He is but a superficial observer of the times who can think that the movement of life today is altogether against religion, and that only the denial of religion has the spirit of the age with it.

For, certain as it is that blatant denial still holds the public ear and is more and more permeating the masses, yet in the work of the intellect, and likewise in the depths of men's souls, the case is different. Here, with ever greater vigor, is springing up the feeling that religion is indispensable, the yearning for religion. What is understood by religion is often anything but clear, and often very different from the traditional forms of religion; but the demand is unmistakable for more depth of life and for the establishment of profounder inner connections than our visible existence affords.

Ethical writers, like biologists, are no longer concerned with the mere fact of evolution. They are dealing with more specific questions of causes and methods. And, as with biology, two stages in the study may be expected. Biologists were at first interested in the historical question: What was the origin of species? They were temporarily satisfied with the answer: Natural selection, operating in conjunction with heredity and variation. Now, however, a clue to the specific method of heredity has been found in Mendelism, the causes operative in producing variation are being discovered by experimentation, and biology is entering upon a constructive stage which promises great results for agriculture, and perhaps also for human health and well-being. Ethics is as yet almost entirely in the descriptive stage. Perhaps we are staggered at the complexity of present problems, and timidly leave to the practical reformer or politician the responsible task of making positive suggestions. But, when the past evolution has been thoroughly analyzed, it may be hoped that social reform and moral education will be more intelligent. The interest of these problems for the student of religion is also obvious. For, to illustrate by one suggestion out of many, we ask: What causes the difference in the ideals of different ages and races? Is it religion, or philosophy, or economic needs and conditions solely? And shall the religious teacher who would hasten the Kingdom of God appeal to the conscience or to the legislature, or, in the conviction that neither of these avails, shall he stand still and wait for the inventor and the inevitable social revolution? It would be absurd to say that we are yet in a position to answer this old question conclusively, but it is not too much to say that no one can now afford to give dogmatic answers without first considering the complexity of the interaction which is increasingly coming into view between religious, political, economic, aesthetic, and ethical factors.

A well-known Roman Catholic review recently observed that modernism is not merely an internal difficulty of the Catholic church, but that the Protestant and Jewish bodies are likewise tormented and undermined by it. And the remark is certainly correct. For if, on the one hand, modernism tends to apply to the internal discipline and rites of the Roman church many of those reforms which the Protestants adopted from the beginning of the Reformation,—reforms rendered necessary by the changed conditions of the times, and today even more necessary than ever, —on the other hand it is profoundly modifying the very concept of revelation and making more and more difficult every kind of stability of doctrine and every regula fidei; so that Christianity itself, and the Jewish religion from which it comes, are to a large extent challenged by it and are in a measure associated with the church of Rome in one common defence. This defence, so far as it has any probability of success, thus tends to change not only the relation of these religions to the spirit of contemporary thought, but even their inter-relations, constraining them to abandon one or another of those positions which caused dissension and associating them under the protection of their common spiritual inheritance. Hence it will be worth while to consider briefly what conclusions are suggested by the most recent experience in this controversy, and what forecast we can make, not so much for the future of the individual churches as for a future of much greater interest, that, namely, of Christianity itself and of the religious consciousness among the nations of western civilization.

During the lifetime of William James, his philosophical work, closely connected as it is with many traditions of British philosophy, made a marked impression—one might almost say, a stir—on the Continent of Europe. Since his death, obituary notices and comprehensive reviews of his philosophy have made the intellectual legacy of the departed thinker the object of still greater attention, the more because, outside of the pragmatic school itself, the interest in the writings of so fine and penetrating a mind as Bergson naturally extends itself to cognate movements of thought.

In this legacy, James's philosophy of religion stands out with special prominence, partly by reason of its contrast to the type of philosophy of religion which is traditional on the Continent of Europe, partly because of the wealth of his own new and valuable suggestions, which have been added to by a number of zealous followers. It may not be uninteresting, therefore, to the readers of this Review, if I try to characterize what is peculiar and new in this, the first thorough-going contribution from America to the philosophy of religion. In doing so, I shall discuss two points: first, the contrast between James's ideas and the European philosophy of religion; and, second, the positive value that the new ideas which thus emerge seem to me to have.

