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CURRENT EVENTS AND DISCUSSIONS
The Conception of Relativity as a Guide of Life. — With a few clean-
cut, well-directed strokes Ellwood Hendrick has applied the conception
of relativity to human life in general. ("Relativity and Life," The
North American Review, CCXIII, May, 1921.) Relativity teaches the
following:
1. There is no absolute freedom. Freedom is relative, always
circumscribed. Each man is bound in his relation to some other. To
move away is only to move into another such relationship.
2. There is need of greater precision in thinking. No single shib-
boleth suffices as a guide. Not only should the rights and privileges
be emphasized, but also our obligations. The world would be better
if the consequences of our actions were thought out more accurately.
3. Ignorance in action is an offense against the general welfare,
since understanding is one phase, "dimension," of conduct. In the
choice of political candidates mere numbers of uninformed voters do
not promote wisdom. The vote of people is democratic. But since
they may know too little about the qualifications of a given candi-
date to guide their vote, and since some official may be better qualified
to make the appointment, such appointment may secure a more repre-
sentative official, hence be more democratic. The exercise of the
franchise should be considered relatively in order to spell progress.
4. Character is a phase, "dimension," of ability. In industry one
may exploit and ruin another today, but himself be laid waste tomorrow.
We can never know the complete and ultimate effects of our every act.
But there is need of a greater consciousness of their consequences.
5. When human "rights" are considered in their genetic relation-
ships, they are found to be conditioned by obligations; they emerge
out of service rendered. The rights of a child are really the obligations
of its parents.
It would be interesting to apply the foregoing in the realm of religious
life. Might it not be discovered that this doctrine of relativity would
work out into something like the Christian attitude of love for others ?
What Did Judas Betray? — Did Jesus announce himself to his friends
as Messiah? Or were the disciples, when they thought they could
forsake him and flee, surprised to find they could not thus put him by ?
S36
CURRENT EVENTS AND DISCUSSIONS 537
Professor B. W. Bacon, of Yale, thinks Jesus did set himself forth as
Messiah and as a contribution to the solution of the problem of Jesus'
self-consciousness he seeks to show, in the Hibbert Journal for April,
1921, that what Judas betrayed was some event in the course of Jesus'
life which was capable of messianic interpretation on the part of the
Roman officials, ever watchful of usurpers. That event Professor
Bacon finds in the anointing at Bethany. The narrative of the anoint-
ing is imbedded in the Markan account of Judas' betrayal. To the
friends of Jesus, his anointing meant "Vive le Roil" This is what
Judas betrayed.
If the incident of the anointing was actually so crucial in determining
the fate of Jesus, it seems strange that the account of it given by the
evangelist should not furnish some direct hint of this significance.
Is Supernaturalistic Belief Essential in a Definition of Religion? —
Upon examination of such definitions as attempt to exclude the super-
natural element, W. R. Wells answers in the affirmative (the Journal
of Philosophy, May 12, 1921). Religion involves a twofold belief — in
the existence of a supernatural order of reality and in the need of human
adjustment to this order. These objects may or may not exist; but
religion depends for its existence upon the belief in them. The super-
natural order is the sphere transcending the natural order as we know it.
It has its philosophical basis in Plato's celestial world and Kant's nou-
menal world. In its pre animistic form it was the unseen "power,"
while in its modern form, as conceived by men like William James, it is
an unseen order. It is the external divine source of religious experience,
as contrasted with that immanent source of which alone a naturalistic
view can have knowledge. That is, a naturalistic view of the world
cannot define religion.
In conclusion: "Though supernatural belief of some sort occurs in
all religious experiences properly so called and in all accurate definitions
of religion, it might be claimed, nevertheless, that those persons ought
to be called religious whose reactions to the universe as a whole, to the
cosmic drift of things, were serious and reverent, even though their
philosophical view were naturalistic. The majority of scientists would
probably be included in this class. The man of high moral ideals and
serious purposes, especially if his life is touched with deep emotion at
the thought of the total cosmic situation, ought hardly to be called
irreligious, perhaps, even though he lacked all the usual religious beliefs.
