ing of the kingdom" above referred to, were confined solely within itself and to its segregated population. We do not say that this detracts from the duty to spread the Gospel therein; but relatively this land does not seem to be the most important objective point when unreached peoples exist in solid races and nationalities elsewhere.

What interests many persons at this hour much more than any theory of the relative importance of Thibet as a mission field is the relative practicability of the different ways of approach to its people. The indomitable Moravians, sitting down at the west gate of Thibet at Lahoul and patiently translating portions of Scripture into Thibetan-shut in meanwhile for six months of the year, by impassable barriers of ice, from all communication with the rest of the world-challenge the admiration of all who appreciate heroic virtues. But it is exceedingly doubtful if the most practicable way of approach is not by the east rather than by the west. The Darjeeling route on the west is, of course, the shortest in leagues; but is it the shortest when time and all other things are considered? The Methodist mission in West China extends to the very borders of Thibet, and the Thibetans are separated from the people of extreme Sze-Chuen by a very indefinite line. The ethnological boundary is not at all sharply marked. Caravans are constantly passing to and fro between Ta-Tsien-Lu and Lassa. Eastern Thibet is practically an extension of our West China mission field. Roman Catholic missions have long existed in this part of the world. The people of Thibet are certainly jealous of any commercial advances into their territory, and are inhospitable to strangers on that account; but as priests of the Roman Catholic Church have resided there others may hope to do so. The fact that Miss Annie Taylor, with a Thibetan servant, could enter the country and get within easy marching distance of the capital itself unmolested renders reasonable the expectation that she and others who have become associated with her may be permitted to enter it for residence. This does not necessarily mean that, even when settled there, they will find kindly consideration, either for themselves or for their message. The romantic character of their undertaking will give to them a large share of public attention, for this most elevated country of the globe possesses unusual attractions for the imagination. These seven hundred thousand square miles are not exempt from the promise that the uttermost parts of the earth will be given to Jesus Christ for an inheritance; and sooner or later, by quiet extension of influence or by direct assault, Thibet too will be His "possession."

THE APOLOGETIC VALUE OF RECENT REVIVALS IN ASIATIC MISSIONS.

THERE is nothing connected with foreign mission work which is of intenser interest to the Christian Church than the religious phenomena which result from the preaching of the Gospel among hitherto non-Christian races. We are all familiar with the old-time emotional periods in religion in nominally Christian communities which we are wont to call,

for want of a better name, seasons of revival, and which we are also wont to attribute to supernatural agency-to the divine work of the Holy Ghost. These supernatural influences, as they are accounted, have long been assigned an apologetic character. They are among the evidences of the supernatural origin of the word of God, and are within the provision for an experimental assurance to everyone seeking to know the truth-that truth which makes men free. But, if this is a concomitant of sincere acceptance of the truth among one people, theoretically, at least, it should be so among "every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." Naturally, therefore, Christians look with interest to see if the same phenomena attend the preaching of the word in heathen lands. And they have not looked in vain. Great revivals have swept over many of the foreign missions of the Churches in various parts of the world, attended with the same inner consciousness of divine power on individuals, one after another, till scores have swelled to hundreds and hundreds to thousands.

Recent illustrations of uniformity in type of spiritual blessing are among the " news from afar" which has gladdened the Churches at home. Rev. William N. Brewster, Methodist Episcopal missionary at Hing-hua, Province of Fo-Kien, China, in the Foo-Chow Conference, writing of a time of refreshing, says that it began at an anniversary of a chapter of the Epworth League in that place, where prayer was being offered "for the Holy Spirit to be poured out upon all the chapters." The usual time to close came, but all felt moved to stay longer and to continue in prayer. The members of the Theological School and the Woman's Training schools all remained, and the sense of the divine presence became, as Mr. Brewster describes it, "awful." All knelt to pray in all parts of the house; and, unconscious of the time occupied, they continued with one accord pouring out their souls to God till the leader told them to rise, but not until after they had been kneeling for forty minutes. This was but the initial meeting. Others followed. Other workers from the adjoining districts were brought in. Twenty-four preachers were present. They were filled with wonder. School-teachers came, other laymen came—a hundred from outside the city. An average of two hundred were at each service. Services were held three times a day. Bands of preachers instituted open-air preaching. It was a genuine "revival." Mr. Brewster writes that the general notion that the Chinese are a stolid, unemotional race, and, hence, that we need not expect to find a joyous, fervid type of piety among them, is a mistaken one; and that while all nations have distinct characteristics, and no doubt the Chinese are less emotional than some other races, yet when filled with the Spirit they exhibit as much joy, and exhibit it in the same way, as other people do under like conditions.

