germany, the elimination of Catholic Austria from the framework of the Reich can hardly be viewed as an unmixed blessing. Other things being equal, a Germany half- Protestant and half-Catholic would seem preferable to a Germany two- thirds Protestant and one-third Catholic. German Catholics have always been a major stabilizing factor both domestically and in the international field. They and their leaders can better afford to stand on their record than any other large group in Germany. . .. In some of the smaller countries, too, Catholics will have to face very severe problems. Catholic Lithuania, Poland, and Hungary will have to conform in one way or another to the fact of geographical propinquity to Russia. The Catholics of Croatia will have to find their place in a new J ugoslav commonwealth of radical social and political leanings. In the reconstruction of Czecho- slovakia the present co-operation of Father Tiso with the Nazis will be an ufl.rlp~~$tl1t memory~ if not more,n We leave it to our readers to separate the wheat from the chaff in the long passage quoted. However, there ought to be added what the writer in America, says about the role to be played by the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. "All this adds up to an increased responsibility of Catholics in the United States and, to a lesser degree, in Britain. Of the world's 340 million Catholics, only the 23 million living in the United States and the four million living in Great Britain will be in a position to participate in the determination of the actions of major secular pOweroS. The Vicar of Christ may look to them for an increased effort to help him in his care for their co-religionists in Europe and South America. American Catholics, in the field of secular causation, will be the foremost national Catholic community in the world. One can only hope and pray that their feeling for the unity and interdependence of all the members of the mystical body of Christ will be as intense and real and alive as their feeling for the unity of their nation and people." Rome evidently is girding its loins for some major efforts in the recon- struction of the world. How about us Lutherans with the everlasting Gospel? A. The Stigma of Stigmatization. - In view of the fact that Romanism today is so very active in promoting itself and propagandizing boLh. its doctrinal and hierarchical views, it is well to consider its claims and re-study its doctrines. Considerable attention has been given l-ecently to the alleged phenomenon of stigmatization, especially during the past Lenten season, The Calvin. FOrt~m (April, 1944), in a very readable article, analyzes this phenomenon, which, according to The New Schaff- Herzog Encyclopedia, is "the spontaneous formation of wounds on 'L, persons of Christians similar to those received by Christ from the crown of thorns, the crucifixion, and the spear." That this phenomenon has Theological Observer 701 actually occurred, The Calvin Forum declares, cannot well be denied. "The Roman Catholic Church claims, lm !,"~~~'U,e grounds, that no less than eighty cases of authentic stigmatization, either in whole or in part, can be cited as historical facts." Stigmatization by Romanism is ac- cepted "as a mark of divine endorsement," indeed, as "a mark of special sainthood." The writer of the article, however, holds that "there is nothing supernatural about it and that a purely natural explanation is most worthy of consideration. It may well be considered as a striking example of the mysterious power of mind over matter." He argues: "It is a matter of common knowledge that it is possible to become really sick because one thinks that he is sick; that it is sometimes possible to effect cures by hypnotism; that there is no hope of recovery for a patient who has lost the will to live. Why, then, should not morbid, fanatical, hysterical imagination be able, in extreme cases, to produce the marks and bleeding of stigmatization?" But even more suspicious is the phenomenon when viewed from a religious and spiritual angle. In the first place, "there is the extreme concentration on the pain and blood of the crucifixion of Christ, which the Bible does not favor." In the second place, "there is a fanatical zeal to reproduce the agonies of Christ in one's body and soul. This is a bold and improper desire, nowhere ized in Scr _ turc. No one may reproduce the suffering of C ist. It was unique. It cannot be repeated. He said: 'It is finished.' When Paul wrote in Galatians 6: 17 of bearing the stigmata, the marks of Christ, in his body, he spoke of the scars of battle as proof of his apostleship. He got them from enemies while witnessing for Christ. They were normal. Stigmatization is accomplished in self-appointed, morbid con- centration, in the cloister, on the gore of Calvary. It is abnormal from every point of view and, by that token, suggests the suspicion of stigma in stigmatization." In the third place, "there is the practical issue of stigmatization. What purpose