tion. The subject is full of peculiar interest; for if it be true with regard to general history that "the two things best worth attending to in history are not party intrigues, nor battles, nor dynastic affairs, nor even many Acts of Parliament; but the great movements of the economic forces of society on the one hand, and on the other the forms of religious opinion and ecclesiastical organization," it is all the more important to take note of the Socialistic movement, as a fact in contemporary history, both in its economic and religious aspects. As Socialism in politics tends to Republicanism, as in economics it tends to Communism, so in matters of religion it tends to Atheism, though, perhaps, it is too much to say with the Christian Social organ of Catholic Germany, that "Atheism is at the root of every form of Socialism." Nor is it very hard to account for this alliance of Socialism and Atheism. It is to a great extent the result of the materialistic tendencies of modern science and mechanical views of the universe entertained by leading scientists. The fact in itself is of some significance, that the same year saw the publication of Mr. Darwin's "Origin of Species," and that of the textbook of social democracy, the work on "Capital" by Karl Marx. But, as one of the leading spirits of Socialism, Bebel, said in the debate on the Socialist laws in the German Diet: "With regard to Atheism our standpoint is simply that of the scientific materialistic view of the universe which.. is not, however, our work: it has been called into existence without our agitation, literature, or activity; but, in the truest and fullest sense of the word, it is entirely the product of science in its modern development during the present century." Fortnightly Review (June) has no paper of marked interest, but several that are readable: as "Eton in Eighty-Five," "The Queen and her Family," "Wyclif and the Bible," "Paris as an English Res.dence," and "Peace with Russia." PRACTICAL ASTRONOMY. The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork.—Ps. xix: 1. The Location of the Stars for July. JULY 1st, 8:30 P.M. As we again face the south point of the horizon at this hour, the last stars of the large constellation Virgo are passing the meridian; its principal star, Spica, being nearly two hours to the west. Another Zodiac constellation, Libra-The Scales-occupies the place of honor. This is one of the smallest constellations of the Zodiac, the sun passing through it in twenty-three days-between the 29th of October and the 21st of November. Libra is well marked by the two stars of the 3d magnitude that we see before us, somewhat more than half way up the sky. Of these, the highest one is exactly on the meridian at this moment; the other, which is lower in the sky, has already passed to the west about half an hour. The latter is remarkable in that it lies almost exactly in the path of the sun, which passes close to it on the 5th of November. Arcturus-which, next to Sirius, is the brightest star visible in northern latitudes-is now just one hour to the west of our point of observation. The constellation of the Northern Crown is just coming to the meridian at this moment; Alphecca. the brightest of the seven stars that form the band of the crown, being 15 minutes to the east. Still further to the east is the lovely summer star, Lyra. About midnight it will pass the meridian, and will then be very nearly overhead. About an hour to the east of our point of observation, and about halfway up the sky, another very beautiful object engages our attention. I is a large and very conspicuous cross, inclined somewhat to the west. The upright of the cross is formed of six stars-a single one at each end, and two pairs along the line. The transverse bar has only two stars, a line from which will strike very near the highest star of Libra. This cross takes in part of two constellations: the three upper stars of the upright and the righthand star of the beam being in The Serpent, the other four being in Ophiuchus, The Serpent Bearer, from which constellation the figure takes its name-The Cross of Ophiuchus. Low down in the south. a little east of the meridian, are a number of stars forming a curved line, and near them a very beautiful red star. This is Antares, the principal star of the Zodiac constellation Scorpius, the Scorpion. This region will well repay examination with a small telescope, or even an opera-glass, as it is full of beautiful stars disposed in pairs, and some of them colored. If we turn to the north, we notice that that part of the Great Bear known as The Dipper, although it is very high up, has passed to the west of a meridian line. The Little Dipper, which includes all the conspicuous stars in the Little Bear, now stands upright; the North Star at the end of the handle being the lowest, and the bowl above. The brightest star in the bowl is Kochab. At the time Moses led Israel toward Palestine, Kochab was the North star, though it is never so near the Pole as the present North Star is now. * Prepared for this publication by easy applications of directions in "Stars and Constellations. THE HOMILETIC REVIEW. VOL. X.-AUGUST, 1885.