change in the attitude of the intellect of the day, toward the extreme scientific temper and theories. The great debate of the last quarter century has demolished some ancient notions, and put them where they will never be heard from again. But, on the other hand, some of the venerable doctrines have held their own, against all the new tendencies and the new hypotheses. The great English scientific philosopher begun his work of establishing a new system, with the dictum, "The Power which the universe manifests to us is utterly inscrutable." It has taken only twenty-five years to bring even from the lips of his chief disciple in this country, the pregnant sentence, "The Eternal and Infinite Power that is manifested in every pulsation of the universe, is none other than the living God." The difference between the two utterances is full of meaning. It marks the return of the philosophers from their excursions toward atheism. It shows how far spent is the materialistic tendency in science. It reveals the growing perception of the true life that rules all phenomena and runs like a deep flowing current under all the forms and manifestations of existence. There is a larger respect than ever before for the spiritual side of creation, for the inner life of things, for the independent and creative force of the human will.

Science has been trying to make men believe that the unfoldng of life is only the play of atoms and blind earth forces. But to-day she is seeking to reverse her proposition, and admit that the play of atoms and forces is in fact the unfolding of life, the revelation of thought, the power of will, the scheme of love. We are on the eve of a broader philosophy and truer generalizations than have ever been made before, in which mind, will and affection shall be the leading words, and joy, harmony, peace, the interpretation of life. And this great thought-tendency of the age is what induces and stimulates the reaction from realism. All true art is related to the most earnest movements and the deepest thought-life of its age. And this new tendency in the esthetics of our time is but a part of the great reaction just beginning from the hard negations of materialism, to the affirmations of a more intelligent faith. John Coleman Adams.

ARTICLE XI.

The Church and the World.

CHRISTIANITY is a system of spiritual forces, emanating from Christ, and put into the hearts of men eighteen hundred years ago. As this, with all things existing upon the earth, must have a location, it dwells here in the world, but it does not partake of the spirit of the world. It is a world in and of itself, essentially unlike the world of sensuous environments, yet it is located amid the elements that constitute this outer world. It is a kingdom established here, aggressive and progressive, making converts from the outside world, yet not removing these converts out of the world, but keeping them here to purify, redeem, uplift and ennoble humanity. When Jesus said to Pilate, John xviii. 36, "My kingdom is not of this world," he did not mean that it was outside the limits of the world in which we are placed for a season, but that it was a new influence, introduced into the world to operate upon it and bless it. And the introduction of this new influence constitutes a new epoch in the world's history which is indicated by the fact of our dating the years from the birth of Christ which we call the Christian Era As Schaff says: 66 It is the end of the old world and the beginning of the new. Christ, the God, [divine] man, prophet, priest and king of mankind, is, in fact, the centre and turning-point, not only of chronology, but of all history, and the key to all its mysteries. Around him as the sun of the moral universe, revolve at their several distances, all nations and important events in the religious life of the world; and all must directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, contribute to glorify his name and advance his cause. The history of mankind before his birth must be viewed as a preparation for his coming, and the history after his birth as a gradual diffusion of his spirit and the progress of his kingdom." 1

Jesus

So Christianity must operate in the world, though it may not be of the world. Its recruits must come from the world, its 1 History of the Christian Church, latest edition, revised, Vol. I, p. 56.

battles fought here and its victories gained, and it must finally subdue the world and bring it into subjection to Jesus the King, when "the kingdoms of this world" shall "become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ."-Rev. xi. 15.

My object is to clear up this apparent paradox by explaining the different uses of the term "world" and the relation which the several worlds bear to one another.

I. The Scriptural use of the word, "world." There are three Greek words which are used in the New Testament to

express the English "world." In some passages their meaning is nearly identical; in others, very different. 1. Kooμos, order, the order of the material universe, its beauty and magnificence; sometimes applied to the heavenly bodies, or the host of heaven, but generally to the earth," the order of things of which man is the centre," 2 the inhabitants of the earth [Thayer], the portion of mankind alienated from God, the whole circle of affairs pertaining to the earth, riches, lusts, desires of sensual enjoyment, secular advantages, yet all implying an order of arrangement under the control of laws instituted by the righteous Creator and Governor.

