I. OUR POSITION.

AT THIS MOMENT, embarrassing questions crowdupon us. Infidel science which rejects Christanity, and pious science which thinks to serve Christianity by limiting and contracting it, multiply objections. These objections are in the fair way of descending among the masses. Whether we consent to it or not, every one will soon know that they exist. Let us so act as that all the world may know as well what has been our answer.

Let us, then, resolutely face the problem of authority, and may God grant us to solve it at last not partially, but altogether! How does authority belong to the Bible? How is the canon of the Bible absolutely certain? How is the text of the Bible wholly inspired? How does this Bible, when read with the help of the Holy Spirit, supply a law which is at once clear, sufficient, and obligatory? How does true freedom of inquiry accord with true submission? How?-With such a question we must no longer stand silent, or stammer out puerile explanations. And so I am persuaded that this present crisis will do us much good. Scripture has always gained something the more closely it has been studied. Its Divine authority dreads no examination; what it does dread is, our thoughtlessness, our ignorance, our foolhardiness. Yes; there is one way of being bold which is an insult. God desires no submission that accepts all, at any risk, from habit -from cowardice-on the word of another.

I am persuaded that from the searching revisal to which the title-deeds of that authority are to be submitted, will come a strong confirmation to our faith in the authority. We do not know to what an extent it is legitimate. Alongside of the revelations of God, we sometimes let stand human traditions, sometimes doubts or reservations; we add something to the Bible, and take something from it-that is to say, we are not yet sufficiently Protestant.

By establishing the proof of the authority, we give the last stroke to the work of the Reformation. Its great fault has been, that it remained incomplete; it has traced the path, but has not traversed it—or rather, it has gone forward without reaching the goal. To come to the Bible as the infallible and sole authority; to reach the starting point (let me be allowed this expression), and press on far enough to regain the Christianity of the Apostles-such is the task reserved for us, the very difficulties of which, as they beset us, yet stimulate us to its accomplishment.

I

There will be a nineteenth-century Reformation. mean, that faith in Scripture will succeed in establishing, in justifying, and in displaying itself in action, to the exclusion of all that is not of its own kind. Our Protestant traditions will finally come to an end, and we shall finish by becoming thoroughly Protestants, in order to our becoming simply Christians.

In this hope, I look forward. The day is drawing near when authority will resume its rightful place. Our unhappy age, that is dragged in every direction save that which would bring it nearer to the Bible-our age, which inclines to divide itself between Popery and Rationalism, will be attacked by a new force. The disciples of the great Book will do that more boldly which in some measure they have done already. They will act with a more entire feeling of the goodness of their cause.

But in order to have it so, we must not only lament, we must act. In the presence of enemies who work and study, we must work and study. Let us boldly face the questions that arise, instead of giving them the slip-face them in the name of the Lord and by His strength; He Himself will give us their solution.

NO. I.-VOL. I.

While at present there exists a general belief in the authority of Scripture which preserves the ignorant, and unconsciously checks the learned themselves; while the very boldest feel instinctively a respect for a Book which has long in their eyes been, and which still in the eyes of the masses is, the Word of God, the day draws near when all these pre-existing circumstances shall have altered; when the new theories shall have made their way among men, as they are now doing; when the prejudice in favour of the Bible (a prejudice which, I allow, is ignorant and insufficient) shall have given place to a prejudice all the other way; when the rash views of our teachers make their way into the drawingroom and the work shop; when each one has learned his lesson and knows by heart the arguments against this chapter or regarding that other chronological contradiction; when there is no longer veneration for Scripture in the very air we breathe, and no more biblical associations lying deep in our souls-then we shall see how far men will go who have utterly thrown off authority. The fancies men cherish at this present day will then be dissipated.

Since I see the danger increasing, I look around me, I seek some one to take in hand the cause of authority; but there is no one, or almost none. The most learned, the most talented, the best, admit in part the principle we have to resist. It is this which has given rise in me to a feeling of duty which urges me to this task, though it cannot overpower my sense of my own insufficiency for its right performance. I must do what I can-others will, I trust, do better.

To transfer the question of authority from the region of human testimony to that of Divine testimony; this, in one word, is all my object, this is the whole position I assume.

There are questions which need to be examined in detail, and with the necessary documents in one's hands -questions of authenticity-questions relating to the harmony of the Gospels-to the chronology-to the apparent contradictions-to the history of the Bible, and its manuscripts-to the comparison of the biblical revelations with human philosophy and religions-to the different readings-to the quotations of the Old Testament in the New, &c.

I will not venture at present on the domain of science properly so called; for I know too well what is due to that respect for the public, which is just one form of respect for the truth.

I have the less delicacy in pleading that attention be given to this matter, feeling as I do, that the author here goes for nothing, and that his subject alone deserves attention. We can give days to politics, to worldly interests, to literature; our newspapers claim without difficulty a part of our lives; and can we not set apart a few hours for making up our minds on the great controversy of our day? a controversy on which depends at once the future of society, and that of the Church-at once the authority of the Bible, and the quickening power of the doctrines it contains. Divine revelation yet to remain to us? Is a Saviour yet to remain? That, in reality, is the question at stake; and surely it is worth the trouble of an inquiry.

Is a

What, then, must I do? I as much as any other would like to please my readers; success and praises are agreeable, and I am far from pretending that I am indifferent to blame. But at no price will I lie to my conscience, nor by a hair's breadth bend my conviction. In what concerns myself, I will rather borrow the saying of Luther, I cannot do otherwise,' while in what concerns my brethren, I will presume to borrow the words of Paul, 'I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy.'-Gasparin.