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REV. CHANCELLOR LIAS, M.A., ON 



of the historical, intellectual, moral and spiritual authority of 

 the one Book, a practice which originated in Germany, but has 

 found far too many advocates in our own country. Let us be 

 warned in time. German critical methods undoubtedly display 

 great ingenuity and great industry ; but they have neither 

 solid foundation, nor sense of proportion, nor common sense ; 

 and they attain their end by the critic resolutely shutting his 

 eyes to what he does not want to see. A German professor 

 must in these days obtain his position by saying something 

 which nobody has ever said before; and in ninety-nine cases 

 out of a hundred, to say what is new at this stage of the world's 

 history is to say what is not true. Historical research con- 

 firms former discoveries : it does not ridicule them. And 

 it never rejects them without giving reasons for doing so. 

 Physical science corrects, but never ignores them. 



Among other illustrations of the character of German thought 

 may be mentioned the emphasis it at one time laid on the Zeit- 

 geist, or spirit of the age. The progressive advance of mankind in 

 knowledge and morality, from this point of view, was not sup- 

 posed to result from the building on the foundations laid for us by 

 the discoveries rather than the mistakes of our forefathers, but 

 on the flinging aside in each age of the conclusions of the last, 

 and starting afresh on the road to perfection. Fifty years ago 

 our submissive English followers of German Kultur were prattling 

 merrily about the Zeitgeist and the duty of listening to its voice. 

 Mr. Matthew Arnold was among the foremost of these, and he 

 was unsparing of his ridicule of those silly Bishops of the Church 

 of England who imagined that God was a Person, and in his 

 admiration of the criticism which had " conclusively proved " that 

 St. John's Gospel was compiled " by the yard out of writings 

 of Philo by a Christian writer of the second half of the second 

 century. This conclusion has been abandoned by the German 

 critics of to-day, and Professor Harnack, the most famous among 

 them, has candidly owned that the Fourth Gospel was written 

 either during the lifetime of St. John, or within ten years of his 

 decease. While, as to the Zeitgeist, the recognised Christian 

 teachers of Matthew Arnold's day, and for many years after- 

 wards, were almost unanimous in their warnings against the 

 anti-Christian teaching prevalent in their time. But their 

 warnings were disregarded, and the present century opened 

 with a chorus of Germanizers who greeted its coming with a 

 paean of rejoicing over the new era, which was to cast behind it 