did they serve? Tens of thousands of pilgrims came to see. But what did they see? Not the wounds of Christ. In the excitement they were forgotten. All the attention was for these bearers of marvelous marks. There was no preaching of the Gospel of salvation through Christ's blood in those marks. It is hard to see how they could promote the glory of God. They fascinated with the drawing power of the strange, the mysterious, and the grotesque. The impression they made had nothing particularly religious about it. Strong sensation was its mark rather than high spirituality. There was nothing delicate nor dignified about the display of the marks to the public. We Protestant and Reformed Christians are frankly suspicious of such ado about persons. Our motto is: 'He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord: Right at this point stigmatization is most vulnerable. The center of attention is found in the wrong place. People went away impressed with the greatness of these saints rather than by Lhe great- ---- -': the Savio:- m - ---dily admit L'- ~ ~ ... , ~ ')ility that '. ~. so intended. Nevertheless the deplorable fact remains.;; - There is much food for thought in what the writer says. Lutherans perhaps see the wrong involved in stigmatization still more than do the Reformed because of their insistence upon the means of grace as the only means, signs, and : of divine gra,·. Anyone looking upon stigmatization as "the mark 702 Theological Observer of divine endorsement or of special sainthood" thereby repudiates the Vlord of God as the only authentic and dependable proof of God's grace. Stigmatization belongs to the "sheer enthusiasm" which Luther so severely condemns in the Smalcald Articles, where he writes: "For the Papacy also is nothing but sheer enthusiasm, by which the Pope boasts that all rights exist in the shrine of his heart, and whatever he decides and corcl1nands with[in] his Church is spirit and right, even though it is above and contrary to Scripture and the spoken Word." (Triglotta, 495.) J.T.M. Synarchist Outrages in Mexico. - Mexico is having religious trouble. There is a fanatical section of the population which desires to be loyal to the Roman Catholic Church and, inspired by this loyalty, engages in persecution of those who are non-Catholics. In certain places Protes- tants have been expelled from their homes and have been forced to hide in mountains and forests to escape being butchered. A correspondent in the Christian Century writes that the Government is taking steps to counteract these attacks on Protestants. He states, "On June 22 the attorney general issued telegraphic instructions to all his prosecutors throughout the country to the . effect that 'no permission should be granted to the synarchists to hold meetings.' An investigation had led the attorney general to the conclusion that the synal'chists "nere a S1..""'- versive element and had been instigating the people and the army to rebel against the present goverrnnent." A. Bib' Reading L'l the Public Schools of Canada. - From British Co·· lumbia comes the information that in that Province, beginning this fall, the Scripture "without teacher comment" will be read in the public schools. If pupils object for conscientious reasons, they will be per- mitted to leave the room for that period. The Canadian Institute of Public Opinion tried to ascertain what the people of Canada held on the question whether the public schools should offer a course of religion or whether this matter should be left entirely to the churches. The answers received from all parts of the Dominion of Canada show that fifty per cent of the people approved the suggestion that religion be taught in the public schools, while 41 per cent disapproved and 9 per cent wavered. In our own church body there always has been a difference of opinion, as far as we can ascertain, on the question whether the Bible should be read in the public schools. Those who oppose it point to the principle of separation of Church and State, which forms one of the pillars of our national structure. Those who favor it remind us of the necessity of the teaching of morality in the schools of the State, and they hold that if Bible reading is introduced in public schools, the State does it not in order to teach a certain religion, but to inculcate principles of right conduct and to give these principles a firm foundation. That this involves the teaching of religion is, so they assert, simply in- cidental. Others, again, hold that there is a higher law than adherence to the letter of the pr' J? - -paration of Church and Sf -, -.:nely, that of the salvation of the human soul, and since there is no salvation except through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we should rejoice whenever Theological Observer 703 this Gospel is brought to people. But does this not involve acceptance of the prhciple {h ,t the end just! ~ es the 3? A Igh, in partial treatment of the whole subject will be given a warm welcome. A. Theological Trends and Developments among Congregationalists.