WORDS OF RECONCILIATION.

VOL. VI.]

JANUARY, 1890.

[No. I.

THE NEW YEAR.

We send out with this number a cordial greeting to our friends and readers. The opening year again reminds us of the lapse of time and of the importance of the era in which we live. The world is on the threshold of great events; the conflict between good and evil, of which it has so long been the arena, hastens to a decisive issue. This conflict is marked not so much by the schemes of political rulers and the aggressions of world-empires, jostling each other along converging paths toward the goal of universal dominion. It is seen not so much in the restlessness of nations and classes, seeking to get rid of social evils, and even to throw into anarchy the systems of government and trade which give them shelter. These rather we view as surface indications of still deeper movements in the realm of thought and of spirit, where the real warfare of humanity is first waged, and in which the invisible powers to whom Scripture so often refers take part. Forces in the heavens must first put forth their energy, before the great tidal movements in human affairs take place on earth.

It is in the realm of theological thought that the most important revolution is now going on. The agitation in the Presbyterian Church is a sign of a movement all over the

world and in all existing churches towards a truer and a better view of God. Even the speculations of agnostic philosophers and scientists are indirectly contributing to this end. The knowledge of God is the deepest of all sciences. It is the foundation stone in that temple of truth in which the human race hopes some day to find shelter and repose and a satisfying worship which shall bring rest and hope to both mind and heart. All present doubts and agitations are ways by which false ideas of God which have degraded and terrorized mankind are being broken up. These wrong notions have been the clouds which concealed His face. To break up these delusions and to show us the Father is the mission of the Christ. "Behold, He cometh with clouds." Behind this veil of delusions there has ever been the shining of the glory of God in His face. As these delusions disappear, the supreme event of His manifestation draws nigh. These clouds are to be brushed away before Him. They may first gather and discharge their fury in an awful tempest. But then comes the morning without clouds, the clear shining after rain, the Sun of Righteousness with healing in His wings.

To help to remove this veil which obsures our Father's face and hides the glory of His Son from the nations, we have sought to contribute our little aid by reaffirming the primary truth of His gospel. His triumphant act of grace in the redemption of mankind from death, through a resurrection from the dead, has been for centuries perverted by the traditions of men into a mode by which man's Creator perpetuates his existence through endless ages of retribution. All redemptive value in this provision as respects the most of mankind has been denied. The result

has been that the world has turned away in dread and hatred from its Almighty Friend, and even the majority of Christians have served Him in a spirit of bondage to fear. The world still waits for the revelation of the Father. It has failed to see this in the Christ, because the god of this world has travestied and mutilated His gospel. This may have been part of its needful discipline. But it creates the need of His coming again in power and glory to break through and dispel the misconceptions that enshroud the purpose of His first coming. And now we see the signs of His approach in the rifts being made in the wrong views of God which, like a pall, have hung over the world and shut out the shining of His face. The world waits for the time when this veil spread over all nations and this face of the covering cast over all people shall be removed. And it shall be said in that day, "Lo, this is our God, we have waited for Him and He will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation." (Ish. xxv. 6-9.)

THE CHURCH'S FAILURE.

It is pathetic to read the admissions and laments in the addresses made at the recent Evangelical Alliance Conference at Boston, in respect to the failure of the Church to reach the masses, and the growing neglect of public worship by large numbers of the higher and more intelligent classes. No wonder that the Conference was greatly exercised over methods of preaching and of work that will arrest this decline.

To us it seems that the significant remark made by Bishop Huntington probes to the core of the difficulty. "Perhaps," he says, "the reason why we fail to reach and hold the mass of the people is that the Gospel we preach to them is not after all the Gospel." This is precisely our complaint against the old theology. By extinguishing all light of hope from the doctrine of the resurrection, except for the elect, it has quenched out from the gospel the light of its hope for the race. It has dehumanized it, and no wonder that it fails right at this point of human sympathy. The relation of the Church to the mass of their human brethren needs to be radically re-adjusted in the light of the prime principle, that the redemption of Christ in opening up a future life for the race brought all men into a new relation to God, as under His fatherly training for this life to come, and that the Church is a special priesthood chosen by God to prepare men to meet the privileges, as well as the responsibilities and perils of this future.

AN IMPORTANT QUESTION.

At the recent Conference above referred to, Bishop Huntington was assigned to make an address upon the "Gospel for the People." Speaking of the difficulty in reaching the masses, he queried-May not the non-acceptance by the masses of the Gospel we preach be because it is not in fact the Gospel?

This is just the point we have been raising in this magazine. The Gospel is defined in Scripture as "glad tidings of great joy which shall be to all people." Imagine