the Old Testament is indirectly demonstrated, Mr. Huxley sets to work to prove that the story of the Flood is unhistorical. The rationalistic theory of a partial Deluge finds no more favor at his hands than the universal Deluge of the old-fashioned faith.

"In view, not of the recondite speculations of infidel philosophers, but of the plainest and most commonplace of ascertained physical facts, the story of the Noachian Deluge has no more claim to credit than has that of Deucalion; and whether it was, or was not, suggested by the familiar acquaintance of its originators with the effects of unusually great overflows of the Tigris and Euphrates, it is utterly devoid of historical truth."

Historical criticism, he adds, which recognizes the composite character of the narrative, and its internal contradictions, and shows its probable dependence on Babylonian myth, tends to exactly the same conclusion. In this state of affairs, he says:

"I can but admire the courage and clear foresight of the Anglican divine who tells us that we must be prepared to choose between the trustworthiness of scientific method and the trustworthiness of that which the church declares to be divine authority. For, to my mind, this declaration of war to the knife against secular science, even in its most elementary forms; this rejection without a moment's hesitation of any and all evidence which conflicts with theological dogma, is the only position which is logically reconcilable with the axioms of orthodoxy. If the Gospels truly report that which an incarnation of the God of Truth communicated to the world, then it surely is absurd to attend to any other evidence touching matters about which He made any clear statement, or the truth of which is distinctly implied by his words. If the exact historical truth of the Gospels is an axiom of Christianity, it is as just and right for a Christian to say, Let us close our ears against the suggestions of scientific critics, as it is for the man of science to refuse to waste his time upon circle-squarers and flat-earth fanatics."

This is the dilemma to which Canon Liddon and Professor Huxley agree that Christianity is reduced. It is worth something to have the consequences of this " easy way" with Old Testament critics remorselessly thought through and unflinchingly declared; and we share Mr. Huxley's admiration for Canon Liddon's logic, and for his courage. But we think it probable that many men will find the conclusion very ike a reductio ad absurdum, and say to themselves that there must be some flaw in the premises, however self-evident they may seem, which land us in such a dilemma.

Mr. Huxley has not so good an opinion of the newer apologetic, represented for him by the authors of "Lux Mundi," which undertakes to reconcile orthodoxy with natural science and historical criticism by compromises. Those who think such a reconciliation possible do not, he would say, see clear or think straight. In the somewhat discouraging outlook into the future which he allows himself at the end of the article, he thinks that these compromises are likely to prevail for a time, it is a day of compromises, and to conceal the truth from the mass of men. But general acceptance will make them neither better nor truer.

We are quite at one with Professor Huxley in our abhorrence of at least one very common kind of compromise, which harmonizes the Bible and science or criticism by misinterpreting the Bible; which gives up the universal Deluge of Genesis, but maintains the historical accuracy of the account when understood of a limited catastrophe; which substitutes six creative periods for the six days of creation, and declares that, in the new version, Genesis and Geology are in perfect accord; which interprets away the use of the Old Testament in the New, as accommodation, type, or allegory; or tries to weaken to the utmost the force of the evidence it gives to the belief of the Apostles and of Christ himself. This rationalistic position is, in Mr. Huxley's words, "hopelessly untenable." We do not understand that this is the position of the authors of "Lux Mundi." But something like it is undoubtedly the position into which no inconsiderable part of the church has drifted. In fact, so far as scientific difficulties are concerned, it is now considered, curiously enough, to be highly orthodox; while the difficulties of criticism having not yet made such an impression, the same kind of compromise with them is not thought quite sound. In our view the most dangerous symptom of the present theological situation is the readiness with which conservative men of all schools and parties yield one point after another at the summons of science or criticism. If that is to go on there will soon be nothing left. Men cannot always go on holding a principle and giving up its logical consequences; and the devices by which they convince themselves that this is all right will not hold out forever. Temporizing compromises, whatever they may seem to offer, are the most costly sacrifices.

We think we have done full justice to Professor Huxley's vigorous and suggestive paper. We do not think that he does justice to the theologians, of whom surely there are some in England, whose attitude to these questions is wholly different from either Canon Liddon's confident dogmatism, or the timid compromises of a mediating theology. The Bible contains the primary sources for the study of a religion, or rather of two religions, which have been for many centuries intimately connected with human progress. The first task of the scientific theologian we think Mr. Huxley would admit that there may be a scientific theologian — is to find out just what this collection of documents is. To this end he wants all the light he can get, from whatever source, and gladly avails himself of the help of physical science, historical criticism, the comparative study of religions, etc. When he has learned all he can about his sources, he sets himself, in the critical use of them, to study the history of the religion; the origin and development of the ideas of God, and of man's duty and destiny, which have been so momentous a force in the world. Here he must employ, with double precaution, the historical method which has proved itself in other fields. Finally, he has, in the light of history, to distinguish the changing from the permanent in these ideas; that which is incident to a given moment of the development or a certain historical

situation from the persistent principle; and to show in what relation these religious ideas stand to our knowledge and philosophy of the universe, on the one hand, and the theology of the church on the other. In all this his quest of truth need not be less single-minded, his method less stringent, because he believes, for himself, that in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself. For the conceptions which are the corollaries of that faith are not of such a character as to prejudice the inquiry.

That the outcome of this inquiry will be to undermine the foundations of Christianity would be a rash prophecy. The most revolutionary changes in the fundamental theory of a science do not destroy the science. We think it quite as reasonable to believe that all the enlargement and clearing up of our knowledge of the truth will establish our religion upon a firmer basis than ever.

LETTERS AND LIFE.

This Department of the "Review" is under the editorial care of Professor A. S. HARDY.

OPTIMISM IN AMERICAN LITERATURE AND LIFE.