Another illustration is at hand in the religious exercises of the Japanese Christians at Nagoya. These occurred in connection with the Week of Prayer at the beginning of this year, the prayer season being extended to seventeen days. A Pentecostal enthusiasm burst forth. Suddenly an old woman, trembling with emotion, cried out, "God, please pity the breth

ren and sisters who do not come to these meetings." All present burst into tears. An extreme consciousness of sin and longing for divine blessing came upon one and another; all were the subjects of these exercises of mind and soul. The meeting was continued. The leader gave up a whole day to meditation, fasting, and prayer. Others went to a hilltop not far away for like exercise; then, endued with power from on high, they started upon a house-to-house visitation. That evening two hundred and fifty persons cried, "Release us from Satan! Give us the Holy Ghost and peace!" Three hundred persons assembled the next night. "The evangelists talked till their faces were heated as with fire."

It is needless to go more into detail. The same phenomena have been experienced in the Methodist missions in North China, in the Church of England, the Presbyterian, and other missions; and all furnish fresh inspiration to persons seeking for the conversion of men everywhere, and stoutly certify to the value of this form of Christian evidence.

THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT.

SOONER or later non-Christian communities come to recognize both the meaning and the power of even indirect missionary agencies. Just now the Persian government is opposing a Bible shop, a lithographic press, and even a medical mission and dispensary at Ispahan, the latter conducted by a lady physician, Miss Bird. And, what is still more significant, the Persian government's appeal to the British consul and to her majesty's minister at Teheran show that we have not misinterpreted its policy. The minister says, "The Persian government, while according perfect freedom in religious matters to all communities not professing Islam, have expressed their determination that any interference with the belief of such of their subjects as are Mussulmans shall not be tolerated;" and he serves notice on the British missionaries that they cannot receive government protection against any harm that may ensue from their supporting a Bible shop and dispensary. It is not with the moral or legal quality of this official action that we now deal. It is only quoted to show the quick perception of the Moslem world that the civilization of the Bible and the Bible itself are essentially opposed to Moslem civilization and the Quran. Heathen nations may have been somewhat slow in discerning the power of these agencies, but they sooner or later perceive their ultimate influence. The Chinese memorialists to the throne of the empire distinctly apprehended the peril to the State from the new spirit of Christianity. A contributor to the Ostasiatische Lloyd, of Shanghai, in an article entitled "Zur Verständigung," discussing the cause of the Chinese riots, affirms that Christianity cannot but come into collision with the constitutions of heathen States, and declares that "as long as the out-and-out politico-religious constitution of China continues to be founded on its present principles China must continue to regard Christianity as hostile, antinational, and non-Chinese," and that China is now restrained from the prohibition and persecution of Christianity only by constant fear of foreign intervention.

FOREIGN OUTLOOK.

SOME LEADERS OF THOUGHT.

