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all things put under man; but we see Jesus; He is finished, perfected, complete, and this fact is the assurance and pledge of the ultimate perfection of the race.-From Spirit of the Word.

NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.

DR. PENTECOST'S MISSION.-The New York Tribune, in commenting upon the evangelizing mission of the Rev. George F. Pentecost, D. D., to India, asserts that it is not likely to prove a success, and takes the occasion to remark that, not evangelical fervor, but a learned and able presentation of Christianity is what the case demands.

It maintains that missions have failed hitherto in any marked degree to affect the reflective and contemplative Hindoo mind, because the Church has not sent picked and learned men, able to make such presentation of Christianity as will appeal to it.

The New York Observer replies to this criticism by citing the names of men among our missionaries who have shown that they were up to this very standard, and whose work as translators of the Scriptures and students of oriental literature, as well as whose devoted piety, proves them to have been the right men in the right place.

To all this we have to say, without disparaging the men on the field, that there is no disputing the fact that missions, neither in India or China or elsewhere, have accomplished what was hoped of them, and that the prospect of a speedy conversion of the world to Christ through existing agencies is remote indeed. The gospel, as now preached, has not proved itself capable of effecting a thorough transformation of the most favored nations of Christendom.. It just about holds its own even in this most favored land. If Calcutta and Pekin were to be converted after the fashion of London and New York, this would be very far from a complete conquest of these world-centres for Christ.

What is needed is a new and more truly scriptural conception of the whole gospel, as dealing not merely with individual souls, but as a divine method of race-salvation. The human race is one

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great organism, and it is the distinctive revelation of Christianity that, in the sight of God, unto whom all live, this organism includes both the living and the dead. The Hindoo mind recognizes the connection between these two divisions of the human family in its doctrine of reincarnation. The living, in this view, are but the dead revived. The Chinese mind pays its homage to the unity which subsists between the dead and the living in its ancestor worship-the root of its religion. Modern Christianity, as preached to these nations, instead of satisfying these conceptions ruthlessly violates them. Unless it dishonestly conceals or pares down its creed, it consigns their past generations to an eternal hell, and fixes an impassable gulf of despair between those whom it summons to life in Christ and the dead. And yet it was to bridge this gulf that the gospel scheme was provided. It proclaims "the hope and the resurrection of the dead" (Acts xxiii, 6). It summons to itself an elect company out of all nations who are willing to count all things but loss for its sake, and to be 'baptized for the dead." It declares that God's great purpose of blessing all the families of the earth is to be accomplished through a chosen seed, made victorious over death, and that the dead are a part of the "all." This gospel of the resurrection lies beneath the surface of all the Old Testament pages, and comes to fuller light in the New. But, as has always been the case, the deep underlying truths of redemption have never been perceived except by the opened eye. The generation of Jews in Jesus' day were blind to them, and, even to His disciples just after the resurrection, He was compelled to say, "Oh! fools and blind." So the Church in our day is blind to the "hope toward God" which this gospel of the resurrection contains for even the unjust, and to that organic law of the human race which connects the salvation of the dead with that of the living who are willing to have fellowship with Christ's sufferings and to be made conformable unto His death, so that, attaining a place in the Church of the firstborn from the dead, they may fulfil the firstborn's redemptive office toward their human brethren. Here is a great wealth of hopes and of noble aims and motives, as wide as the race, which our modern gospel worse than conceals, as it virtually makes the provision to raise the dead an inconceivable disaster to all but the

elect. And it is just these deeper views of the gospel, and these wide hopes for the kindreds and races of mankind, that are especially needed to satisfy the instinct and yearning of the heathen, and especially of the oriental mind in its groping after God.

Dr. Pentecost is, we believe, a consecrated man, with special gifts in presenting the gospel in the narrower range in which he conceives it. But neither he, nor the able and devoted missionaries now on the field, will be able to achieve any worthy result until they, and indeed the whole Church which sustains them, shall come out into this higher region of light and hope, in which the gospel is seen to be indeed the glad tidings of great joy to all people of a race-salvation. As such it meets the wants not only of the living but of the dead, and binds both together in the unity of a great hope and a common destiny.

MUTUAL AID AMONG ANIMALS.-The article on this subject in the last Nineteenth Century, by Prince Krapotkin, is a very important contribution to the literature of evolution. It relieves that doctrine from its most repulsive feature by showing

1. That there is proof that animals possess a rudimentary moral nature, and

2. That Darwin's cold-blooded principle of natural selection is not the only law of progress along the scale of life, but that no less an important factor is the principle of mutual aid. The care for others of the same species, and especially for the young, combination for mutual support and defense, develop altruism, as also courage, pluck, and superior intelligence. A conspicuous instance of these qualities is the ant, whose brain, says Darwin, “is one of the most marvelous atoms of matter in the world, perhaps more so than the brain of man." Krapotkin accounts for its superior qualities by the fact that mutual aid has entirely taken the place of mutual struggle in the communities of ants.

It would be strange if, after all our antipathy to the doctrine of evolution, it should turn out that the most influential factor in the development of animal life has been this same law of devotion, of self-sacrifice for the good of others, which Christianity proclaims as the only way by which the nature of man can become assimilated to the divine, and enter into life eternal.

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copies will be bound uniform with the preceding volumes. Price, $1.00, postage paid. We will send either of the volumes with the magazine to old or new subscribers for $1.50, any two volumes for $2.00, or the whole six with a copy of the Fire of God's Anger and the magazine for $5.00. One of the best ways to aid our work is to send for these volumes.

REVIEW AND APPEAL.

We would again remind the friends of this magazine that it is not carried on as a business, but as a missionary enterprise. It was begun with a deep conviction that the Church at large had fallen into grievous error in denying that there is any hope for the unjust dead in the provision made in Christ for their resurrection. Some readers have criticised our constant reiteration of this theme, and have urged us to give greater variety.

We have been strenuous and importunate at this point because it is the key of our whole controversy with the old theology, and because of its radical importance in the

formation of the new. Moreover, each number of this magazine passes under the eye of new readers.

A letter just received from the Rev. Charles Beecher, a venerable member of a noted family, says, "The fact that the whole race receive the resurrection as a boon, the reward of Christ's victory, is your grand theme. Fight it out on that line. That the resurrection is a boon for the whole race is a tremendously strong point. Stick to it. Do not spread over too much ground. Do not bring in side issues. That one fact is sovereign-irresistible."

The issue we have raised has not yet been fairly considered by the Church. When this "irresistible" point, fairly made, has been once admitted, it must transform the old theology and put a new meaning and life into the whole work of the Church, at home and abroad.

The importance of the mission of this magazine is reason enough why its friends should not suffer it to die, but should rally to its support. The Church at large will not support it until the great truth it advocates has forced itself upon its reluctant and sluggish attention.

It is scarcely worth while to go on with this publication unless it can be put into the hands of many readersleaders of religious thought, foreign missionaries, and others—who are not prepared to support it by a subscription.

We therefore renew our appeal to its friends to aid it through the coming year by prompt subscription, by calling the attention of new readers to it, and by gifts for its free distribution, where there is ability and the heart so prompts. Some there are who cannot but recognize that this magazine is a special channel through which they

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