remark, that "the stars would have covered the whole heavens if they had been spread out, so the astronomers gathered them up into constellations," is suggestive of what has often been actually undertaken by the speculative reconstructor of past events.

The historical argument needs to be better understood and more carefully applied in all the general fields of inquiry. For the purpose of illustrating and further unfolding the principles already indicated, some of these may properly be alluded to briefly in this article:

I. The first of these is that of History proper. All that has in the past been believed to be historical is not, as we have learned, been really historical. On too slender evidence things were called facts which were not facts. What is to be done here? The whole ground of history is being retraversed. All possible lights are being turned upon all possible phases of the past. The most rigid tests are being applied to the statements of the writers of history. The question is not only what is said, but also what was known when it was said. Just how many and how important are the facts from which the conclusions have been drawn? History is being dissolved, and only the original elements are desired for the new product. If the facts are not sufficient for the old conclusions, the verdict is unhesitatingly rendered, that the record may be true, but it is not proved true. The events in question may have happened, but they have no place in established history; they are "under consideration," and, unless something else can be brought into the line of supporting testimony, they must forever remain as non-historical.

But just here must come in the ceaseless caution against drawing a false inference from this situation. No fact which lacks historically acceptable proof is thereby proved in itself to be improbable. We cannot say, for this reason, that the statement is false, or that the event never occurred. What stands must be proved untrue by other facts before it be

comes unhistorical: and to deny authoritatively, requires the same degree of knowledge as to affirm. An unsupported denial of what has been asserted on, what appears to us, insufficient evidence, is not so strong as the original affirmation; for we may believe that the original historian may have had in his possession other means of knowledge than those mentioned by him. And so the presumption will remain with the honest "writer of history at-first-hand" till the facts are forthcoming for final proof or effective denial.

We are in no special way interested personally in the question of whether there were two Homers; or two John Wyclifs; or whether Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare; or whether there was a historical William Tell. But when a rigid historical inquiry is directed to the first three centuries of the Christian era, the results immediately become of personal importance to every intelligent Christian. What is the evidence for believing that here all is historical which has been believed to be so? Did the apostolic fathers write the books they have been credited with writing? Are the documents of the New Testament historical? Some of the most significant work in recent times has been done here. Students who are just coming into the great fields of thought need to know the spirit of the doing, and the inferences which are to be drawn from it all. What the present generation of investigators pronounce to be historical we may have a new confidence in, just in proportion to the rigidness of the principles of inquiry.

I may here say, in passing, that, to my thought, the historical foundation of the Christian religion was never more clearly demonstrated than after the most thorough investigation that has ever been directed into the realm of history. Most of the Epistles were evidently written before the year 70. And if the Gospels as we have them were used already in a written form before the year 160 A. D. to furnish material for compiling certain Gospel narratives which in part have

come down to us; and if these facts have been accepted as historical under the modern tests of inquiry, then the Gospel documents are shown to stand within the realm of history.

But just here is manifested the importance of a clear understanding of the inferences to be drawn from the situation. As the rigidness of the investigation is increased by the various historians, and the confidence in what can pass the tests is thereby made stronger, there is an enlarged number of items left with no historical evidence yet known, to support them. Are they for this reason disproved? Nothing of the kind. They simply stand awaiting other evidence. If it should never be forthcoming, because the records have forever perished, the stamp of "historical" would, in the judgment of those investigators, be forever withheld, and that too though the events in question may have once had all the reality of your own existence. What is the argumentative meaning of all this? It is simply that the historical method has its limitations. While it intensifies certainty, it limits the range of that certainty. There is a larger field left to probabilities and presumptions. Circumstantial evidence immediately comes into lively operation. And religious faith must have its place for that which is "probable," as well as that which can be stamped "historical"; but it must be absolutely distinct from the historically established. Every link in the chain of circumstantial evidence may be true to the life, but it may also be false. This method inspires confidence and is covered with confusion. While the man who disputes history without evidence is not only an ignorant man, but a fool, the man who dogmatizes in the realm of the merely probable is a dangerous leader to the ignorant, and a troublesome enthusiast to the wise.

In Germany the varying emphasis placed upon the his1 Besides the Diatessaron of Tatian, see H. B. Swete's Introduction and Notes to The Akmîm Fragment of the Apocryphal Gospel of Peter. London and New York: Macmillan & Co. 1893.

torical method has led to a number of distinct phases of religious thought. One class of mind has become sceptically inclined because of what has been left outside their present means of absolute proof, forgetting apparently that a mere "method of proof" cannot in one particular change past events as they have really existed. What has happened, is there, whether it can be proved or not. And there must be a faith in what cannot be proved, because of our faith in what can be proved. A sleeping child is discovered in a basket on a doorstep. The parents of the child may not be found by all the vigilance that the court can exercise: but if the child is not cared for, it will cease to be a sleeping child, and become a crying child!

Another type of the German mind has put forth the duty. of belief in Christ irrespective of all historical evidence, because of his meeting our spiritual wants. The same investigator who can find no historical proof great enough to bring before him the historical Christ, yet in the church is to turn from this incomplete record of the past, and join with the worshippers in adoring the spiritual Lord whom he knows spiritually and personally. Dr. Reischle, of Giessen, in an essay, entitled, "Faith in Jesus Christ, and the Historical Examination of his Life," declares that, "One cannot delay faith in Christ till historical criticism has settled all its problems." The imperative is to yield to the spiritual Lord, and know of the truth of the doctrine in the soul's own experience. The late Dr. Frank, of Erlangen, while emphasizing the importance of that personal experience directly received in "regeneration" and "conversion" as a means of "assurance,"1 yet had no complacency in those who' directly or indirectly neglect the importance and validity of the historical element in religion. To him the certainty in the soul was

1 System der Christlichen Gewissheit, 2 Auf. 2 Bde. Erlangen und Leipzig.

2 "Eine brenende Frage," in Neue Kirchliche Zeitschrift, 1894, No. 3.

not independent of the Gospel record of Jesus, and did not leave that record as a matter of indifference. It sealed for him its perfect integrity, validity, and divinity.

It is not possible to understand the religious position of such scholars as Ritschl, Herrmann, Harnack, and Kaftan without a knowledge of their use of the historical method. But for the purposes of illustration it is not necessary to dwell longer here.

2. Let us pass now into the so-called sphere of Science. Scientific investigation has been greatly enlarged in recent years. But here, in the study of the rocks, the observation of animal existence, and the investigation into the physical basis of life, the right use of the historical method is absolutely necessary for the validity of the conclusions. For the question is not, what might be, or what ought to be; but what is, and what has been. In geology, biology, and physiological psychology fact must be absolutely separated from inference; and both fact and the inferences drawn from fact must be forever distinct from the great mass of mere philosophical speculations. The real strength of these departments will lie primarily in the array of authenticated facts, and only secondarily in the skill of the dialectic used in the realm of the inferential, and in that of the purely speculative which lies beyond these facts.

(1) Geology in its rich field has its work to do in discovering and verifying. But science finds it a limited field, and speculation, as well as inference, must soon be brought into play, if there is an attempt to tell us the particulars of what has happened in the ages of the past. If, however, we clearly hold in mind here the limitations of the historical method, we need not be thrown into confusion when one scientist tells us that a certain event took place ten thousand years ago, and another gives us to understand that the event in question occurred a million years in the past. A discrepancy of nine hundred and ninety thousand years, in a consid