This will give the Methodists relatively greater power with the people. They are thus preparing for a more genuine and powerful propagandism. They will soon be able to give Methodism a more vital and thorough-going hold. They will reach a class of people such as Presbyterianism and Calvinism in the past have been wont chiefly to attract.

Now, if our system of Christianity is more nearly biblical, as we believe it to be; if it gives more glory to God and makes man a nobler instrument of his praise, we ought not to yield our oldtime preeminence. We ought to hold to it and more.

2. The polemic demands on the ministry of our age call for a ministry as highly educated as our Constitution prescribes.

Some will say, let us have some fine scholars of course, but let us also have men who are not capable of defending Christianity from the assaults of its peculiar enemies of our age engaged in preaching the gospel to plain people. To this proposition there are the following objections, however. If you wish a pyramid to pierce the clouds with its apex, you must use a vast deal of material in the building. You rarely find a great painter except in countries where many persons are trying to be great painters. You do not, as a rule, find great orators in a country where oratory is not widely and assiduously cultivated. Nor will you find these great defenders of the faith except where the general level of ministerial education is high. This is the witness of history.

Again, why use poorly-prepared and illy-adapted men when others may be had? In the ministry, as in missions, the church ought to "attempt great things for God," and "expect great things of God." Let the church ask for an able ministry and use all proper measures to get such an one. Let it remember, too, that God can save by few as well as by many. In the days of Gideon, Jehovah chose once to save Israel by three hundred, rather than by thirty thousand. The church of God has not holy daring enough. It is not ready enough to take God at his word and do his work in his way. It is better to commit the formal teaching of the word of God to a few "faithful men, who shall be able to teach others," than to commit it to greater

12 Timothy ii. 2.

numbers of the inefficient. But this by the way; we do not believe that the ranks of the ministry would be thinned. Let the church call good men. God will answer.

And what a boon to any church now is a really able, pious, and learned ministry! Rationalistic skepticism is rampant. Only such a ministry can meet it. How valuable to a congregation now to know that its pastor is not only pious and well-meaning, but able to teach the truth. And, say what you will about character, no man can be respected as a teacher and preacher who is not believed by his people to know what the truth is. They know that many a Mohammedan dervish is sincere and honest in his intention. They need, and know it, a man who is competent to say, "I know what the historic truth is, and I know that Christianity is the true religion." The truth taught by William Henry Green to his students in recent years has been of incalculable benefit to them and their congregations.

3. For aggressive work of all kinds we need a standard of ministerial education as high as our standards require.

There is ever new need for aggressive teaching. In the past, Presbyterians have, in virtue of their pious, able, and learned ministry, been the teachers of Christendom. They have fought the controversies for truth. They are sometimes scorned for their controversies, but the scorn is from the ignorant. Their controversies have led to much of truth in the common creed of Christendom. If they continue the teachers of Christendom in the future, as in the past, they must not lower the standard of ministerial education. They must raise it.

Presbyterians have the largest following in all Christendom. They have been missionary therefore. Education has not stood in the way of its spread, but helped it.

Paul's education did not make him a less but a greater evangelist and missionary. So of Augustine, of Thomas Aquinas, of Bernard of Clairvaux, of Luther and Calvin, of John Knox and Rutherford, of Wesley and Whitefield, of Edwards, of Palmer, and of Moody.

Let us have a ministry which shall not be despised, which shall not be inefficient, which shall be able to defend the faith, which

shall teach Christendom, which can wield the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, to gather in and to build up the elect, which shall, in the future as it has in the past, march in the forefront of the hosts of the Lord.

Lord, give thy church a pious, able, and learned ministry. Amen. THOMAS C. JOHNSON.

Hampden-Sidney.

VI. THE AIMS AND CONDITIONS OF SEMINARY LIFE.

WISDOM is said to consist in the accomplishment of worthy ends by the use of appropriate means. He is not wise who wastes his energies on ignoble aims, no matter how skilfully he pursues them. Nor, on the other hand, is he to be regarded a wise man who seeks to achieve great ends by the use of unworthy means. There is no disposition on the present occasion to question the wisdom of our fathers in adopting the theological seminary as the means of training a ministry for the church. The purpose is noble and the means appropriate. Our purpose is rather to inquire what are the ends to be kept in view during the process of preparatory training, which, when accomplished, give to the church "able ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the spirit," and what are the conditions under which the means employed will secure these ends?

What, then, are the more important ends to be kept in view in seminary life? We answer without hesitation that the first is growth in grace. It is universally held now that education consists in developing the man, physically, intellectually and morally. The proposition is based upon the assumption that man is an end unto himself. His true glory is to be what his Creator intended him to be. To regard and treat him merely as an instrument to be employed with reference to some other end is to degrade him. Theological seminaries differ in this respect from secular institutions only in that they aim to develop the new man in Christ Jesus. Professors and students are supposed to be Christian men. And the purpose of the association under these relations is first of all to develop that knowledge, righteousness and true holiness which constitute the new man. It is emphatically true here that man's glory is to be what his Maker intended him to be. It is true man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever; but this end is attained in both its features when man becomes perfect in holiness.

It has long been debated what studies are best adapted to the

purpose of secular education, some contending for literature, ancient and modern; others for the exact sciences, and others, again, for metaphysical inquiries. Happily there can be but one opinion as to the means of developing the renewed man. The direction given in the word of God is, "As new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.' Jesus prayed for his disciples, "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth." Two forms of expressions are used in the Scriptures to indicate the suitableness of the word of God for this purpose. The figure of the sower and the seed pervades both Testaments. Our Saviour says, "The seed is the word of God." Milton says of all the utterances of men, "books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a progeny of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a phial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them." Our Lord said, "So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast sced into the ground, and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how." Again, we read in the Scriptures of "that form of doctrine" and "the form of sound words." The written word is the type which leaves the impress upon the new heart. From the seed, when quickened by the Holy Spirit, comes the plant of righteousness. The word of God, constituted of law and gospel, moulds the soul under the power of the Holy Ghost to the divine likeness.

This aspect of seminary life contemplates the professors as pastors of the flock. They are to feed the flock of God which is among them, taking the oversight thereof. And it assumes that piety on the part of the students is the most important of their qualifications for entering upon the work of the ministry. In the second place, seminary life has its professional aspect. Young men in such institutions are to be regarded as candidates for the ministry. They are to be trained to preach the word, and to maintain the order of God's house. Professors are instructors, and the drill has reference to the skilful handling of the Scriptures.

Concerning this feature of our subject, we feel constrained to make three practical observations: First, It is serious business