Such a man is certainly not irreverent; but it would be more accurate,
however, to call such a man, not religious, but moral merely, with
538 THE JOURNAL OF RELIGION
esthetic emotions coloring his morality. Regard for correct usage of
the term requires that religion be defined in such a way as to include
supernaturalistic belief."
In the interest of clearness, it would be desirable to discuss the
foregoing question from a different angle. It is generally agreed that
religion is not primarily a matter of belief, but rather one of practical atti-
tudes, of cult, of worship, of propitiation of gods. The term "super-
naturalistic belief" turns the discussion to a debate over a definitely
formulated dualistic philosophy embodied in Christian theology, and
thus distracts attention from the real question — which is whether
religion is not essentially a means of enriching life through relationship
to a more-than-human environment.
How to Commend Christianity to Non-Christian Peoples. — An
interesting narration of his recent trip to the Near East was given by
Sherwood Eddy in an article entitled "The Christian Approach in
the Near East" {International Review of Missions, April, 1921). He
spent five weeks in Egypt and one month in Turkey. Though the
audience was composed of Turks, Armenians, Greeks, Catholics, and
Protestants, yet he found no difficulty, however, in presenting his
Christian message. The significant fact was that "the large majority
of Turkish students, by the very process of modern education, have lost
their old faith and are almost without vital religion."
From his experience in dealing with such complex audiences, Mr.
Eddy has been convinced that irenic method of approach is far more
effective than polemic. The moment a Christian speaker tries to
contrast Christianity and Islam, Christ and Mohammed, he will imme-
diately arouse and call into conflict against him all their prejudice, their
patriotism, and everything that they hold dear. "It was a tug of war."
If the speaker won the argument, he would lose the audience. But if
instead of tearing down what the people have, the speaker tries to give
them something better; instead of attacking or criticizing their religion,
he gives them a glimpse of richer life; instead of reflecting upon Moham-
med, he presents Jesus; he is the more certain to appeal to their heart.
In other words, the Christian missionary has to speak as man to man
rather than as Christian to Mohammedan.
The Problem of the Christian Leader in China. — Two papers on the
same subject, "The Training of the Future Leaders of the Chinese
Church," were read at Peking Missionary Association not long ago. The
author of one paper is Dr. C. H. Fenn who has been in China twenty-two
CURRENT EVENTS AND DISCUSSIONS 539
years while that of the other is Professor T. T. Lew, of Peking University.
Dr. Fenn's paper is valuable because he speaks authoritatively from
his rich experience. He feels very strongly that the church should
train both clergy and laity. Besides the improvement of seminaries
and Bible institutes, there is a necessity of having correspondence
schools and summer schools for Christian leaders. Doubtless there are
many potential leaders among the laity but they have failed simply
because it is a custom of the church not to give any further religious
education after they have been received into the church.
Professor Liu (Chinese Recorder, LII, No. 3, 158-77) looks at the
problem from an entirely different angle. His viewpoint is worth care-
ful consideration, for he is the spokesman of many a Chinese Chris-
tian leader. The missionaries have undoubtedly educated and trained
many young men and women, but they have also turned away many
capable leaders, because the latter, who sooner or later have found it
difficult to co-operate with missionaries, are not given the necessary
opportunity for practicing leadership. They have been discharged when
they tried to extend their service beyond the mission compound, or
have not been allowed to specialize their training according to their
ability. The church cannot afford to have such a waste. This leakage
must be stopped at once.
The "Religious Renaissance" in China. — The most significant
development in new China is the New Thought or New Culture move-
ment. Its influence on the religious life of the Chinese is well described
by Lewis Hodous in an article, " China Revisited" (Christian China, Vol.
VII, No. 6, 292). The new movement is at present, at least on the part
of its advocates, hostile to religion. It not only opposes superstitious
beliefs and customs, but also considers religion itself as superstitious.
On the other hand, some religions in China have somehow caught
this new spirit. The Confucianists are working hard to revive Confu-
cianism. An attempt has been made to adapt Confucian teachings to
modern situations in China. The liberal-minded people are trying to
start a "Reformed Confucianism." A campaign of $2,000,000 to build
a national Confucian headquarters has been launched. Buddhism is
rebuilding its old temples, publishing books, holding lectures, and
establishing schools and orphanages. A recent number of the New
Buddhism published in Ningpo was devoted to an attack on Christianity.