- Writing in the Christian Century on the topic "What Is Disturbing Con- gregationalists?" Prof. Wilhelm Pauck of the Chicago Theological Sem- inary and of the divinity school of the University of Chicago submits these interesting paragraphs: "A growing number of ministers and also of laymen, trying to get out of this confusion, have turned with passion to the faith of the fathers. They are not interested in rediscovering the old theological orthodoxy, although their critics like to label them as neo-orthodox, but they seek to understand the distLl1.ctness of the Christian gospel and to appropriate it spiritually as well as intellectually. A new evangeli- calism has come into being which is nourished not only by the Christo- centrism of historic Congregationalism, but also by the reaffirmation of the teachings of Paul, Augustine, and Luther on the nature of man in the work of such thinkers as Brunner and Reinhold Niebuhr. A group of mostly younger ministers who share this concern for a Christ- ceD;.I~red faith and who wish to see it spread, organized themselv2s, two years ago, under the slogan of 'Christus Victor.' Their activity is still quite inchoate, but it has found considerable response. Under dynalulc leadership, it may develop into an influential movement. If this should turn out to be the case, the now latent distress of many Congregational ministers at the change of the theological mood may become acute. "Some of the older leaders of Congregationalism are not a little disturbed about the fact that the liberalism which they imbibed in their youth and to which they adhered throughout their careers is rather coolly greeted by many younger men. Because they are almost as un- bending as fundamentalists in their unswerving allegiance to the spirit of that prewar Protestantism which endeavored to 'make religion intel- lectually respectable' by interpreting it in terms of modern 'progressive' philosophy, history, science, and sociology, they suspect that anybody who regards Paul's teachings as the key to the understanding of the New Testament or who thinks that Reinhold Niebuhr has understood the meaning of the Christian faith, wants to go backward and 'put the brakes on the progress of Christian enlightenment.' These men are disturbed and say so openly. They fail to understand, it seems to me, that the younger generation is reacting against liberalism not in order to recover the old authoritarian orthodoxy, but in order to liberate the Protestant faith from its entanglements with the spirit of humanistic self-sufficiency, so that it may be able to evangelize a world in which man has turned against himself." A. Concerning Dispensationaiism. - At the meeting of the Southern Presbyterians in May onc of the topics of discussion was dispensa- tionalism. Reporting on the meeting and the attitude taken toward this subject, a writer in the Christian Centtl,ry says, "A paper on dis- pensationalism was adopted. Many of us feel that here was a thing of real value. Dispensationalism grows out of premillennialism. This 704 Theological Observer somewhat literal view of the second coming has a fair following .rnong us. It condemn it"1 this paper those vrho believe that Christ is coming again to set up some sort of thousand-year reign here on earth. But we do condemn in no uncertain terms those who go on from this point to declare that our fathers were wrong in their whole understanding of the plan of salvation. The matter is too complicated for full discussion here, but it is a question of importance to our denomination and to others. There are one or two rather aggressive institutions here in the South that are strongly 'dispensa- tional.' A considerable stream of influence pours into Southern (and Northern) pulpits from this source. The famous Schofield Bible is in all but countless homes, and the Schofield Bible is distinctly separate from Presbyterianism in spite of the fact that Dr. Schofield died as a member of the Dallas Presbytery. Just what the next chapter in this story may be, no man can forsee, but it is at least clear that Presby- terianism in these parts is not ready to turn itself over to any group of fanatics who think they alone are in possession of all the secrets of God and commissioned to reveal these to some picked company which will be in a position of special prominence when things begin to happen a la 'Green Pastures.''' Too bad dispensationalism was not condemned outrightly. Ostensil: - on the Scriptures, it is in reality a perversion of what the Scriptures teach. A. Church Truth Universal- AUM. - The letters a-u-m do not rep- resent, as one may surmise at first, the initials of an organization, for example, Association of United Metaphysicians. AUM is said to be a word denoting the "pulsating conscious life-action," the yogi union with the Cosmic Soul, the at-one-ment. The leaders of Church Truth Universal (members of the fair sex) operating at Highway Highlands, Calif., claim