THERE has been no more prominent or characteristic note in American Literature, from the first, than that of optimism. Longfellow, though for a time influenced by Heine in thought and in lyrical form, speedily found his life-long work as the utterer of "seven voices of sympathy;" the tender idyllist, and the poet of high resignation and serene endeavor. No sound of despair, or even of doubt, was mingled with the monotonous music of Bryant's verse. In Lowell's most stinging political satires, written in stormy days to correct an almost national sin, a sturdy faith in Americanism never wavered. Though the fierce and righteous zeal of Lowell and Whittier against slavery led them to label the fame of the greatest of modern orators with a premature epitaph, and though they, like other abolitionists of 1850, were somewhat hastily intolerant of that slow conservatism which, after all, finally saved the Union, neither of them has swerved, in the cooler blood of age, from a deep confidence in our destiny. Lowell found in the evolution of Lincoln's character the most interesting phenomenon of his time; and even Garfield's career led him hopefully to note the causes and conditions of our practical politics in a period of temptation. The list need not be lengthened: who does not know the beauty, already mentioned, of Whittier's sunshiny religious and political faith; the golden thread of liberty running through Motley's histories; Parkman's indication of the necessary triumph of Saxon ideas over French on the soil of the new world; the work of the unfail

ing line of mighty defenders of the nation in the political field, from Jefferson to Lincoln; the continuing growth of a self-respecting commonwealth after the appearance of the records of De Tocqueville, and in the very days when Bryce was writing his dispassionate survey? Our greatest romancer, our chief author of all, devoted his perennial books to the theme of the successful development of spiritual character on the field of life-struggle with sin; while the great Concord seer, in all his prose and verse, taught nothing but idealism, individualism, and the duty of learning the ethical lesson of the universe.

There is nothing new in the thought that we have no Schopenhauer or Tolstoi in our letters, and not many Machiavellis or Talleyrands in our life. The chorus of patriotic outcries has been long and loud, ever since 1776; and for many a year we were in more danger of splurge and half-concealed sensitiveness than of pessimism or even of decent modesty. But the very laudable and necessary efforts of earnest workers of late, to arouse our minds to the dangers of the money-power in politics, of sectional hate as a campaign weapon, of capitalistic greed, or of "nationalistic" or pension-list pauperism, are leading some hasty minds to fear that dry rot is destroying what foreign and internal war could not essentially diminish. There never has been a time, in this or any other country, when a "serious situation" did not confront the people. Buying office, fanning old coals of local strife, relying on the government as a panacea for all ills or as a limitless treasury for bummers and campfollowers and their descendants to the third generation, - these are evils which, like ward politics or our unparalleled problems of assimilation of immigration, must be met and patiently solved. But their solution is not aided by gloom. The men of 1776, of 1812, and of 1861, the makers of the nation, the framers and expounders of the Constitution, the builders of the New West, were successful because of their faith and not of their fears. Tremors belong to those who distrust themselves, and who never read history.

Perhaps the seemingly queer and unexpected wave of patriotism which is now sweeping over the country is a needed lesson for those who are misled by the sensational dailies and the satirical weeklies. Emerson used to remind us that to see the real nation we must leave the clubs and avenues and go to the town meetings. There is much more significance in the new flag lately set a-flying over the country schoolhouse than in the harmless and transient Anglomania visible here and there in the metropolitan park. The plain average heart and mind of the nation. would rise as of yore were a new foreign or civil strife to call them forth. Courage and faith are not dead, but in reserve, - nay, their silent work is more effective than would be their conspicuous strife. As in our language dialects melt and disappear more rapidly than elsewhere in the world, so is our really enduring literature as homogeneously American which is to say as optimistic -as ever. The anarchist and

the socialist, and the whimsical "nationalist" who tells the sentimental and the ignorant that Uncle Sam will give us all we want if we simply transfer everything to him, are dreadful spectacles, but their horrors are less suggestive than the sober glories of decent consolidation of heterogeneous elements under one flag. Mr. William O'Brien has been writing a book about the influence of American ideas on Ireland. We shall Americanize the Pope considerably before he Romanizes us. I lately saw, in a mining metropolis, Yankees, Pennsylvanians, Germans, Welsh, Hungarians, men, women, and babes in arms, celebrating the Fourth of July with a fervor and sensibleness not equaled for two decades. The men may still know nothing save their native patois, but the women will jabber in broken English, and the children are pretty sure to use their parent's dialect only as a filial condescension to ancestral limitations. Before they get to studying Colonel Balch's " Methods of Teaching Patriotism in the Public Schools," they will have well started, in a small way, their own methods of absorbing a national and patriotic optimism neither blind nor lazy, and of living on right lines as decent members of a body politic that is not going to die in a day,even if high old Federalism, in its extremest form, revives occasionally as greenbackism, or socialism, or the silver-money craze, or nationalism, or the pension-grab.

"The true sovereigns of a country," said Dr. Channing sixty years ago, are those who determine its mind, its mode of thinking, its tastes, and its principles; " and such determinants, however troublesome our case may be for the moment, are not the ward boss, the ballot-box stuffer, the vote-buyer, or even the editor of the vulgar and swollen daily newspaper which has too often usurped the place of its elders and betters of the golden age of American journalism. "As the blood of all nations is mingling with our own," says a character in Longfellow's "Kavanagh," "so will their thoughts and feelings finally mingle in our literature,” — and, of course, in the life of which that literature is the exponent. I do not believe that the world-blood is deteriorating, and I am sure that the current in our national veins is as red and as true

WE begin our review with the year 1888, which opens with the remarks of the missionaries upon the unparalleled calamity resulting from the bursting of its banks by the Hoang-Ho (Hwang-Ho) or Yellow River. In our previous report we had alluded to it as being known from of old