Carl Weizsäcker. Professor of Church History at Tübingen, he has long enjoyed the reputation of being one of the ablest theologians of Germany. Professor Harnack regards his Das apostolische Zeitalter (The Apostolic Age) as the greatest work on that subject ever written. To sum up the views of Weizsäcker in the space at our command is impossible. We confine ourselves to his discussion of the appearances of Christ subsequent to his resurrection. He is very confident that the events related in the gospels as having occurred at the grave were unknown to Paul; and, since he is obliged to suppose that Paul received his information concerning the appearances, as related in 1 Corinthians, from the heads of the primitive Church, he argues that they too had never heard of them. There are some things which must be accepted, although they lie outside of the range of historical investigation. But we must begin with the historical fact that Paul and those of whom Paul speaks believed themselves to have seen the risen Lord, and that the sight was not imaginary or in any sense merely subjective, but objectively real. Comparing Paul's ideas of the resurrection body, as found in various portions of his writings, we must believe that Paul saw, not the body of Christ as it went into the grave, but a spiritual body. Hence, we must conclude that the others mentioned by Paul as having seen the risen Lord saw, not a physical, but a spiritual appearance, like that which Paul saw. Nevertheless, what Paul saw when the Lord appeared to him was not a Phantasie, but, on the contrary, reality. The report of Paul cannot be reconciled with the report in the gospels; and Paul's report must be accepted. The one great certainty is that the witnesses mentioned by Paul experienced a moment in which they were filled with the certainty that Jesus lived and was with them. It is in such conclusions as these that we discover the full significance of the higher criticism. By the methods of reasoning here pursued the Gospel records concerning the resurrection are set aside as worthless products of a later age, and Paul's account is interpreted as being determinative for the nature of the appearances even to those who believed before Paul. Weizsäcker says nothing about the coincidence of the time at which Jesus is declared, both by the evangelists and Paul, to have risen from the dead; nor of the implications connected with the fact that he was dead three days and then came to life. The accounts in the gospels and Acts are more satisfactory than Paul's.

Jules Bovon. The Frenchmen who carefully and originally study theological questions are few; but Bovon is one of the few. He is professor of theology in the Free Church faculty at Lausanne, and author of a number of works which have attracted considerable attention in France.

He has projected a monumental work of six volumes on the theology of the New Testament. The first volume has appeared, under the title La Vie et l'Enseignment de Jésus, which is in reality a study of the work of redemption in Christ. His researches in this volume rest upon a twofold supposition, namely, on the one side, that that which is new and creative in the teachings of Jesus is not his message, but the Messenger himself; and, on the other, that the preaching of the kingdom of heaven and the Messianic self-consciousness of Jesus can only be understood and appreciated in connection with the history of Jesus and his time. So far he is in harmony with the most recent students. But he draws from these premises the conclusion that New Testament theology must start with an examination of the facts of Christ's life; and here he diverges from the prevailing view, namely, that the facts of Christ's life need not be investigated with reference to their credibility in order to the formation of a New Testament theology. We are inclined to side with Bovon. It is true that the theology of the New Testament can be studied with as much indifference to the reality of the alleged facts of the New Testament as one might experience in studying the theology of Homer. The theology of the New Testament is one thing, and the reality of it is another. But to deny the New Testament theologian the right to investigate the reality of the life of Christ as portrayed in the gospels would be to deny him the right to criticise his sources. The Christian theologian is more than a theologian. He is also a Christian. is, not merely what the New Testament teaches, but what it teaches is true. And this is a vital question. divorce between criticism and positive theology. criticism must be incorporated into the Christian system. Forgetfulness of this principle has made criticism incautious and New Testament theology a matter of purely literary interest. If the critics can prove that Christ did not really rise from the dead we can no longer believe in the resurrection. The truth of the gospel utterances must be tested.

To him the question

also how much of There must be no The results of a true

C. H. Scharling. According to its size Denmark has produced a relatively large number of able investigators and thinkers. Among the more recent, Scharling has distinguished himself by his work on Christian ethics, a department already well studied by that other great Dane, Martensen. He takes what seems to us the only tenable position relative to the true nature and function of conscience, when he defines it as the consciousness of mankind that the moral law possesses absolute validity and as the judge which necessarily estimates all our acts accordingly. That man possesses along with this a moral judgment is unquestionable. And it may be freely admitted that the conscience and moral judgment intimately cooperate. When the moral judgment declares an act wrong the conscience accepts the dictum as law and moves the will against it. But, however blind may be the impulse which drives us to follow the dictates of the moral judgment, it is the impulse, and not the judgment, which we rightly call conscience. The judgment is capable of being