with his "spontaneous generation," how much gospel can a preacher get out of even a successful refutation of the theory? Were every minister in Christendom capable of demonstrating as plainly as has Dr. Arthur Mitchell, in his "Past in the Present," that man is not influenced by the law of natural selection in the way brutes may be; that, in consequence of this, his bodily form and structure and mental capacity appear to continue stationary; that by his own exertions and social combinations he sets at defiance the law of natural selection, thereby combating and disproving Darwin's doctrine of the "survival of the fittest"-would such demonstration, primarily and as a habit, be likely to improve men's moral natures? One earnest prayer to God by a devoted minister, leading his congregation, is a better refutation of Tyndall's prayer-test than to shatter it by a thousand arguments. The majority of Christian people pay no attention to the objections of skeptics until their ministers notice them, and then all the contrary arguments are frequently of no avail. "Thousands of unbelievers," remarks Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, "have been born into the family of infidelity by professed preachers of the Gospel, who supposed that they were helping them to faith; the fire fed upon the heaps of leaves which the foolish, well-intentioned speaker cast upon it in the hope of smothering it. Young men in many instances have obtained their first notions of infidelity from their ministers; they have sucked in the poison, but refused the antidote." Dr. Robert Hall says of himself, that in a series of sermons on the Trinity, he attacked various forms of heretical dissent from the orthodox faith-the Arian, the Sabellian, and the Apollinarian. At the conclusion of his discourses he discovered, much to his surprise, that there was among his hearers a small party for each of the heresies he had combated, but which most of them never heard of before he made his onset upon them. And Dr. Fisher, in reporting the anecdote, adds: "One should be sure, before he raises the devil, that he is able to lay him." These observations are not designed to reflect upon the intelligence of religious worshipers. It is not a question of intelligence but rather one of faith. Most Christians commit current doctrinal issues to the care of their pastors, they being too busy in shop, or store, or field, to give attention to them. Only when the six days' work

is done, and they assemble to hear the discourses of the Sabbath, are they open to doctrinal approach. Woe to the preacher that feeds such hungry souls with the husks of unbelief.

It may be said these errors exist and must be exposed. A sufficient answer would be that skepticism should be met on its own ground. The pulpit is not its ground. Darwin and Huxley, in their American trips, occupied no pulpits. What has a gospel pulpit in Maine or Michigan to do with a skeptical lecture in New York or London? If the press scatters the infidel lecture, let it also scatter the faith-giving antidote. In no other way can so many of the infected minds be reached. The manner in which incumbents of the sacred office have run screaming after scientific skeptics, has only served to give the latter a wider publicity and a greater influence. Such ministers do not follow the example of Christ. He refuted skepticism only when, in personal contact, he encountered it. It had taken a most powerful hold upon one of his own disciples before he opened his mouth to refute it. Before the bar of Pilate he answered only such skeptical questions as were put directly to him. When tempted of the devil his only de"It is written" thus and so.

fense was,

Evangelization is the great work of the ministry. Skepticism may hinder it, but the best way to hinder skepticism is to preach the cross. Salvation from sin is the grandest and most powerful vindication of the truth of Christianity, and no skeptical argument can avail in the presence of a triumphing Christ. With scientific investigation the pulpit, primarily, has nothing to do. The bare announcement of scientific results, unquestionably attained, is a sufficient encroachment upon its fundamental mission. "Unto you, O men, I call" should be the motto of every herald of the cross. Within the domain of conscience, the intuitions and aspirations of the soul, and the perfect adaptations of the word of life, the minister has a field from which he can never be driven. Outside of this sphere he has not so sure a warrant.

III. Viewing the question from a prudential stand-point, it may be asked, Is the average minister intellectually or educationally capable of meeting all the skeptical questions of scientific men? It must not be forgotten that Geology, as related to Anthropology, is a great science. Theology is also a great

