In 1559, the little republic of Geneva was menaced by its former viceroy, the Catholic Duke of Savoy, who had been restored to his hereditary domains by the treaty of Cateau Cambrésis and had begun to take steps to recover the rights which he claimed over Geneva. The Duke's ambassador gave fair words, but a Genevan councillor declined his offer in this Puritan response, “For the sovereignty of God and the Word of God we will hazard our lives.” The council promptly voted “to recommend themselves to God and to keep good watch.” The response of the councillor and the vote of the council reveal the characteristics bred by twenty-three years of Calvin's programme for a Puritan state in Geneva. A sense of a moral obligation to “hazard life for the sovereignty of God and the Word of God,” a quiet trust in God, intelligent preparations for a vigorous defence of God-given liberties through practical human means—these are characteristics of the Puritan. Where he was able to organize the state on these principles, he built up a series of Biblical commonwealths, or Puritan states, Geneva under Calvin and Beza, Scotland under Knox and Melville, the England of Cromwell and Milton, and the Puritan colonies of New England.

As every one knows, psychology is a word to conjure with. We have today the Psychology of Art, the Psychology of Business, the Psychology of Advertising, the Psychology of Childhood, of Adolescence, and of Old Age, the Psychology of various great men and of various centuries and epochs, until one stands quite aghast at the psychological insight of our times, and feels that the key to everything and anything worth knowing must surely be in the hands of the omniscient psychologist. In fact, psychology would seem to have enlarged her bounds at the expense of every other subject, and to have chosen all knowledge to be her province; so that he who desires his book or treatise on any subject whatever to be regarded as strictly “modern” and “scientific” must needs endow it with a psychological title. This is indeed a short and easy method of becoming a psychologist; and the result is— as one might expect—that all the psychology contained in many of these works is spread, usually in large letters, upon the titlepage. All is not gold that glitters; neither is every treatise psychological which bears that mystic word upon its cover.

In no field of serious inquiry are these remarks more pertinent than in that of religion. Our book-shelves and our periodicals are laden with works on “religious psychology,” most of which prove on examination to be hardly more psychological than anatomical or geographical. Treatises on theology and statistics, on Church history and Sunday-school methods, as well as that large and amorphous class of writings which twenty years ago would have appeared under the title “Philosophy of Religion”—all these are now pressing themselves upon our attention by the use of that potent shibboleth, “Psychology.” And yet, though one-half the works with titles of this nature have not much more to do with genuine psychology than with the weather, there is, I believe, a young branch of scientific inquiry which rightly deserves the name Psychology of Religion.

Theology was once the great intellectual interest of thoughtful men. It explained their religious experience, justified their faith, and gave them intellectual satisfaction. It earned and deserved the title of “the queen of the sciences.” It has now fallen upon evil days. It is depreciated and neglected. Its foes are many; and its friends, even in the Church, are not numerous. The explanation for this situation of theology may be found in the immediate practical interests of life, the new thought-world in which men now live, and also in the inadequacy of the theology once current to meet the intellectual and moral demands of modern men.

Explanation, however, is not justification. There is the same reason for theology today as yesterday. The facts of religious experience remain essentially the same, and they still demand interpretation. The faith of the soul must be maintained in a world which challenges its right to be, and against hostile systems of thought. The interpretation and vindication of religion are more needed today than ever before. The incompetence of old theologies is no reason for doing without theology. If we are true to the demands of religion, we shall be constrained to provide some theology. The new attempts at securing an adequate theology must, however, be thorough and courageous. The great need now is the discovery of some principle by which we can interpret the facts of religious experience and arrive at a reasoned insight into the meaning of man, the world, and God. It is the conviction of the writer that the religious thinker has given him in Christ this interpretative principle, and that his great tasks can be achieved by the use of this principle.

Two philosophical conceptions of God are now contesting the field with the theology of Christianity—Monism and Pluralism. It will be the endeavor of this paper to show that neither of them offers so rational, adequate, and comprehensive a conception of God as does Christianity, for the reason that neither is so true to that category which is coming to be more and more clearly recognized as the supreme interpretation of deity, namely, personality.

When Pope Pius X, standing upon the traditional rock of papal authority, issues a decree upon matters of faith, his words carry the weight not only of his sacred office but also of his immense social influence. We may perhaps share Tertullian's amazed indignation, when Pope Calixtus first assumed the right to speak for the whole church—“Audio edictum esse praepositum et quidem peremptorium”—and yet we listen. We listen, because, in this modern world, no interest which concerns the well-being of any part can be of indifference to the whole social structure; and more especially we listen because the movement which in Roman Catholic circles is known as Modernism is a vital and pressing problem in every organized body of Christian believers.

The mediatorial office of Agni (Latin ignis), the Vedic Fire-god, has never been explained; nor has there ever been an attempt to clarify the relation between Agni as mediator and as avenger, or to show whether either of these functions is extraordinary. Usually the office is taken for granted, as if it were the regular business of Agni to act as a mediator between gods and men. It depends on what is called a mediator whether this is true or not; and the loose use of language has surprising results when non-Sanskrit scholars take up a word used by Sanskrit scholars in a literal sense and employ it in the theological sense. ‘Mediator’ means literally a go-between, or messenger, and Chaucerian English so uses the word; but the common theological connotation adds to this the idea that the messenger or go-between goes as an intercessor or reconciler between two opposed parties.

Now when the author of Ethnic Trinities (and even Tiele) undertakes to show the universality of Christian ideas in religious phenomena, he instances the Hindu Fire-god as a ‘mediator,’ using the word as applied in Christian theology. As a matter of fact, this gives a very incorrect view of Agni, who does not intercede with other gods for the sake of men. The idea that the fire of the sacrifice helps to appease the wrath of other gods is not wholly absent; but it is worth while to see when and where this idea is found, and especially to learn how it is reached and what it implies.

Illingworth, J. R., The Doctrine of the Trinity.

Hall, F. J., Introduction to Dogmatic Theology.

Ritchie, W. B., Revelation and Religious Certitude.

Bowne, B. P., Personalism.

Rogers, A. K., The Religious Conception of the World.

Lloyd, A. H., The Will to Doubt.

Drummond, James, Studies in Christian Doctrine.

Peile, J. H. F., The Reproach of the Gospel.

Nash, H. S., The Atoning Life.

The Christ that is to Be.

Worcester, McComb, Coriat, Religion and Medicine.

Powell, L. P., Christian Science, its Faith and its Founder.

Campbell, J. M., Paul the Mystic.

Scott, W. M., Aspects of Christian Mysticism.

Inge, W. R., Personal Idealism and Mysticism.

The first season's work of the Harvard Expedition to Samaria closed in the latter part of August. In consequence of various delays and interruptions incident to the beginning of the undertaking, the actual digging covered only nine or ten weeks in all. Doctor Gottlieb Schumacher, who has had the direction of the work, surveyed the ground, tracing the remains of the city wall, the circuit of which is about two miles and a half, and made a plan of the site.