communion. Their testimony is of the best class of credible witnesses.

Associated with saintly knowledge of God is that of Jesus Christ, whom he has sent into the world. Human nature longs for the definite, the visible, the tangible, the focusing of divine attributes and perfections in personality that shall convey knowledge to the spirit through the five pinholes of the senses. This inextinguishable longing is the explanation, in part, of the world's idolatries. It is gratified by the incarnation of the Logos, who is God, "the brightness of" the Father's "glory, and the express image of his person," "full of grace and truth." For more than thirty years, and most impressively and unforgetably in the three years of his public ministry, men "beheld his glory." They spoke and wrote of what they saw, of the glory of divine ideal manhood. true, tender, inflexibly just, yet supremely merciful, that "went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil;" that loved even the evil and unthankful, and by his teaching, example, suffering with and for them, strove to elevate them to the light, love, and life of communion with the Father. The evangelists tell us of those who knew him to be not only the best and greatest man of all time, but also "the Christ, the Son of the living God"-" God manifest in the flesh." Since his ascension millions uncounted of men have known him, not only as Americans historically and politically know George Washington and Abraham Lincoln-patriots, lovers of the human race, sages, exemplars, but as spirit knows spirit and soul knows soul, drawing from him wisdom, grace, and power of love that casteth out fear. The number of those who critically "know him and the power of his resurrection" is vastly larger in this than in any previous era. This knowledge is deep, distinct, felicitous; is "eternal life"-the lower depth in earthly conditions of that well of water springing up into the refulgent splendors of eternal bliss, the growing germ of the beauteous and fragrant flower that will expand into changeless perfec-. tion in presence of the Christ's unveiled glory and majesty.

What is the philosophy of this knowledge? How is it obtained? It begins in belief of what we are told is true. Here faith has its genesis. "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Belief of religious truth rests primarily upon authority. It is unquestioning when the believer knows the goodness of the teacher's character. Questioning usually follows the rude shocks received from hypocrisy. It inquires into the reason of beliefs 8-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. XII.

and seeks for their proofs. When proof is adequate the formerly unquestioned or questioned passes into the category of reasoned belief. Trust, with expectancy of desired benefit, follows. It brings the whole being into touch with the divine. Mysterious force enters the trustful, calming, gladdening, invigorating, expanding, uplifting, so that the man is a "new creature," creation renewed. This he knows, and in the knowing knows also the true God, and Jesus Christ, whom he has sent.

It is with this latter knowledge, as possessed by the percipient spirit, that we are more immediately concerned. "What shall I do to be saved ?"-from sin and ill-is the deepest and most urgent inquiry of a soul awake to its spiritual relations. "Place yourself, so far as you can, in concord with the Lord's will. Believe that Jesus Christ is the divinely appointed Saviour of men -of yourself. Then shall you receive the Holy Spirit, the peace of God which passeth understanding, an assurance of forgiveness, of adoption, of renewal in righteousness," is, in substance, the evangelical reply. These instructions assume belief in God, Christ, the Holy Spirit-a belief that may fall far short of the truth, and yet be instrumentally saving. Essentially this belief is of the same nature as belief in material things with which the individual is in sensible proximity. Any one of these-a locomotive, for example-produces certain sensations of the nervous system, which sensations are perceived by the mind or spirit. Our knowledge of the fabric is determined by the nature, number, and order of these sense-perceptions. Definition is limited by them. Of the inner nature of the materials composing the structure we know nothing. So true is this that philosophers like Berkeley have plausibly argued, contrary to experience, that matter is a creature of the imagination, and that the whole universe of sense consists in perception of an order of sensations. Either Mill or Berkeley being judge, our consciousness or knowledge of the objective not-self is the certainty corresponding with the reality; which certainty is obtained immediately by spiritperception of what invisibly passes in the system of nature.

So also with the spirit, the ego, the recipient and percipient of sensations, thoughts, emotions, and volitions. This feels and thinks and wills. Of its inmost nature we are as much in the dark as of the inmost nature of matter. Yet of it, as of matter, we know that it is, and that it excites thoughts and emotions as body excites sensations. Our knowledge of mind, as of body, in its last analysis is determined by self-perception of the influence

or force it exerts upon us. So saintly knowledge of God is determined by the influence of his attributes and perfections upon our material and moral being, plus the influence bearing upon us through and by our Lord Jesus Christ, whom-like Paul-we have trusted; and who, we are persuaded, is able to keep the precious soul treasure we have committed to him until that day. Knowing God and Jesus Christ, knowing that we are passed from death unto life, knowing that we have received of his Spirit, lays the foundation, in the full assurance of faith, of that knowing that if the "earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.'

