ration has to be incarnated, made a fact, by legislative assemblies, courts of justice, marts of trade, skilful inventions, wise adjustments of means to ends,-consecrate all your work to God and man: make that noble, and then all true work becomes prayer. That is your offering, that your sacrifice. Thus can you organize the Holy Ghost.

I appeal to you, women, to whom so much of the world's romance, beauty, ideality, grace, mercy, affection, and heavenly peace is entrusted,-on behalf of that God, part of whose will and purpose is told out by the glory of flower and star; by purple cloud and ský of blue; by the grace of human homes; by the love-light in mother eyes; part of whose glorious gospel is best told out by a true woman's heart, by a woman's gracious ways, by the inspiration of a woman's finest instincts and tenderest feelings; that God whose will cannot be brought to pass without millions of woman angels to execute it, welcome the incoming spirit: organize it: be its messengers, its poets, its finest, most fitting instruments. Then comes the statelier Eden back to men. Then springs the crowning race of human kind.

THE RELATION OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY

TO LIBERALISM.

BY PROF. CHARLES C. EVERETT, D.D.

The word "liberal" as applied to religion has two meanings, which, though sometimes confounded, are entirely distinct. In its primary sense, it signifies that one has passed out from the limitations of earlier beliefs. In its secondary meaning, it describes the temper of mind that should accompany such emancipation; namely, a genial sympathy with differing views, or at least a kindly toleration of them. A man who is an advanced liberal in the first of these senses may be very illiberal in the second; while one of the most liberal Christians, according to the second significance of the word, that I ever knew, was so conservative in his own views as to be almost a Roman Catholic. I mark this distinction simply in order to make clear that in this essay I shall use the word "liberal" wholly in its original sense. By the progress toward liberalism I mean the movement away from the older views known, under one form or another, as orthodox.

While I thus recognize the terminus a quo of this movement, I shall here recognize no terminus ad quem. I shall consider the process chiefly, if not wholly, in its negative aspect. There is a point where liberalism ceases to be Christian, there is a point where it even ceases to be religious. In the judgment of some, these points would coincide; in that of others, they would differ. Some would place them earlier, some later; but such points all would recognize, each from his own position. In other words, each of us would probably find in the history of this movement which does not rest short of the grossest materialism, points where it might well have stopped. These points I shall not here notice. It

is to a very great extent the same influences that are working through the whole process; and it is these influences alone with which we have to do. But, while I have here to consider merely negative relations, I believe that there is a positive aspect which is yet more important. This movement of destruction will prove to have been not wholly in vain. The essential truth of religion will come from the fires purified and glorified.

My special theme is the relation of philosophy to liberalism. From what has been said it will appear that the subject is to be treated historically. I can give only scattered fragments of a history, indeed, but I shall give them as such. I shall recognize an existing habit of thought, and seek some of the causes which have produced it. I shall state premises and conclusions, pausing rarely, if ever, to express approbation or dissent.

The relation of the history of philosophy to that of theology suggests much matter of curious interest. It might be thought, at first, that the two lines of history would run parallel to one another. Philosophy and theology, rightly understood, are but different aspects of the same thing. If theology be true, and if philosophy be also true, the latter expresses in the most abstract form what the other expresses more concretely. They differ thus as inner and outer. The two histories should then be but different forms of the same history, the stages of the one corresponding accurately with those of the other. In fact, however, this is not the case; and, as we look more closely, we shall see reasons for the difference.

One essential principle upon which the history of these different forms of thought depends is found in the relation of each to its own earlier results. Theology, in general, clings to the past. In its narrower forms, it seeks to preserve a minute and accurate identity with the system that preceded it. In its more liberal forms, it seeks to preserve this identity in regard to certain matters which it deems fundamental. In philosophy, on the other hand, each system seeks after originality. While theology strives to conceal even from

itself the differences that actually do arise, philosophy seeks often to exaggerate them. This difference in the susceptibility of each to change is one of degree only. Theology cannot escape the drift which is bearing it steadily, however slowly, from its old moorings; and no system of philosophy can wholly escape from the hold which the past has upon it. Still the difference is great enough to keep the two from being in perfect accord with one another.

There is another element of difference still more fundamental, that works toward the same end. This arises from the fact already referred to; namely, the concrete nature of the one and the greater abstractness of the other. Philosophy, dealing as it does with abstract principles, finds it more easy to attain the unity which its nature requires, by separating these principles than by combining them. Its tendency is to seize first one of these and then another. It thus swings from one extreme to the opposite. A system may appear wholly unconnected with one that has preceded it, and yet may have the greatest of all connections with it, in that both are parts of a common whole. Theology, while not wholly free from similar influences and results, yet, through its concreteness, moves more as a whole. It has to satisfy, to a certain degree, at every point, the whole spiritual nature of man. It is therefore less exposed than philosophy to sudden and violent changes. Thus the two histories follow each its own course and its own law. The two act upon one another, indeed; but this interaction seems to a great extent accidental. There must be, however, some general principles or methods of influence; and a study of the mutual relation of the two in a large number of instances must, it would seem, enable us to form some sort of generalization in the matter. At least, the experiment is one well worth trying. It is my purpose to illustrate by two or three prominent examples the influence of philosophy upon theology in the later history of Christianity.

It is in the later history of Christianity alone that the conditions exist as I have described them. During the early and mediæval history of the Church, theology and philosophy

were to a large extent one. Christianity gathered from the past life of the world the best results of its various civilizations. It blended the fairest products of the political economy of Rome, of the philosophy of Greece, and of the spirituality of the Hebrew. Starting with these elements, it formed a mighty and complex system, which grew ever into a fuller development of the whole and of every part. Philosophy was intensely active; but with few, and generally, as far as the history of the Church is concerned, unimportant exceptions, philosophy was strictly the handmaid of religion. It was willingly a servant. It was even unconscious of its servitude. It received the materials which the Church put into its hands, and elaborated them under its direction.

Had the development of the moral principle been in harmony with that of those already named, their common growth might, it would seem, have gone on indefinitely. In the lack of ethical completeness is found the source of the downfall of this imposing ecclesiastical structure. Its external authority was the first to give way. The immoralities of Rome and of its policy drove the honest German mind into revolt. The doctrinal development still continued for a short time even in the dismembered Church. This reached its highest point with Calvin. From this point, dogmatic disintegration followed in the steps of political disintegration.

There is something sad in watching the decay of any perfect organism, even when we know that it is to give place to something better than itself; and the medieval Church was perhaps the most magnificent organism that the world has ever seen. Henceforth, however, the process of breaking up the results of its centuries of growth was to be universal and continuous. The intellectual history of the Church was to become as fragmentary as its external history. As there were to be churches instead of the Church, so there were to be systems in the place of the one great system of religious belief. And the succession of these systems was to be in general in one direction. It was to be away from the old dogmatism, from a pronounced and all-important supernaturalism, in the direction of secularism and naturalism.