168 REV. JOHN TUCKWELL, M.R.A.S.^ ON MODERN THEORIES 



but as the entrance into the world, through a person, of a 

 moulding and redeeming force in humanity ; .... to the 

 Atonement as a divine act and process of ethical and practical 

 import, not as a mystery of the distant heavens, and isolated from 

 the struggle of the world, but as a comprehensible force in the 

 actual redemption of the world from its evil ; to the Resurrection 

 as covering the whole essential nature of man ; to judgment as 

 involved in the development of a moral nature," and so on. Apart 

 from the utterances of professional theologians, v/e find evidences 

 of tliis change and its consequences in nearly all the religious 

 literature of our times — hymns, prayers, sermons, magazine 

 articles, popular religious and semi-religious novels and treatises 

 of all kinds up to bulky Bible dictionaries. Pdcliard Le 

 Gallienne ten years ago, confounding things which differ, said, 

 " The Trinity, the Atonement, Infant Baptism, Baptismal 

 Eegeneration, the Immortality of the Soul, the Life Hereafter — 

 these and many other dogmas are now seen to be matters of 

 symbolism or personal intuition " {Religion of a Literary Man). 



That such a change should, whether rightly or wrougly, produce 

 an impression among the non-religious classes, that an excess of 

 reverence has been paid to Holy Scripture and an exaggerated 

 authority over faith and conduct attributed to it, is no more than 

 might be expected. But to what extent the general decline of 

 the religious sentiment among the masses of our fellow-country- 

 men, indicated, apparently, by the decline of public worship and 

 other symptoms, may be due to this change, is too wide and 

 too delicate a question to be entered into here and now. That 

 the two should synchronize gives reasonable ground for suspicion. 



Among the religious classes also it is ominous that the leaders 

 m the various denominations in England, America and Germany 

 should complain loudly of the failure of the churches to 

 accomplish their true mission, and should deplore with one 

 consent the increasing dearth of candidates for the Christian 

 ministry. The German correspondent of an English paper 

 which has done more than any other in the country to promote 

 this change, lately published a table showing that in the various 

 universities of Germany, the number of theological students 

 during the past twelve years had declined from 4,536 to 2,281. 



When we view side by side with this change the enormous 

 progress in the knowledge of truth, made during the same 

 period in almost every other branch of research, we shall find 

 ourselves confronted by a problem well fitted to provoke 

 inquiry. And surely no Society could be more fitted to 

 conduct it than one such as this, devoted to the investigation 



