UNIVERSITY RELIGION

JOHN iii. 10.

NICODEMUS was what might appropriately be called the university man of his time. He was a gentleman, a scholar and a religious and social leader. His attainments as a scholar made him a suitable companion for the religious leaders of Israel and caused him to be chosen a member of their leading assembly, while his qualities as a man and a fellow citizen doubtless made him a familiar and popular figure among the less conspicuous of the people. His qualities of mind, so far as we have them revealed in the New Testament, are those of a trained and tolerant intellect. Even his visit to Jesus by night, which in its harsher aspect resembles cowardice, in another view shows the natural conservatism of a well-balanced character. Religious radicals would probably call him a coward. More thoughtful men would probably say that careful inquiry should precede discipleship and the evening call upon Christ was in the nature of an endeavor to interview and understand Christ away from the crowd. Many a man is a hero in a mob who shrinks to very diminutive proportions in a private interview. Wise men do not accept mob standards of heroism. Nicodemus was a wise man. He sought to know Christ in the only way in which to a man of his type Christ could reveal himself with the power and fullness which appeal to the trained and sumptuous mind. That was the method of personal interview. Whether his coming by night was the result of fear or not is purely a matter for conjecture. Christ's days were busy days. Perhaps the evening was the only time in which a personal interview could be secured.

Christ, it will be observed, did not reproach Nicodemus for

coming in the night. On the contrary, the record of the conversation seems to show that he was glad to be sought out by the learned ruler, for the talk that resulted bears the evidence of careful comparison of ideas and explicit effort on Christ's part to make Nicodemus understand the fundamental idea of the gospel, namely, the doctrine of the new birth. Only once does Jesus give any sign of surprise in anything that Nicodemus says or does, and that is when the new birth is announced. Struck by the greatness of the ruler's surprise, Jesus exclaims, "Art thou the teacher of Israel, and understandest not these things?" apparently himself surprised that this should be so utterly novel to his interviewer. Jesus does not seem to have been greatly astonished at the ruler's general ignorance, but when that individual breaks out with the astounded, "How can these things be?" showing that the thought was absolutely foreign and new to his previous life and thought, Jesus in turn is also astounded and expresses himself as the text relates. It was a curious scene. The university man was amazed at the idea which Christ offered, and Jesus was amazed that he should find it so new. That the multitude could not understand did not surprise him. Popular education was not then the great distributer of knowledge and intelligence that it now is. But that an educated man, the university man of the time, should find the doctrine of the new birth so utterly alien to all his life and thinking gave to Christ a shock of what seems to have been a very unpleasant surprise. If the educated and intelligent are so dense to the idea of experimental religion, what can we possibly expect of the rest? This seems to be a fair interpretation of his words.

And yet knowing what we know now this was not strange after all. We expect educated men, the university men of our time, to know a great many things which they do not know. Indeed the "practical" man of the world has had much occasion for amusement at the innocence and ignorance of really highly cultivated men when they have given themselves to the reformation of the practical ills of society. Experience has changed it considerably, but the early efforts of

the university men of this country to reform politics were very ridiculous, no matter how well they intended. The academic habit once acquired is very strong and not easily thrown off. It is well known that Charles Sumner ridiculed in the United States Senate the English of Mr. Lincoln's messages to Congress. It was certainly poor taste and worse manners to add to Mr. Lincoln's troubles in this petty way, but Sumner was simply following out the academic habit from which he could not extricate himself. So the efforts of educated men in the political contests since the war were marked by an uneasiness about details which often obscured the main principle. It became the habit among the lower strata of political workers to jeer at the efforts of the "literary fellers," and though many non-academic intelligent men declined to join in the jeer they did share in the amusement. One of the most cultivated governors of Massachusetts not long since openly derided a young clergyman for speaking of the voting body as the "electorate." And yet that is exactly what the voting body is. But the distinguished governor and Harvard overseer had learned, or thought he had learned, what the young minister had not, that the term was too classical for the American political platform.

We are not surprised, then, that the scholastic habit was strong enough with the distinguished Israelite to obscure the experimental idea of religion. Nicodemus was but the type of many of his class then and now. This country is full of educated men who have no more definite ideas about the Christian religion than if they were educated in China or India. Each year there comes forth from the colleges a mass of men who are absolutely ignorant of what was formerly considered a sine qua non of a liberal education, namely, a thorough knowledge of the English Bible. The quotation from the Bible by public men reveals this in a degree that would be amusing if it were not so shocking. An educated Chinaman who knew as little about the sacred books of China as some of our alleged statesmen know about the Bible would be an impossibility. In a recent assembly in this city a Harvard professor made a speech to five hun

dred men in which he alluded to the Bible twice and each time misquoted it. Even the scholastic habit ought to have rendered this impossible. But the man knew probably so little about experimental religion or had given to his personal religious life so little attention that the incentive to a ripe and religious scholasticism dominant everywhere else was absent when it came to the literature of religion. He was not scholastic about the Bible because he was not concerned about the religion of the Bible. Thus both religion as a personal matter and the university capacity in the matter of Biblical knowledge and instruction suffered. A university professor of this type is an intellectual misfit in modern life. No greater calamity is thinkable to the youth of our land than that they should attach to the religious ideas of such men the same importance that they do to their special branches of scientific knowledge.

But the university-bred population of this country is very small, some one says. True enough, but small as that fraction is of the whole, it has given the tone and direction to nine-tenths of the culture and thought life of the land. College breeding may not make a man a genius, but no man, or better, perhaps, few men can give four solid years to the habit of book life and book ideals without having certain tones of life and a certain power of penetration into the real essence of things ground into them. And Christianity, let it never be forgotten, is a book religion. The Bible is a book which requires the most careful and painstaking study for its complete understanding. One of the ideas that modern education has driven out forever is that any one can offhand understand and explain the Scriptures. We know better than that now. And while we do not believe in the Roman Catholic doctrine that there can be only one authoritative interpretative power, yet we do believe that the truth of God is not to be gained with that jaunty ease. that some people affect in dealing with Bible knowledge. It is of the highest importance, then, that the university population shall receive training of a character which shall make the reenactment of the scene between Christ and Nicodemus