Concerning the study of psychology to which his bo tribution, Dr. Carus very truly says:

"It is indispensable for every one who has to deal and who has not? the physician, the clergyman, the labor, the officer in the army, the professor, the merchant almost every one has to deal with people, and, above yer. Self-knowledge is not sufficient to make us free; self-knowledge and the knowledge of other people; it m knowledge in the broadest sense, knowledge of the soul, tives that work upon, and can be employed to affect n ments. It is only knowledge that can make us free; and will make us free. And because it makes us free, know chiefly so psychological knowledge, is power.'

CONCISE DICTIONARY OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. Edited by Macauley Jackson. M. A. Associate Editors: Rev. Talbot Wilson D.D., LL.D., of the Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church city, and Rev. Frank Hugh Foster, Ph.D., Professor of Church Hi logical Seminary, Oberlin, Ohio. New York: The Christian Liter pany, 1891.

We have space only for a brief notice of this val important work at this time. Its object is "to furnish in form, information upon biblical, archæological, ecclesias historical topics. Hence the vocabulary has been purpose very large, and most of the articles very condensed.'

An error occurs under the title "Reformed Church," in that "in 1836 Marshall College was founded at Lancas It should be " at Mercersburg, Pa."

The work is prepared in the best style, and is worthy a every good library.

THE

REFORMED QUARTERLY REVIEW

NO. 4.-OCTOBER, 1891.

I.

THE RELATION OF HUMANITY TO DIVINITY.

BY PRESIDENT J. S. STAHR, PH.D. D.D.

MAN occupies a unique position in the order of created things. He is a citizen of two worlds, and, as such, the connecting link between two economies, the natural and the spiritual. Linked by his physical organization to the material world, and partaking of the order of development which prevails in the whole natural system, he also transcends this order, and, in virtue of his spiritual endowments, his intellectual and moral life, he belongs to a higher realm in which he unfolds the real significance of his existence under conditions which. the physical order cannot control. He belongs to the world of spirit, and his life is moulded by spiritual influences.

The mere statement of this fact, however, does not go far towards determining man's real position. The admission that there are two orders of existence, the natural and the spiritual (or supernatural), only makes room for the contemplation of a higher relation in which both stand as a connected system of things, to God who is the ground or source, the author and

governor, the end or goal of the whole creation the subject from this point of view, what shall w Shall we include him with the other orders of cr that, like every other creature, man was constitu of God so that he has a separate, autonomic exis however, to God, and dependent upon Him as th source of his being? Or shall we say that man, the breath of the Almighty, is the outgoing or a part of the stupendous All, which comes to cons self-poised activity in the personality of man? measure of truth in either view, and both statemer tive in that they do not bring out the whole tr have seen that man forms the connecting link betw ural and the supernatural order, so, in a certain se the full development of his life, mediates between order and the Creator. He cannot be identified wi ator; that would be pantheism. He cannot be abs arated; that would be deism. He has some things with both terms, and his relation to either, accordin determined only in the light of his relation to the ot is, if we would determine the relation between hu divinity, we must look, not on one side of human n to see what connection there is between it and the ture above it, but also on the other side to see the re tween man's physical, psychical and spiritual constit the order of life which prevails in the world to which rently belongs, and of which he is, in a certain sen tegral part.

Looking towards nature we see at once the kinship man and the physical order of the world in which he l is a mere truism to say that man is the crown and per this whole order. And yet the statement, trite as it is sizes an aspect of the subject without which we cann true insight into the wonderful constitution of man, no conception of nature itself, of its development and n As the perfection of nature, man is not an addition ma

by a separate act. The crown of nature is not imposed from without. It is the highest point reached in the development or evolution of nature, a process which began by the first creative act, and went forward in a series of steps or stages, not indeed by the operation of blind, natural forces, but by the immanent energy of God Himself, until, as when the refiner purifies silver, the process is complete when he sees his own image in the metal contained in the cupel, the great Creator saw His own image in the work of His hands, and the world was complete.

The development of nature, accordingly, leads up to man. Arrest its development at any point short of man, and it is incomplete. Sunder any form of life from other forms, or take any natural object out of its relation to others as links in the great chain which binds all to man, and it has no meaning. There are, in these days savans who claim to have discovered that there is no teleology in the world. But if all nature tends towards man, if every stage of its development is prophetic of the next and of the final or highest, how can we fail to discover the golden cord of meaning which runs through it all? Prof. John Fisk, one of the most pronounced evolutionists in America, says: "The Darwinian theory, properly understood, replaces as much teleology as it destroys. From the first dawning of life we see all things working together towards one mighty goal, the evolution of the most exalted spiritual qualities which characterize humanity." "'* And again, "I believe it has been fully shown that so far from degrading humanity, or putting it on a level with the animal world in general, the doctrine of evolution shows us for the first time how the creation and the perfecting of Man is the goal toward which Nature's work has been tending from the first."† Such a statement from such a source is certainly significant. The theist, therefore, who does not feel himself called upon to account for the order of nature on purely mechanical principles, discerns in every advancing step a preparation for and approach to the coming of man as nature's destined head and lord.

While, therefore, man is allied to nature, certain sense, the product of its ascending moveme sums up its whole significance, and embodies in his all its possibilities, he at the same time transcend= reflects upon it powers and capacities which, othe be far beyond its reach. The pre-eminence of mam is evident, first of all, from the world of nature seems to recognize in the coming of man the be; new era in the history of the world. Professor Da ing the development of life upon the earth (*), calls ment a system of progressive cephalization in the ar ture; that is to say, in proportion as animal life deve one geological age to another, the head became more and the brain larger. In the progress of the ages coming to a head. Now, in the advent of man this p came complete, both in the size and poise of the he no farther progress was possible in the physical Here, then, we have the completion of the process through all the previous ages, and the developme world from this time forward must hold in the spher or history. We have said that nature itself seems to this fact. Not only is room made for the coming of there is even a change in the organization of nature to the way for it. This is seen first in the purificatio atmosphere, the increase of dry land, the adjustment of and the structure of the continents, so that the earth a fit place of abode for man. Secondly, while brain st increased, the bulk of the animal body was reduced at of man's appearance in the world. The brain capacit average man is more than double that of the most hig veloped ape that has yet been found. On the contra huge monsters that were found in the world, in the sea, land, and in the air, the fierce and terrible beasts the sway on the earth, making it seem, when brute force umphant, like the work of a demon rather than an actu * Manual of Geology, p. 596.