that AUM, or universal truth, has been revealed to them. As other occult teachers, so this group proceeds from the premise that. man is a divine fragment and that he must learn to appreciate his divine origin and nature. In their official publication, The Spiritual Life-Magazine ("the love-wisdom message") the claim is made that "Jesus Christ, Gautama Buddha, Krishna, and all other Divine In- carnations were in the Cosmic God Consciousness." By making contact with the "god-conscious masters" each individual being, or "atman," learns that he is "an individualized expression of the infinite." The "atmen" (maybe it ought to be "atmans"), who had passed out of Reality into Relativity, had lost their way in "maya," or the great illu- sion, and after long wandering finally had completed the circle (is this the Buddhist wheel of life?), arrive at the Father's house, and con- sciously live in the great AUM (Buddhist Nirvana?), are united with the Cosmic Soul, in short, are gods. The entire system is about as synthetic as anything that has come to our attention. It is a mixture of elements L ___ ':' ~ __ ::1ristian ScL ____ , =~_ .. Thought, :'---~~J> = __ osophy, Spiritism, pseudo-metaphysicism, e. g., Rosicrucianism, The Ascended Masters (The Great I Am, alias Ballards), Yogism. For good measure, the leaders employ high-sounding phrases, reminding one of Father Divine's Peace Messages. Its appeal is the same as Satan's to our first parents: "Ye shall be as God." F. E, M. Theological Observer 705 Women Elders Thought of for the Church of Scotland. - A corre- spondent from Edinburgh, in the Ch'Iu;tiar. Cec/l-tuiY, "lales that the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, held in June, passed reso- lutions favoring the election of women for the position of elders in the Church. The correspondent writes: "The question whether women should be eligible for the eldership was keenly contested. Those who were opposed to it argued mairJy on doctrinal grounds. though other drew terrifying pictures of women swamping the kirk sessions and menc ceasing to take an active interest. In the end it was by a large majority that the assembly decided in favor of women elders. As it is a matter C affecting the constitution of the church, it will now be sent down to presbyteries under the Barrier Act, and if a two-thirds majority of the' presbyteries favors the proposal, it will then become part of the law of' the church. It is too early to predict the outcome of this referendum to the presbyteries." It is too bad that these people take a course which:, is a violation of what the Apostle Paul has taught 1 Cor. 14 and 1 Tim. 2 .. Why not be ~atisfied with standing on the foundation of the inspired! Apostles? A. Three Blasphemous Parodies. - Under this heading The Sunday School Times (July 29, 1944) directs attention to the fact that three times in hi~ 'Be our Lord warned agaiJ Christs (Matt. 24: 5, 23, 24). "For m;:my shall come in My name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many." - "Then if any man SL "y ll."1to you, Lo, here is Christ or there; believe it not." - "For there shall arise false Christs." This prophecy (as the article shows) is being ful- filled in the case of the "Dean of the Universe," the "Father IVL J. Divine," whose paper The New Day is dated thus: Jan. 1, 1944, A.D. F. D., mean- ing: "In the year of our Lord, Father Divine, 1944." In this paper there occurs the following broadside by one of his followers: "Peace and: Praises and Thanksgiving to you FATHER for your precious holy body' and for the blessings you have bestowed on all mankind, and for your' peace and protection with which you have covered America, we do humbly thank you, Father. And we thank you that all mankind will enter into the recognition of the body of God upon this earth and in the spirit of the one eternal Christmas day." Another outburst of praise closes with the words: "Praise Him, 0 creation, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings. For Thy blessed holy works, dear Savior, we truly thank thee." Blasphemy indeed! And these are only a few of the m, ny quoted in the artic1cc - But Father DivLne also has enemies. His "Cent,~r" in Philadelphia (corner Broad and Catherine) is not far away from the large Temple of colored Father Grace, one of 145 in. the United States devoted to the cult of this Negro who identifies him- self with the Grace of God. Father Grace's photograph shows him in the headgear of the plains, with long hair like Buffalo Bill. Hp.;c !"c} as blasphemous as is Father Divine, for the announcement under the photograph says: "This is the man you have been looking for the Lord's Anointed. He has fought many battles; also won in all, Bishop Grace, the Founder of the United House of Prayer for all People, of' the Church on the Rock of the Apostolic Faith. He went to the great. 