s way of treating Scripture? We have gone far already in
the wrong direction. Our churches are honeycombed with doubt and with
indifference. The preaching of the old gospel of sin and salvation seems
almost a thing of the past. People have itching ears that will not
endure sound doctrine. The dynamic of missions is love for Christ, who
died to save us from the guilt and power of sin. Modern criticism has
to a large extent nullified this dynamic, and if the authority of
Scripture is yet further weakened, we may look for complete collapse in
our supplies both of men and of money. In fact, the faith and the gifts
of many converts from among the heathen already so far exceed the
average faith and gifts of our churches at home, that the time may come
when Burma and the Congo may have to send missionaries to us, as we are
now sending missionaries to the land where the seven churches of Asia
once flourished.

Whence has come this so-called "historical method" of interpreting
Scripture? I answer: It was "made in Germany." German scholarship for a
century past has been working almost exclusively on the horizontal
plane, and has been ignoring the light that comes from above. The
theology of Great Britain and of America has been profoundly affected by
the application of its evolutionary and skeptical principles. In Germany
itself the honesty of every Scripture writer has been questioned, and
every sacred document has been torn into bits. When the all-pervading
presence and influence of Christ in the Bible is lost sight of, and its
separate fragments are examined to discover their meaning, there is no
guide but the theory of evolution; and evolution, instead of being the
ordinary method of a personal God, is itself personified and made the
only power in the universe. The regularities of nature, it is thought,
leave no room for miracle. There is no divine Will that can work down
upon nature in unique acts, such as incarnation and resurrection. A
pantheistic Force is the only ruler, and whatever is, is right. Goethe
led the way in this pagan philosophy, and German universities have been
full of it ever since. It is painful to see how German theologians and
ministers have been won over to the ethics of brute force and the
practical, deification of mere might in human affairs. The New Testament
has been interpreted as justifying implicit obedience to "the powers
that be," even when they turn the Kaiser into a military despot and his
pe