Saintly knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ is not, however, exclusively, and perhaps not chiefly, through reason. This is not the sole course of legitimate beliefs. "Theology would be unnecessary if all we are capable of learning about God could be inferred from the study of nature." "From the world as presented to us by science we might conjecture a God of power and a God of reason [the ordered system of phenomena compels us to postulate a rational Author. That he created it, that he sustains it, we are driven to believe']; but we never could infer a God who was wholly loving and wholly just. So that what religion proclaims aloud to be his most essential attributes are precisely those respecting which the oracles of science are doubtful or are dumb." Knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ is not only through reason, but is also through intuition, or the power of immediate knowing, in which the mind stands face to face with reality, in the absence of distorting media. This power is not confined to axioms and pure intellections. Reason is powerless when unserved by simple cognitions or intuitions. Bishop R. S. Foster truly remarks that "all knowledge is, in the last resort, intuition;" and that the mind intuits itself, the external world, and ethical distinctions when rightly related to them. Intuition and reason are complemental. Intuitive reason cognizes realities not given in sensation; also "universal, necessary, conditioning truths and laws "-the reality of force in the universe, the great law of cause and effect, the existence of an agent competent to the production of any effect or change, and the underived existence of the Being anterior to all change. It cognizes supersensible beings who conduct commerce of thought and love between themselves while eluding the powers of sense. Spencer admits that “reason cannot take even a first step toward discrediting the in

tuitions which yield the consciousness of external existence without tacitly positing these intuitions as data, and connoting the existence of subject and object by all the words it uses." Reason is based on sense-perception, which in itself is spiritual. But sense-perception is not more clear, fundamental, and universal than intuition, or pure, nonmediated, spiritual perception. The latter testifies as positively and trustworthily to the reality of beauty in nature, art, music, and moral life as the former to external phenomena. The child sees something in the mother, the friend something in the friend, that cannot be detected by ocular vision. Moral qualities, transcending sense-perception, are clearly distinguished by spiritual perception. The revelation of God in nature, and in direct communication, has from the beginning been, more or less, the heritage of our race. In the blending lights devout souls have always believed in him and sought fellowship with him. They believe in his love, wisdom, and beneficence. "We must believe that somewhere, and for some being, there shines an unchanging splendor of beauty, of which in nature and in art we see, each of us from our own standpoint, only passing gleams and stray reflections, whose different aspects we cannot now coordinate, whose import we cannot fully comprehend, but which at least is something other than the chance play of subjective sensibility or the far-off echo of ancestral lusts."

Men understand God and Jesus Christ infinitely better through the inspired writings than through the testimony of nature. These, addressed to the reason, are accepted on evidence as divinely true on all questions of faith and morals. They bring Jesus Christ within the field of spiritual perception. The soul, yearning to be right and to do right, intuits or knows him, as thus represented, to be of purity immaculate, knowledge exhaustive, wisdom infallible, love transcendent, power omnipotent; knows him as having resources infinite, which supply desire for all good, while they develop capacity for its enjoyment, both in this life and in the life which is to come. It perceives and knows that "in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.”

Thus in intuition and in reason are the changeless grounds of belief, and in triformed unity of the individual believer is the consciousness, the reasoned knowledge, that corresponds with the divine and Christly realities. All-sustained, empowered, and illustrated by example and testimony-justify and explain the yivwokw and yvwots of believers singly, and of the Church of God as a whole. Such is the epistemology of the saints.

THE ARENA.

A FRIENDLY WORD WITH MY CRITICS.

AMID the general approval which Growth in Holiness has called forth from all parts of the country some discordant voices have been heard, which, considering its departure in some respects from previous volumes on this theme, was to be expected. As some have misconceived the purpose of the book and its principal positious, I write to correct these misconceptions. With the main lines of Wesleyan theology on this subject I have no quarrel whatsoever; I am entirely orthodox, so far as I know what orthodoxy is. I firmly believe, as readers of the book can see, that all men are born in an abnormal or depraved condition, which condition, at conversion, is greatly altered but not entirely made right. I also believe that all these who are thus constituted by the new birth children of God, holy because he is holy, as they go forward in the discharge of Christian duty receive greater illumination as to their inward state, and by deeper consecration, with its accompanying faith, receive correspondingly increased purification, which purification may, and should, become so far complete that they will lead a thoroughly loyal and every way consistent Christian life, without conscious condemnation, not doing at any time what they know to be wrong, and yet perpetually pressing on toward that goal of entire Christlikeness, that destruction of "the whole work of the devil in man," which John Wesley says (Sermon 67) the Son of God does not effect so long as we remain in this life.

That this glorious doctrine of Methodism is substantially correct, and that its blessed experience should everywhere be promoted, I heartily believe. But the terms in which it has generally been described I have long felt to be objectionable. Those who find the old-fashioned phrases satisfactory and helpful I have no desire to disturb. By all means let them cling to the ancient nomenclature, if it conveys to them scriptural truth and feeds their souls. But it had come to my knowledge that there was a large class of people in the Church who were not satisfied with, nor helped by, the established statements; who found Wesley's Plain Account anything but plain; and who were greatly stumbled by what seemed to them palpable inconsistencies, clear contradictions, and unscriptural positions in the current teaching. It was for them I wrote, deeming it a manifest duty to let shine for their benefit the light which God had given me, and in which I had long been walking with great freedom and much spiritual joy. I have so far seen no reason to suppose that I mistook the divine voice. The large sale which the book has had, and the large pile of letters on my desk testifying to the good it has done, amply confirm my impression that such a book might be helpful to some in the present condition of the Church.

One of my critics has seen fit to say of the volume that "it is needless