45 706 Theological Observer city of New York and with a smile took heaven from Father Divine. He was the only man who could do it." - Blasphemy again. "Many Christs," said our Savior. - Christian Science as a delusion is not as crass as these black ones, on the face of it. Nevertheless Mother Eddy at- tributed to her own confused writings an authority equal to that of the Word of God. Science and Health is now being issued in a sub- scription edition of 1,000 copies at $100 a copy, plus twenty-five copies "to be placed with outstanding typographical examples of Bibles and other great books in the leading libraries of the world." The official statement runs: "It is a volume which will place our textbook Science and Health with the finest Bibles of the world." The paper for it (says the article) was made in a three-hundred-year-old paper mill on the Darent River in Kent, England. It is handmade and watermarked with the trade-mark approved by Mrs. Eddy for all the authorized Christian :Science publications, namely, the Cross and Crown emblem. As to the type, it was cut especially for this volume and modeled on the type ,of beautiful handwritten m~uscripts of the Laurentian Library at 'Florence, Italy. William Dana Orcutt, an internationally known de- .signer of books, decorated by the Italian Government in 1921 "for in- terpreting Italy to America in the sister arts of literature and typography," ,had charge of the manufacture of this edition of Science and Health. 'The inks used will last for centuries and were mixed from pigments especially made for this edition; so, too, the sumptuous Morocco billd- ings manufactured from special importations of skins from India. The article closes with the words: "So do they vainly attempt to put a human production on a par with the Word of God. It is a magnificent mauso- leum indeed, but the Word is seed and life. A single frayed copy of John's Gospel, with 3:16 underscored, is infinitely more powerful for God than the entire de luxe edition of Mrs. Eddy's handbook." Yet, after all, these various antichrists, blasphemous and pernicious as they are, are crude and amateurish compared to the great Antichrist at Rome, who in a subtler and therefore more dangerous way "shows himself that he is God," substituting for the divine authority of God's Word his own fallible human authority. To the three blasphemous parodies we may add the false, perfidious advertisements sent out by the Religious In- formation Bureau (Knights of Columbus) as, for example "The Catholic Church, Mother of the Bible," to beguile unwary Protestants into the net of the Papacy. Rome still leads all antichrists in insulting Christ and His Gospel. J. T. M. Observations on "The Autobiography of a Philosopher." - 'Jnder this heading, Ernest Gordon, himself a student at Harvard with both Pro- fessors Palmer and James, in The Sunday School Times (July 29, 1944) makes some very startling "observations" on the widely read book The Autobiography of a Philosopher by Dr. Geo. H. Palmer, formerly pro- fessor of philosophy at Harvard University, through whose popular classes more than 15,000 students have passed. Professor Palmer came out of a Christian family, to one of whose members we owe the great Christian hymn "My Faith Looks Up to Thee." His salary came from money left by Captain John Alford for missions among Indians. But in his courses in philosophy and ethics his real objective was to dechris- Theological Observer 707 tianize such Christian students as attended his classes. Dr. Gordon, for example, quotes him _~ ~aying: ! peopl _ ___ _ afraid UL c:uticism. They say, 'Oh, if you send a boy to college, he will go to doubting everything.' Certainly, that is what he is here tor. He cannot come to personaZ certitude till he has doubted. [Italics by Gordon.] Clarified beliefs are in fact commonly the result. All dictation [what is meant is Christian belief] is [at Harvard] taken off during these maturing years. At least we try to take it off." What Professor Palmer had in mind was to destroy Ille faith of the student. But, as Dr. Gordon re- marks, "to break down is easy enough, yet to build again is not easy. If a Christian boy followed them [Professor Palmer's suggestions], as many no doubt did, he would land in the shallowest and stalest Uni- tarianism." This is not an exaggeration, for according to Professor Palmer there is no place for miracles - miracles of healing and of the casting out of devils-in religious belief. Professor Palmer, moreover, revamped the old objections of deism. The withering of the fig tree was "an act of petulance!' "The Pharisees were not the hypocrites we picture." "Athletics are as religious an act as going to a prayer meeting." "The idea of a substitutive sacrifice is frequent in the Old Testament, but passed away with the Gospel." For Christ to pray to God, if God and He were identical, seemed to Professor Palmel ;;J "shocking pro- cedure." "Jesus showed us by example that the difference between God and man is only one of degree." These and other quotations are given to prove that Harvard University has been one of the most prolific sources of Modernism. Writes Gordon: "Some