The religion whose adherents call themselves “Worshippers of Mazda,” the Wise God, and which we commonly name after its founder Zoroastrianism, is in many ways of peculiar interest. It is the only monotheistic religion of Indo-European origin, as Judaism is the one independent Semitic monotheism. Zoroastrianism is, further, eminently an ethical religion, both in its idea of God and of what God requires of men. It presents itself as a revelation of God's will through his prophet. His will is that men, renouncing the false gods, should serve the Wise Lord alone, obey his word, and contend on his side for the defeat of evil and the triumph of all good in nature and society and in the character of the individual. The prophet warns men that the day of the Lord is at hand, an ordeal by fire in which God will separate between those who serve him and those who serve him not, and of the endless blessedness or the unfathomable misery beyond. God has his allies not only among men but among the hosts of spirits; to the hierarchy of good powers corresponds a hierarchy of evil. In the endeavor to clear God of the responsibility for evil, Zoroastrianism recognized a powerful head of the evil spirits, a devil. But it had firm faith in the final triumph of good and the end of all evil. When that day shall come, all the dead will be raised to stand at the bar of God in the grand assize and receive the just recompense of reward. The main features of this eschatology were adopted by the Jews and adapted to the premises of their own religion; through Judaism it passed to Christianity, where it was fused with elements of diverse origin; from Judaism and Christianity, and to some extent directly from later Zoroastrianism, Mohammedanism inherited it. The orthodox beliefs about the hereafter of the world and the individual entertained by the nations of Western Asia, Europe, and America, are thus ultimately derived in no small part from Zoroastrianism; only in the farther East, in India, China, and Japan, does another system prevail.

The Christ Myth by Arthur Drews was published early in 1909, and before the year was out its author was being requisitioned by dissidents from Christianity of the most incongruous types as a promising instrument for the general anti-christian propaganda. Few more remarkable spectacles have ever been witnessed than the exploitation throughout Germany in the opening months of 1910 of this hyper-idealistic metaphysician, disciple of von Hartmann and convinced adherent of the “Philosophy of the Unconscious,” by an Alliance the declared basis of whose organization is a determinate materialism. As, under the auspices of the Monistenbund, he made his progress from city to city, lecturing and debating, he drew a tidal-wave of sensation along with him. A violent literary war was inaugurated. It seemed as if all theological Germany were aroused.

“What with Winckler, Jeremias, and Cheyne, and now Eerdmans, Old Testament scholars have a good many new eras dawning on them just now. Whether any of them will shine unto the perfect day, time will show.” With these gently sarcastic words Dr. Skinner describes the situation which a commentator on Genesis must be prepared to face at the present time. But the dawn is the waking-up time. The reveille sounded by these various scholars is exhilarating. The war to which they challenge Old Testament investigators may not prove to be a world-war, the critical map of the Old Testament may not be materially altered; but it is a good thing that the dominant school of criticism which follows Wellhausen should be compelled to meet antagonists equipped with all the resources of modern warfare. So long as their opponents were armed only with the weapons of the old apologetics, these critics had an easy time of it. After the publication of the great Prolegomena it seemed as if the last word had been spoken. Canaan had been conquered anew. All that remained for the victors to do was to settle down in the land, appropriate the high-places to themselves, and reduce the ancient inhabitants to Nethinim. But no sooner had they entered into possession than the temptation of the settled life began to beset them as it beset the Hebrews of old. They had driven out the traditions that had occupied the land for millenniums, but the ancient inhabitants, as is so often the case, soon threatened to conquer the conquerors.

Much the most important change in theological opinion which has taken place during the last half-century has reference to an altered conception of God, and, as an inevitable consequence, of his relations to the world of things and of men. This change was originally neither initiated nor approved by theologians themselves. It was rather commended to them, or even forced upon them, by modern science and modern philosophy. The attitude, however, of these two sources, or prime causes, of change toward the questions involved and toward the then reigning theological position on these questions was in certain important respects markedly different. Physical and natural science, proceeding painstakingly but rapidly by means of experimental methods, and making use of the facts discovered by these methods as a basis for induction, arrived at a quite new conception of Nature.