--No. 2. REVIEW SECTION. I-SYMPOSIUM ON THE PULPIT: "IS THE PULPIT DECLINING IN POWER? IF SO, WHAT IS THE REMEDY?" NO. III. BY HERRICK JOHNSON, D.D., CHICAGO, ILL. THIS is not a question of mere theoretical interest or speculative curiosity; it is of profound significance in its practical bearings. It may involve a challenge of Christianity's one distinctive method of conquest. It certainly lifts an interrogation point right in front of the Church's chief agency for securing the coming of the Kingdom of God. The question not only concerns the pulpit, but the pulpit at the point of its excellent glory. Were it a question of decline in learning or oratory or fervor or tact, it would not be of such wide and vital moment. But we are asked to consider whether the pulpit is declining in power. And power is the one attribute crowning all a minister's accomplishments. Power the pulpit must have, or be put aside as something neither the Church nor the world has any use for. Let us define our terms; for in discussion like this we want exact limitations. We need to know just where we are placing our feet. By "the pulpit" we are to understand the stated and orderly ministry of the Word. Not a John-the-Baptist prelude, nor a spasmodic burst of evangelism; but the established preaching of the gospel in the presence of organized congregations. "Power" may be defined capability of producing an effect; intelligent power, the ability to produce a designed effect. As "the pulpit" is conspicuously designed for "salvation," in the broad, deep sense of that word-i. e., for reaching and rescuing men, and building them up in Christ Jesus-the power of the pulpit is its ability to produce this single and supreme effect. Its power in any other direction is subordinate, and chiefly, if not wholly, determined by its weight of spiritual transformation. The pulpit is educational and reform atory, beyond a doubt. It is a social and civilizing force, contributive to the world's betterment in morals. But it gets its grand leverage for this social and moral uplifting from man's need as a sinner and its power as a salvation. And it is weakened even as an agency of education and reform, just as it fails to go to the roots of human society with its divine doctrine and life. Let its efficacy be made unmistakable there, and society throughout all its ramifications -socially, civilly, politically, educationally-will feel the outpush and the uplift. Hence the political power of the pulpit need not enter into this discussion; nor the educational power; nor yet the literary; and certainly not the sacerdotal. When the pulpit's sacerdotal power was almost supreme, its might of spiritual transformation, by which "living epistles" are made, was at its lowest; whereas the world can furnish no such signal illustration of the potent voice of the pulpit in politics as that given during our Civil War-the potency being due to the very freedom of the American pulpit from priestly assumption and State alliance, and to its fidelity to the great commission unto the fulfilment of which it was ordained. To this vital point, therefore, our question presses us: Is the pulpit declining in its power of commanding men's consciences, of holding them in a decent and reverent regard for God's Word, and of bringing them into harmony with the divine order and the power that "makes for righteousness ?" Those who hold that this decline of pulpit power has actually taken place, point to certain conditions of society as furnishing, in part at least, its cause and explanation. Some refer to the wider diffusion of knowledge in our time, the greatly quickened mental activity, and the far larger number of educated and trained minds, as the conditions making it impossible for the pulpit to hold its old place of influence. Others point to the rival agency of the press thundering the truth by metallic type, and multiplying the proclamation by the countless leaves of literature, as having lessened the power of the pulpit. Others, still, insist that the spirit of the times, as manifested in the prevalent form of unbelief, is at once both proof and cause of a waning pulpit power. But it can easily be shown that the pulpit, relatively to the pew, has fully kept its place in the march of educational progress and scholarly culture. Undoubtedly the pulpit has quite wholly ceased to be that "Sir Oracle" on almost all matters, in which light it was sometimes viewed a century ago in exceptional and isolated localities. But just as undoubtedly the pulpit has kept pace with the world in improved educational processes, enlarged intellectual equipment, and riper and wider scholarship. "The press," as an agency in more widely diffusing knowledge, in creating a Christian literature, and in stimulating thought and effort, is the marvel of our time. But that it has impaired the power of the pulpit, or lessened in any way whatever the effectiveness of "God's great ordinance of speech," we are instant and constant to deny. The statement finds no warrant in the facts. Never so many hearers, and with such average intelligence personally waited on the ministry of the Word as now. Moreover, see what enlarged audiences are commanded for the pulpit through this agency of the press, increasing thus the very