Did Moses Use Cuneiform? — The theory that the Pentateuch was
written in Akkadian, and later translated into Aramaic and then into
54° THE JOURNAL OF RELIGION
Hebrew has been zealously advocated by Naville, whose views have
been defended recently by Doumergue. This theory is sharply criti-
cized by J. A. Maynard in the Anglican Theological Review, III (March,
1921), 284-89, and at greater length but no less incisively by P. Humbert
in the Revue de Thtologie et de Philosophie, IX (Jan.-Mar., 1921), 59-93.
A Valuable Review of Old Testament Studies. — The Jewish Quar-
terly Review, XI (April, 1921), 473-542, contains an extensive review of
more than twenty recent books on the Old Testament, by J.
Hoschander.
The Death of Morris Jastrow, Jr., 1861-1921. — Morris Jastrow, Jr.,
Ph.D., LL.D., professor of Semitic languages in the University of Penn-
sylvania, died on June 22. The American Journal of Semitic Languages
and Literatures, of which he was associate editor from 1907 until the
time of his death, will publish in its October issue an appreciation of the
significance of Professor Jastrow's contribution to scholarship.
An alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania, he began teaching
Semitics in his Alma Mater and continued in that department until his
death. He was a recognized authority on Semitic religions, having
contributed to Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, the Encyclopaedia
Biblica, the Jewish Encyclopedia, the Encyclopaedia Britannica (nth
ed.), and Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics. His most
significant work is Die Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens (1902-12).
More recently he has published A Gentle Cynic (19 19) and The Book
of Job (1920). In 1913 Professor Jastrow delivered the Haskell Lectures
at Oberlin College ( Hebrew and Babylonian Traditions) .
Two Noted German Scholars Honored. — Professor Adolf Harnack,
of Berlin, and Professor Karl Budde, of Marburg, have both just passed
their seventieth birthdays. Festival volumes in their honor have been
published, the one dedicated to Harnack containing interesting contri-
butions in the field of New Testament and church history, and the one
dedicated to Budde furnishing articles in the Old Testament field. One
wonders whether modern German scholarship is furnishing such stimulat-
ing leaders in research as these giants of a former generation.
The Death of a Noted Orientalist.— The death of Felix Peiser,
founder and editor of the Orientalische Litter aturzeitung, is announced
in the issue for May-June, 1921, just after he had handed over his
editorial duties to Dr. Walter Wreszinski. Dr. Peiser was known as a
scholar and a trainer of scholars. His chief interest was in Assyriology
CURRENT EVENTS AND DISCUSSIONS 541
from the historical standpoint. Next to that, he concerned himself with
the history of the text of the Old Testament, seeking especially to account
for the transition from its original to its present form by his theory of
glosses.
The Latest Phases of Dr. Sanday's Thinking. — In the last years of
Dr. Sanday's life he was led to give expression to the final resolution of
his theological views, especially his views on two closely related matters —
miracle and the authorship of the Fourth Gospel. Both of these ques-
tions had been with him from the beginning of his career. As for
miracle, he had hesitated about taking holy orders because of the
difficulties he had felt in regard to this.
I began as a theologian by deliberately putting it aside. I decided that
my best course was to hold it in suspense I began by taking up a
neutral position on the subject of miracle. The sort of general conclusion
at which I arrived might be called conservative or liberal-conservative.
To this — from his last public utterances as Lady Margaret Professor —
he adds, with pathos:
Then the theological world was pleased with me and it still reminds me of
those better days.
All his mature studies had been sketches preparatory to the main
work of all his aim, The Life of Christ. Professor W. Lock, in the
Journal of Theological Studies (January, 192 1), writes:
But it was becoming clear that that aim would never be achieved. Time
was slipping by very rapidly, and there was another reason: it was necessary
to make up his mind more decidedly as to his attitude to the gospel miracles.
This had always been an anxious problem with him: he had tried to hold
the balance between the traditional view and the claims of a rather rigid
theory of the uniformity of Nature, but by 191 2 the balance had gone against
the traditional view. He could no longer accept, though he hesitated to say
that he rejected, the Virgin Birth, the literal Resurrection and Ascension of
the Lord and the Nature Miracles.
