to be the most feasible way to meet the difficulty which now confronts ministerial scholarship.

Another method of meeting the difficulty we are considering would be to narrow the range of the regular course by making it more specific and thorough, and by increasing the post-graduate work, and also the collateral studies. Nothing is more damaging to scholarship than the hasty methods with which important subjects are considered. A thorough grasp of a few great subjects is more serviceable to the scholar than a cursory review of many. At this point is one of our greatest dangers. Learning is substituted for education, reading takes the place of drill, and breadth of information is more highly prized than the texture of the scholarship. It is an old adage, “beware of the man of one book." It was this thorough mastery of a few subjects that made our fathers in the ministry so effective. The mastery of a great subject, or a great book, is more effective in securing power for the individual than any amount of miscellaneous study without thorough comprehension. The student who shall spend months in the study of the doctrines of sin and the atonement will thus lay foundations upon which he can build at his leisure a noble theological edifice. It is almost impossible for a student to complete with thoroughness the present curriculum of our schools within the time allotted to them; and yet it is difficult to find a point at which to stop. The limitation of the course to the great subjects, with added courses for those qualified to pursue them, would combine at once thoroughness and breadth with special opportunities for those qualified for special departments of theological service. This is partially carried out in some schools by allowing those who choose to do so to pursue extra studies with the several members of the faculty.

This view of placing the standard of theological education very high, and making the practice conform as far as possible to the ideal, is in no way antagonistic to the shorter courses and more practical methods, to which attention has been called in the previous papers on the subject in this Symposium. The efforts now making in evangelical work has led to the establishment of special institutions for training Christian workers. Dr. Duryea* has well shown that there is no real necessity for separate institutions, and that the professors of the Seminaries now established may meet the wants of all students for the ministry.

This leads us to consider whether the elective system, now so extensively adopted in our colleges and universities, may not also be wisely applied to theological seminaries. There are two objects to be secured in the training of a minister; first the mastery of Biblical and theological science; and, second, to enable him to impress those great truths on the attention of the people to whom he

* HOMILETIC REVIEW (April), pp. 298-303.

is to minister. There is danger lest devotion to the science may interfere with the study of the art of preaching. The method of communication of truth is for him scarcely less important than the knowledge of the truth itself. If the science of theology be fundamental, the art of delivery is scarcely less important. While the substance of truth is essential to the preacher, the form must not be overlooked. It is not uncommon for men of profound scholarship and of deep thought to disparage the graces of oratory. Apollos was an “eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures," and the former was no small element in gathering the people around him as a leader. The time spent in studying the best forms of expression and in the preparation for delivering the truth is not wasted. It is a question how both of these objects can be secured. Not in every case, for this will be impossible, but how can the young men be educated to the highest usefulness? It has occurred to the writer that the most effective results in the training of individuals, will be secured by not requiring the same course for every student, but adapting the studies so as to bring forth the best possibilities of each individual. There is no place where individuality should be more carefully preserved than in the ministry. There is a complaint that the students of each seminary can be recognised by certain mannerisms or modes of thought. It is not desirable that all men who are preparing for the same profession should have precisely the same training. It is this individuality which explains the success of many persons deficient in scholastic advantages. The manhood, the character, the selfhood of the individual, so long as it is not abnormal, should not be seriously modified in the student life. He should remain what he is, only developed, improved, cultured, energized. Would not an elective system help greatly in securing the development of each in the best manner. The preparatory period of study has passed. Let one year be devoted by all the students to the critical study of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, and the cognate fundamental studies in systematic, historical and practical theology. Let the foundations be broad and deep. The first year will thus be given to the studies which underlie all high advancement in theological science. After that let the individual student, with the advice and consent of the Faculty, select a course, which shall be fully equivalent in the work required to every other course. All students will not become profound scholars in every department, nor is it absolutely essential that they should; but there are departments where many would do far better work than they now do if sufficient time were given to awaken their interest and develop their capacities. The abhorrence of Lord Macaulay for mathematics did not prevent him from becoming the great master of English style; nor does the inability of some students for one department argue his incapacity to master another. We thus find time for profound sci

entific study by those best suited to it, and also for that training in the delivery of sermons, so important to him who would reach the highest success. The science may be prosecuted more closely by one, and the art by another; but neither should be pursued to the exclusion of the other.

This recommendation is not intended to exclude the important work of training for the ministry those who have not previously enjoyed extensive scholastic advantages. This feature has been fully treated in previous papers. Many young men find it impossible, from age or other causes, to prepare fully for theological studies, and they regard it as their duty to preach the gospel. They have a good training in English. They have read English authors, and often have a facility and accuracy of expression not always found among those who have a classical training. It is to be regretted that such men have not time and opportunity for a complete course of study. There is no reason why they should not have a thorough training for their work; and if they have the natural capacity and the proper spirit, with a good English training, they can work side by side with others with manifest advantage to both. The course should not be too brief, nor should it be conducted in any desultory way. They should study the Scriptures as well as theology. In our care for the study of the original Scriptures, the study of the English Bible should not be neglected. It is the English Bible from which the preacher is to preach, and he should learn to handle the "sword of the Spirit." He who would do the effective work in the ministry must know the Bible, and its text must be familiar in the vernacular. The study of the English Bible by the most advanced students would not be an unwise employment of time side by side with the study of the original Scriptures. This duty was strongly emphasized by Dr. Curry,* and needs no enforcement here.