years ago a Harvard student leader, editor of the Crimson, and Rhodes scholar, stood up in a meeting of 700 students, President Lowell being present, and roundly denounced his university for its godlessness." Another brilliant student defined the three most striking characteristics of Harvard students as "indifference, snobbishness, and godlessness." Together with Palmer, Professors James and Royce formed a famous trio, much talked of in their day. But like Palmer, so also Professor James was absolutely negative in his belief. He regarded the Bible as a human book, having absolutely no authority in religious matters. Prayer he repudiated as foolish and artificial. He claimed that he never experienced God's presence and that he never believed in personal immortality "securely." How James "clarified the faith" of a brilliant student, Charles A. Strong, son of Dr. Augustus H. Strong, pious president of Rochester Theological Seminary and author of a widely used work on systematic theology, is briefly told. Young Mr. Strong was studying for the Baptist ministry and went to Harvard for a year of training in philosophy. "That year," says Gordon, "destroyed every trace of his Christian faith and left him a lifelong atheist." In dosing the article, Dr. Gordon writes: "Harvard's 'clarified' belief is the saddest wraith of a faith, as thin and impalpable as a bit of dissol";.ng ~loud on ::: June day. Wh,.t have thes.:: men to offe). to take the place of the Gospel? Nothing but logomachies and wranglings and uncertainties. James calls the philosophy of his colleague Santayana 'the perfection of rottem1ess'; Harvard systems he describes as 'Royce's voluntaristic-pluralistic-monism,' 'Muensterberg's dualistic scientificism and platonism,' 'Santayana's pessimistic platonism,' 'Palmer's ethereal 708 Theological Observer idealism,' and 'my pluralism.' ... 'The world might ring with the struggle if we devoted ourselves exclusively to belaboring each other.''' No wonder Roman Catholicism is spending millions on colleges and uni- versities of its own creed and belief! And shall we Lutherans forget ,our own struggling Valparaiso University? Certainly there must be in 'our circles some place for Christian learning where our Christian stu- ·dents are free from destructive vanities of atheistic humanism. J.T.M. Brief Items. - In Birmingham, Ala., the National Baptist Sunday ;School and Baptist Training Union Congress were in session recently. 9,000 delegates attended the meetings. It is stated that this was the largest Negro gathering ever held in the South. The Soviet commissar of education is quoted as having said, "I find that religion is like a nail; the harder you hit it, the deeper you drive it in." If the statement was made, it signifies that the Russian leaders have given up the attempt to exterminate religion. Let us hope that ;this is the case. It is said that at the present time there are 150 ordained ministers 'of the Jewish race in the Church of England and about an equal number in the Nonconformist churches. During the last half century three bishops of the Episcopal Church had been Hebrew Christians. Yet it is said by some that missions among the Jews amount to nothing.- Watchman-Examiner, Aug. 3, 1944. Senator Arthur Capper of Kansas, according to the Congressional Record, stated the following, "In the first nine months of this year, 1943, the arrest of girls under twenty-one years of age for offenses against common decency increased 69.6 per cent over the same period last year, while the arrests for girls under twenty-one for crimes against property, such as robbery, burglary, larceny, and other related crimes, increased 33.6 per cent. But that does not tell the whole story, because in 1942 arrests increased over 1941 and so on. Even today more boys and girls eighteen -years of age are being arrested than in any other group. As a matter of fact, 17-year-olds alone accounted for 25.3 per-cent increase in arrests in the first nine months of this year over 1942." What hor- rifying facts! In 1640 the Calvinistic Baptists of England sent Richard Blunt (or ,BlotLl1t) to Holland to be immersed (the first time English Baptists prac- ticed this method), and he upon his return immersed others. - Watch- man-Examiner, August 10, 1944. Cf. Thomas Crosby, History of the English Baptists, Vol. I, p.l03. In the robot plane we see the dehumanization of man himself. Man has been on the way to this undoing of himself for a long time. Our obsession with science, which has been the paramount feature of Western culture, invoking the gradual exclusion of the humanities and spir- itualities of life, has now born its double fruit: the development of mechanisms of death which operate impersonally, but as if they were 'human, and the degradation of man to the level where he can operate as a mechanism in utter unconsciousness that he is a man. So low 'has our "Christian" civilization fallen! Paganism never fell so low. Stanton A. Coblentz in the Christian Century of July 26, 1944