2. Oixovuέrn, the inhabited land, the inhabitants of the earth, sometimes the whole earth, and again limited to the Roman Empire, as in Matt. xxiv. 14: "This Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world." [Thayer and Vincent.]

3. Aior, age, or dispensation. Cremer in his New Testament Lexicon, derives it from do, anu, blow, breathe. "It appears to have denoted, originally, the life which hastes away, in the breathing of our breath, life as transitory, then the course of life, time of life, in general, life in its temporal form." It also denotes the space of a human life, an age or generation. From the fact that the flow of time was connected with the word, came the idea of age or dispensation, in its historical sense. So Matt. xxiv. 3, is translated "the end of the age," meaning the Jewish dispensation, not "the world" in the sense of "earth." Dr. Vincent says: "The existing current age. They [the disciples] do not ask the signs of the Mes

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2 Vincent's Word Studies of the New Testament. I, p. 544.

siah's coming at the end of all time." Meyer: "In the Gospels we find no trace of the millenarian ideas of the Apocalypse. The Tov auros, with the article, is to be understood as referring to the existing, the then current age of the world." 3 Dr. Schaff: "It should be kept in mind that when "the end of the world" is spoken of in the New Testament, the term duor, the present dispensation or order of things, is used, and not xòouos, the planetary system, the created universe." 4 The former word is never used to denote this "earth" while the latter is thus used. Instance the two passages in the Parable of the Wheat and Tares; Matt. xiii., 38. 49. "The field is the world" [xooμos]; "So shall it be at the end of the world,” age, [rov diavos,]. The former means the inhabited portion of the earth; the latter, the Jewish age. Translating both "world," misleads the purely English reader. The passage in Matthew xii. 32, illustrates this use of the word, "neither in this world, nor in the world to come." Air is found in both places and denotes as before "age," or some special period. "This world” denotes the Jewish age or dispensation, "the final portion" of which commenced when Christ appeared," and "the world to come," [«io μ220] "the future world," or "the days of Messiah," " commenced with the first advent of Christ," the same as "these last days" in Hebrews i. 1, "God hath spoken unto us by his Son." [Cremer.] Neither expression, then, refers to the life that succeeds this. The latter signifies that which is "about to come," soon, near at hand, in contrast with that which is distant. 5

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It will be seen that these three Greek words are radically different in meaning, yet by metonymy, or some other figure of speech, they are, in some cases, used with a meaning almost identical. But if we jumble them together and use them continually with the same meaning, we shall surely be led to give an entirely wrong construction to some important passages of the New Testament. While ar never means this solid earth

on which we dwell, κόσμος and οἰκουμένη sometimes mean this 4 Lange's Com. in loco.

8 Com. in loco.

5 See Dr. O. D. Miller's article on "The Use of the Greek Verb Mέ22ö, Uni versalist Quarterly. New Series, Vol. XIX. p. 192-209.

earth or the universe, but often the inhabitants of the earth, or society composed of human beings, and sometimes the evil portion of the community or society in its corrupt state, whether Jew, Gentile, or Christian.

The

We use the English word "world" in the same varied and indefinite manner when we call the earth or physical universe "the world" and again speak of the "moral world," "social world," "scientific world," "political world," "Jewish, pagan, or Christian world." We mean society in a mass, or as composed of human beings, good and bad, or a particular portion of the people engaged in some specific pursuit, or occupying a peculiar sphere. But in many instances the word is applied to the corrupt mass of human society, specially the pagan community in which Christianity arose as an oasis in the desert. That age was totally opposed to the pure, holy, spiritual elements of the Gospel. Sensuality in its most disgusting forms, selfishness in its worst manifestations, political corruption, bribery, dishonesty, pride, ambition, lust, prevailed. Apostle warns the Ephesians, iv. 17-20, not to "walk as other Gentiles walk, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness." He then turns to the Christians and says: "But ye have not so learned Christ." Then follows the thought embodied in the figure of putting off "the old man" which is "corrupt according to the deceitful lusts" and putting on "the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness," vs. 22, 24. Here, as elsewhere in the New Testament, the Gospel is arrayed against the evil world in which it was proclaimed, thus bringing on an aggressive warfare which has been waged down to the present time.

We find abundant evidence not only in the Scriptures, but in sacred and secular historians, of ancient and modern times, of the wide-spread and profound conception of society during the age of Christ and of the apostles. Paul in his Epistles to