The German mysticism of the fourteenth century was one of the most remarkable manifestations of that individualistic trend of thought and feeling which set in during the thirteenth century with the height of chivalric culture, developed under the influence of the growth of civic independence in the great municipal republics, and finally, in the religious Reformation of the sixteenth century, overturned the whole corporate system of the mediaeval church and state.

Luther is a fascinating subject for the historian. Not only does the personality of the man himself offer exceptional attractions, but so too does the age in which he lived, for then society, politics, and religion were all in the melting-pot, out of which in time was to issue the modern world. Luther was a product of the old, but he was also in a very true sense the exponent of the new. “The world is not what it once was,” said he to the German nobles,—knowing that again the fulness of the times had come. The favorite assertion of many German writers that Luther was the Reformation is often disputed, yet the statement is not half so exaggerated as it sounds, for if ever the spirit of a great movement which permanently affected the welfare of mankind got itself embodied in the person of one man, that movement was the Protestant revolution, and that man was Friar Martin.

It is reckoned that Islam is now professed by from 150 to 200 million people, nearly one-seventh of the population of the globe. For thirteen centuries it has played a great rôle in the history of religion. Its adherents have been found among civilized, half-civilized, and barbarous peoples; its theory and its practice have traversed the whole gamut of religious thought and experience; it has sometimes been associated with the leadership of thought in Western Asia, Egypt, and Europe; and it has maintained its position against the assaults and seductions of neighboring faiths. It presents an interesting and perplexing problem to students of religion, of anthropology and psychology, and of the general history of civilization. Recent events have raised afresh the question of its achievements in the past and its possibilities for the future, and writers of various points of view and various degrees of knowledge and insight have discussed its genesis and its essential nature and the character of its founder. It is the object of this article to state some of the questions thus raised and to examine briefly some of the answers that have been offered.

With the dawn of the modern era there came a new interest in nature and the human mind. There was a withdrawal of attention from the supernatural to the natural, from the eternal to the temporal, from the divine to the human. This world with its interests came to its own. The secrets of nature were studied; its facts gathered; its laws formulated; its powers utilized; and its beauties appreciated. And the greater secrets of the human mind, too, were eagerly studied. The ideas of the mind were examined to discover whether they were innate or acquired; the relation of the data of the senses to the structure and the function of the mind was noted that the rise of knowledge might be learned; the legitimacy of the use of the categories of thought to interpret nature and the validity of our knowledge was called in question; and aspects of experience and powers of mind other than the distinctively rational came in for new appraisal.

In its effort to determine the historic sense of the New Testament records, and thus to understand them genetically, modern criticism has developed no instrument more effective than the method of comparison. In former days the aim was harmonization, because the interpreter started with the assumption of a mechanical agreement among the witnesses. Today the aim is distinction, because mechanical coincidence is neither assumed nor desired. On the contrary the broader the contrast in point of view, the surer the ultimate inference. Stars so remote that they give no parallax, their rays seeming to come at precisely the same angle no matter from what point of the earth's orbit the observer takes his measurements, afford small hope of determining their real position. There must be difference of angle when the earth has swung round half its orbit, or there is no basis for measurement. Fortunately for the problem of the historical Jesus, the rays which come to us from him do not travel along precisely parallel lines. On the other hand the problem is enormously complicated by the process of mixture; for the testimony of one witness has visibly affected that of another, detracting from its independent value.

The recent books on the life of Luther by Dr. Preserved Smith and Dr. A. C. McGiffert may well rouse new consideration of Luther's religious experience. America was dominated by Calvinism, but there is small reward today in going back to Calvin, who applied the logic of a legal mind to a subject beyond the sphere of jurisprudence. Luther, on the other hand, was trying to utter the apprehensions of a great heart. Calvin's thought is dead. Luther's heart still throbs. We shall perhaps understand our own hearts more clearly if we apply religious psychology to his.

In no other respect, perhaps, are the unity and kinship of the human race more apparent than in the development of the religious rites and beliefs of the various peoples. Even in the case of their myths, where interpretation is so difficult, where there appears to be so much chaos and so little law, and where we seem at times to have merely the product of imaginative spontaneity and of the play of fancy, there is nevertheless striking similarity. Just because of the contrasts and differences that often impress one at a surface reading, the identity of the spiritual life that shimmers through these diverse manifestations becomes the more significant. As a result, added significance is reflected back to the differences themselves. Not only are these seen from the point of view of their connection with those characteristics and temperamental peculiarities which have influenced particular interpretations of life and of the world, but this knowledge in turn sheds light on the principles that are universally operative in the minds and lives of all peoples. We are thus enabled to gain a clue for the interpretation of facts which, considered by themselves, might have remained quite unintelligible.