science, and it is rare that a man can be alike skilled in both and be much skilled in either. Scientific skeptics, or skeptical scientists, are not fools. Many of them are among the foremost scholars of the age. They may not be good theologians, but in their field they are skillful workmen. Darwin received his early education at the Shrewsbury grammar school. From there he went to the University of Edinburgh, where he studied two years. From there he entered Christ's College, Cambridge, graduating after four years more of hard application. The same year of his graduation he volunteered as a naturalist to accompany an exploring expedition around the world, and was absent in this work nearly five years. It is thus seen that eleven years were employed by him in gaining special culture after he left the grammar school of his own native place. Huxley was over nine years in the schools of training and travel before he ventured largely upon his specific work as professor of natural history in the Royal School of Mines. Spencer gave twenty-one years to study and experiment, both at home and abroad, before he proclaimed or conceived the doctrine of evolution as a universal process, and it was later still before he declared it to be, as he believed, the "basis of the only system of philosophy conformable to the methods of nature." Other masters in these schools, as Lyell, Lubbock, Haeckel, and Laplace, received thorough discipline before plunging into their life-work of scientific investigation. Is it hopeful that the average minister, from the average pulpit, can explode the fallacies of these cultured skeptics, and leave the average congregation better off for having heard the skepticism canvassed? The average minister ought to be wiser than to undertake such a task. He would better content himself with mastering the problems, but keeping silence, save in emergency, or through unquestionably appropriate channels. This would naturally leave the pulpit refutation of skeptical scientific theories to the great preachers and the very small ones. The ostentatious efforts of the latter were probably in the mind of President McCosh when he wrote, that the "most effective means of making young men skeptics is for dull men to attack Darwin and Spencer, Huxley and Tyndall, without knowing the branches which these men have been turning to their own uses."

ART. IV. -THE PROBLEM OF OUR CHURCH BENEV. OLENCES.

THE success of our missionaries in foreign lands, the achievements of our Church Extension Society, the work done through our Freedmen's Aid Society, and the work, equally important, each in its sphere and degree, of the other benevolences organized by the General Conference, form a subject that ought to be an inspiration to every one of the million and three quarters of our members, waking a holy zeal and ambition to achieve the utmost possibilities for the kingdom of Christ through these most potent agencies. For these things are the arm of power through which the conquest of the world to Christ is very largely to be accomplished; they are the pounds, the personal property of Jesus, the nobleman who is gone into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return, and which he has given to his servants to see how much each one shall gain by trading. And the need of the work is the voice of God, declaring to us our duty and our golden opportunity. Yet what is the record we are making in the matter? We sustain feebly what missions we have abroad; we utterly fail to occupy many other fields, as promising as our best, and from which comes to us the Macedonian cry. Our work languishes painfully in the immense South and West for lack of means, and we are so far neglecting mission ground within the older Conferences, equally important with the foreign and the domestic border, that large areas show loss in numbers. So many of the Spring Conferences have done so, that the column of total membership in the General Minutes, which normally should show a gain of 20,000, shows a loss of 4,604. The appeals of the proper cases for Church Extension are not responded to in any better degree. Tens of thousands of youth in the South, largely white, who, if educated at all, must be educated by us, have thus far received no aid nor encouragement; and if we examine our own reports of the way we sustain the Tract, Sunday-School, Connectional Educational, and Bible Societies, we shall find no signs of improvement.

This state of things has caused deep concern in the minds

of thoughtful men, which has found expression in many an impassioned appeal, poured forth out of a full heart, from the pulpit or platform and from the press. An article of this kind, written by Dr. Taylor, appeared in the "Manual of the Methodist Episcopal Church," July, 1881; and as it presents the question clearly an extract from it is here given. After quoting Dr. Dorchester's tables, showing the numerical increase of the evangelical denominations, in which our Church stands foremost, Dr. Taylor turns to the subject before us, and, citing the same high authority, he says:

Such are the figures as to the number of full communicants in the leading Churches, taking all the Methodists of various branches, black and white, into the account. But when we arrange the table according to contributions per member for the cause of missions, there is a complete overturning, and we must take in more than seven denominations to find a place for ourselves. Adding both home and foreign work, and calling our Freedmen's Aid Society a home mission work, as it really is, the combined average contribution per year, per member, for the last ten years, among the eight leading denominations, taken as single denominations, is as follows:

Average per member for the eight Churches.... $1 478

This shows that the common average for the eight leading Churches, including our own, is almost three times as much per member as we give. But deducting our own, and dividing by seven, will give $1 61 per member for the seven, or considerably more than three times our average. But the Protestant Episcopalians give over three times, the Presbyterians over four times, and the Congregationalists over seven times as much per member as we give.

These Churches have a wealthier membership, in proportion to numbers, than we have; but this cannot be said of the Baptists, who give almost twice as much per member as we give; and we are undoubtedly much richer per member than the Evangelical Association, or the United Brethren, both of whom far surpass us in ratio of giving, as our table shows. Our aggre