power it is said to impair. Sermons are caught from the lips of living preachers and given wings, and sent to tell their message to the ends of the earth. Spurgeon preaches to two continents. What pulpit of earlier times carried as far? To admit that this is by the power of the press still leaves us face to face with the fact that it is an immeasurable increase of the power of the pulpit. And the press, therefore, instead of being a "rival" to the pulpit, is its effective adjunct and ally. Moreover, the view we are combating is no less out of harmony with the nature of things than, with the facts. The nameless and personality cannot all go down into a dead potent charm of intense an, with book. Truth in personality is where the hidings of power are. We look in vain along the pages of Whitefield for the secret of his mighty effectiveness. We search the famous sermon of Edwards, and wonder what there was in it that moved men so. It was not the sermon on the printed page; it was the sermon in the living preacher. While men are men, a living man before living men will always be more than white paper and black ink. And therein will forevermore lie the supremest possibilities of pulpit power, which no competing press, however enterprising and ubiquitous, can rival. The Founder of Christianity made no mistake when He staked its triumphal progress down through all ages, and its victorious consummation at "the end of the world" on "the foolishness of preaching." He chose the agency in full view of the marvels of these later centuries, and the pulpit is not therefore likely to be despoiled of its peculiar glory and made impotent to its work by any device born of the inventive genius. of man. Nor is the power of the pulpit impaired by any opposing form of unbelief. Here we are obliged to take direct issue with the gifted divine who has led the discussion in this Symposium on the Pulpit.. Distinctly holding, as he does, that the pulpit has declined in power, Bishop Coxe says: "The reason why is not difficult to discover. Men cannot serve God and mammon. Their heart goeth after their covetousness." And because of this wide-spread idolatry of riches, this "hasting to be rich," or "mammon-worship," the Bishop maintains that "the conditions are wanting which insure to the pulpit its legitimate operation." The radical defect of this position is that it places the conditions of pulpit power wholly outside the pulpit. And this looks very like leaving it to the god of this world to determine the efficiency of that great ordinance of speech instituted by the God of the gospel. Just as the devil is active and successful in pervading society with a mammon worshiping spirit, is the pulpit shorn of its might. But what strange and fatal limitations are thus put on the great warrant of the great commission: "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all nations." Surely Christ has not ordained a ministry and set it apart with such high sanction, and backed it by such infinite amplitude of power, only to have it subject to the shame of impotency and utter defeat by opposing unbelief. No. We believe the conditions of power are in the pulpit-wholly and perpetually in the pulpit-and not outside of it. The Bishop cites in support of his view the record in Mark, that Christ "could there do no mighty work because of their unbelief." But we submit whether this Scripture has not been both sadly overworked and misapplied. It is the standing resort in justification of a fruitless ministry. And the misapplication is remarkable. The "works" referred to in the gospel narrative are works of miracles, and the "unbelief" is unbelief in Christ as a teacher sent from God. If the passage is applicable to works of regeneration, and to unbelief in a personal Savior, then indeed is the pulpit shut up to imbecility, and it would follow that Christ could do no mighty work anywhere, "because of their unbelief"; for unbelief has withstood the truth ever since Pentecost. We would not abate the intensity or inveteracy of the prevalent unbelief. The age is indeed materialistic. The "secular spirit" is rife; mammon-worship is a deep-rooted and an awful sin. Bishop Coxe has not painted it in too dark colors. But history shows that his colors are outdone in their sombre hues by every century since Christ. Could the pulpit be confronted anywhere to-day with such opposing and malignant unbelief as that which looked up into the face of Peter at Pentecost? Recall the pagan idolatry of the first centuries, enshrined in art, embosomed in history, endorsed by culture, having its home in song, to tamper with which was awful sacrilege. Was there ever a giant and defiant establishment of unbelief to match it! If there is any force in the reasoning that finds proof and cause of the declining power of the pulpit of our time in the prevailing form of unbelief, then ought the pulpit of these early centuries to have been weak to utter helplessness! And what was the state of the world when Luther flung his thunderbolts from Wittenberg? How much in those days were men "distinguishing between their psychic and their pneumatic natures!" "Laodicean spirit" indeed! The haughty, self-sufficient and heaven-affronting content |