In conclusion, we may merely enforce the suggestion as to method indicated in the paper of Dr. Duryea. He suggests that the student should be taught "the doctrine of method in each department." The student should learn to do the work, as well as gain information. He suggests that this should be the exclusive method in the postgraduate course. This method should begin as early as possible in the course. Self-work, self-investigation, should be encouraged. By following this plan early in the course, the habits of the student will conform more closely to them in his future life. He will learn to make use of the great libraries which are within his reach. A library properly employed is itself a great educator. It would bear a twofold result it would secure accurate knowledge on subjects and at the same time develop the power of clearly communicating truth.

But after all the man is more important than his training. Train

* HOMILETIC REVIEW (January), pp 19-23.

ing can do a great deal. It can strengthen the faculties; it can promote high scholarship; it leads to habits of industry and self-sacrifice, and it is essential to the highest usefulness; but it cannot make the minister. Back of the school must be the man, and in the man must be the Holy Spirit and the heavenly vocation. The character and spirit of the ministry will have much to do with moulding the character and spirit of the people. Theological seminaries will fail in their high calling if they do not send forth into the work of the ministry, men full of faith and of the Holy Ghost.

VI. SYMPOSIUM ON PROHIBITION.

OUGHT PROHIBITION TO BE MADE A POLITICAL QUESTION? IF SO, WITH WHAT LIMITATIONS?

NO. II.

BY I. K. FUNK, D.D.

THE Rev. Dr. Spear, in the able paper with which he opened this Symposium, justly observes that there is room in the country for but two great parties. The advocates of the National Prohibition party fully recognize this truth, and fully expect that their party will be one of the two. They believe it essential and wholly practicable to so push prohibition into politics as to make it the dominating political issue, until the liquor traffic is brought under control. Those who think this policy a wise one rest their belief chiefly on the following propositions :

1. The liquor traffic is a stupendous injury to society and to our Government, and is a portentous and continuous menace to both; responsible, according to Chief Justice Noah Davis,* for eighty per cent. of all crime; according to Premier Gladstone, for the infliction of more harm on man "than the three great historic scourges, war, famine and pestilence, combined;" according to the late eminent physician, Dr. Willard Parker, for 35 per cent, of lunacy, 45 per cent. of idiocy, 75 to 90 per cent. of pauperism, and 10 per cent. of deaths; according to the New York Tribune, "this traffic lies at the centre of all political and social mischief, it paralyzes energies in every direction, it neutralizes educational agencies, it silences the voice of religion, it baffles penal reform, it obstructs political reform;" according to Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, so intimately connected is the traffic with crime in England-and the same is certainly true in almost equal degree in America-"If we could make England sober we would shut up ninetenths of her prisons;" and according to the London Times, it is an evil of such vast and growing magnitude that "it may crush and ruin us all." Hence it is a question of importance sufficient to be the dom

* HOMILETIC REVIEW, Jan. 1885, p. 25.

↑ Preface to Richardson's "Ten Lectures on Alcohol," p. 10.

inating and dividing issue in politics-other questions, however important, to take, for the time being, subordinate places; for the country settles only one great question at a time; and it is the dominating issue, not the subordinate ones, which, in a breaking-up of parties, exerts the determining influence in the recrystallization of voters. Other questions which have divided parties, as that of the National Bank and that of tariff, are, in comparison with the liquor question, of little moment; even the question of slavery, which crystallized the voters into two great opposing parties in 1856 and 1860, is dwarfed by this question. Drink is now reducing millions of negroes and whites to a far worse slavery than that which Lincoln's proclamation ended. Says Canon Farrar: "Important as great questions in English politics may be, such as the franchise and the land laws, they are matters absolutely infinitesimal compared with the urgency of the necessity of controlling and limiting with a strong hand this drink question."

2. The methods employed to stay this evil have proved insufficient. These methods have failed not only to bring this monstrum horrendum under control, but have proven wholly inadequate during these past thirty years, to prevent its constant and rapid increase, until now it has attained most alarming proportions, often defeating and electing candidates in municipal, state and national elections, and dictating political policies to both parties. Effort to turn back or even check the incoming tide of public opinion in favor of a National Prohibition party is labor lost, unless he who undertakes it clearly sets forth a remedy which will be manifestly adequate to meet the portentous and imminent danger against which this party is organized. It is to be regretted that the Rev. Dr. Spear, in his paper, did not think it worth while to suggest an adequate substitute for the one proposed by political prohibitionists.

3. License, low or high, is not an adequate substitute. License is greatly responsible for the present immense proportions of this evil. With the masses the knowledge that an evil is under the ban of the law is restraining and educative in a very high degree. Whatever may be the subtleties of our theories touching license, and the explanations which justify it with metaphysicians and philosophic statesmen, with the masses it comes within the scope of this logic that which the law permits is right, that which the law forbids is wrong. Rev. Dr. Curry says license is "partial prohibition;" with the masses it is partial permission. As indulgences in the middle ages, license has debauched the public conscience. Houses of ill-fame are licensed in Paris, and bastards are nearly as numerous as children born in wedlock, nearly fifty per cent. of all births being bastards.* Dr. Herrick Johnson, after witnessing the effects of the high license law in Chicago, denounces the law as a sham and a delusion," and Hon. John

Von Oettingen's "Moral Statistik," 3rd ed., 1882. Bibliotheca Sacra for Jan. 1885.