It is not with conceit but by constraint that one ventures to write on the priestly function in the modern church. Can anything new be said about it? Can anything be said at all without wounding the sensibilities and adding to the burdens—already too heavy—of the modern minister? Criticism there must be, construction there ought to be, in any discussion of this subject. But both criticism and construction will be inevitably and deeply affected by the temperament of the writer. So at the outset you are asked to believe that, however dogmatic this discussion may at times appear, it is carried on in the perfect awareness that there is another side to most of the questions that will arise, and that excuses and even justifications may be urged for some of the tendencies upon which those who have cultivated a religious scrupulousness in such matters look with increasing dismay.

Most readers of this article have sung, and many have learned by heart, a noble Christmas hymn whose music is now heard in more than one continent:—

It came upon the midnight clear,

That glorious song of old;

but few of those who sing and love it know that it was written by a country minister who graduated from the Harvard Divinity School. Fewer still are aware that a series of men have proceeded from this department of Harvard University who, for now almost a hundred years, have maintained this succession in sacred song. What may properly be called a school of religious poetry constitutes a worthy part of the contribution to literary culture which Harvard has made and which through many generations formed the peculiar and greatest distinction of New England.

It is held by many that religion had its origin in the emotional life, in “loving reverence,” or in fear, or in awe; and many make some particular emotion the distinguishing mark of religion. Since, indeed, religion is a part of the struggle for the preservation and perfection of life, it involves from the very beginning emotional states. But to speak of religion as originating in emotions is to assume a conception of religion which seems to me utterly unacceptable. If any sentiment or emotion, such as reverence or fear or awe, is found at the dawn of religion, it exists as part of the response, in a particular situation, to a sense of the presence of an invisible Being, upon whom one depends and with whom one desires to hold satisfactory relations. The emotion belongs to an experience involving the whole man, that is, man as a feeling, thinking, willing being.

The publication of The Blue Bird a year or two ago, and later its successful presentation on the stage, has awakened new interest in an author whose fame and influence seemed somewhat on the wane. It is now some twenty years since a little volume of essays by Maurice Maeterlinck caused the author to be proclaimed with a flourish of French trumpets as the “Belgian Shakespeare,” the “European Emerson,” and the “greatest mystic of the age.” And these epithets and designations were not without some reason. The Treasure of the Humble, which helped to call them out, became of genuine soul-value to many people who could lay no claim to that particular virtue. The author's later essays, too, were conceived in a somewhat similar vein.

In the old and worn parchment leaves of the baptismal register of Widford Parish in “pleasant Hertfordshire” we find this record:

Anno dm. 1604. John Elliott the sonne of Bennett Elliott was baptized the fifte daye of August in the yeere of our Lord God 1604.

There is also this record:

An° Dm. 1598. Bennett Eliot and Letteye Aggar were married the xxxth of October an° Sup Dicto.

Bennett Eliot had property in several of the neighboring parishes, and about 1608 removed to Nazing, where he died. In his will he directs his executor to pay out of the rents and profits of his lands and tenements, for the space of eight years from 1621, quarterly to his son John Eliot “the sum of eight pounds a yeare of lawful money of England, for and towards his maintenance in the University of Cambridge where he is a scholar.”

The home of Eliot was marked by the best religious influences stirring England in these early days of the Reformation and the dawning of the Puritan controversy, for he speaks of his first years as “seasoned with the fear of God, the word, and prayer.” He became a pensioner of Jesus College in 1619, took his first degree in 1623, and was early distinguished for his talent and proficiency in the study of languages. Upon leaving Cambridge he was a tutor for a time in a school kept by Rev. Thomas Hooker,—afterwards the founder of the state of Connecticut. Here the influences of his own home were deepened, for he wrote: “Here the Lord said unto my dead soul, live! live! and through the grace of God I do live forever! When I came to this blessed family I then saw as never before the power of godliness in its lovely vigour and efficacy.”