n their
dealing with perplexed souls. Christian Ethics appears for the first
time as the name of a treatise by a French theologian of the
Calvinistic persuasion--Danaeus, whose work, however, is confined to an
exposition of the Decalogue. The first recorded work of the Lutheran
church is the _Theologia Moralis_, written in 1634, by George Calixtus.

But the modern study of the subject really dates from {3}
Schleiermacher (1768-1834), who divides theology into two sections,
Dogmatics and Ethics, giving to the latter an independent treatment.
Since his time Ethics has been regarded as a separate discipline, and
within the last few decades increasing attention has been devoted to it.

This strong ethical tendency is one of the most noticeable features of
the present age. Everywhere to-day the personal human interest is in
evidence. We see it in the literature of the age and especially in the
best poetry, beginning already with Coleridge and Wordsworth, and
continued in Tennyson and Browning. It is the inner life of man as
depicted to us by these master singers, the story of the soul, even
more than the delineation of nature which appeals to man's deepest
experience and evokes his finest response. We see it in the art of our
times, which, not content to be a mere expression of sensuous beauty or
lifeless nature, seeks to be instinct with human sympathy and to become
the vehicle of the ideas and aims of man. We see it in modern fiction,
which is no longer the narration of a simple tale, but the subtle
analysis of character, and the intricate study of the passions and
ambitions of common life. History to-day is not concerned so much with
recording the intrigues of kings and the movements of armies as with
scrutinising the motives and estimating the personal forces which have
shaped the ages. Even in the domain of theology itself this tendency
is visible. Our theologians are not content with discussing abstract
doctrines or recounting the decisions of church councils, but are
turning to the gospels and seeking to depict the life of Jesus--to
probe the secret of His divine humanity and to interpret the meaning
for the world of His unique personality.

Nor is this tendency confined to professional thinkers and theologians,
it is affecting the common mind of the laity. 'Never was there a
time,' says a modern writer, 'when plain people were less concerned
with the metaphysics or the ecclesiasticism of Christianity. T