In 1912 and 1913 men were saying: "Sanday has gone over to the
Modernists." This left its mark on his sensitive soul: "I do not dis-
claim the name of Modernist," he writes at the end of his life. The
occasion which brought forth the clearest expression of his attitude
to miracle was the controversy which called forth his open letter to the
bishop of Oxford (Bishop Gore's Challenge to Criticism, 1914). There
Dr. Sanday distinguishes between miracles that are supra naturam and
miracles that are contra naturam. With the former he can live; the
latter class, which includes the Feeding of the Five Thousand, the
542 THE JOURNAL OF RELIGION
Walking on the Water, the Virgin Birth, and the bodily Resurrection —
all of which "seemed to involve real violation of the order of nature" —
he thought were not "strictly historical." "I should be inclined to seek
a solution under the general heading that the element of the abnormal
came in, not so much in the facts as in the telling."
As with the question of miracle, so with the problem of the author-
ship of the Fourth Gospel — throughout his long, active life he never
got very far away from it. His first publication, in 1872, was entitled
The Authorship and Historical Character of the Fourth Gospel. He came
to be regarded quite generally as the ablest defender of the apostolic
authorship, and his name more than any other gave weight to the tra-
ditional opinion. This intimate biographical note, also from Dr. Lock,
is of more than passing interest:
There synchronized with this change about miracle, partly induced by it,
a change in his view of the authorship of the Fourth Gospel. He was partly
affected in this by Mr. E. F. Scott's book on the Gospel, which seemed to him
to picture an adequate situation out of which the Gospel could have arisen,
but the deciding influence came from the article in the eleventh edition of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica by Baron von Hiigel.
At the last Dr. Sanday wrote: "I'm afraid there is one important point
on which I was probably wrong — the Fourth Gospel."
How the Versailles Treaty Injures Missionary Work. — One of the
darkest pages of recent events is that which tells the story of the treat-
ment of German missionaries by the governments and missionary
societies of the Allied countries. It has been a heavy blow to missionary
progress and international good will. The story of this un-Christian
attitude toward our German fellow- Christians is told in the message
from the German Students' Christian Alliance to the Glasgow Con-
ference ( Young Men of India, June, 192 1). Since 19 14 about 1,400
missionaries have been withdrawn from German mission fields in many
parts of the world. The sections where the results have been most
disastrous are parts of British India, Egypt, Togoland, and German
East Africa. In many places the results of from forty to eighty years
of faithful work have been practically lost through the complete with-
drawal of all forces. Churches are disintegrating, mission property
is falling to ruin, schools are without teachers, and the native peoples
are beginning to lose faith in the value of Christianity. While the
host of missionaries wait in Germany for the opportunity to return, the
other countries cannot supply the workers for the needy fields. Even
if they were available, they would be untrained and ignorant of the
CURRENT EVENTS AND DISCUSSIONS 543
language. Moreover, the missionary activities of the church in Germany
are being paralyzed by such conditions. With the demands so urgent
for every available worker in spreading the gospel of good will and
brotherhood, such a procedure is surely a crime against humanity.
May the church speedily rise to a higher plane of international brother-
hood and co-operation.
The Church and World-Fellowship. — What is the church's responsi-
bility to the modern task of education for world-fellowship? In his
presidential address at the eighteenth annual convention of the Religious
Education Association, at Rochester, New York, March 10-13, Presi-
dent Arthur C. McGiffert defined world-fellowship as meaning:
First — the absence of distrust and jealousy and hostility between peoples
and nations. Second — universal and mutual good-will, leading men every-
where to help each other, wherever help is needed, as we here in America have
been aiding the Chinese famine sufferers and the starving children of the
Central Powers, though they are personally quite unknown to us.
Third — world-fellowship must mean world-wide co-operation in common
tasks. Where there is international hatred and enmity, of course there cannot
be world-fellowship. But the thing itself comes to reality only when there is
world-wide co-operation for worthy ends.
The fitness of the Christian church to further world-co-operation
rests upon its doctrine of universal brotherhood, upon its interest in
spiritual rather than material values, and upon its service in providing
a laboratory of experience for the practice of efficient co-operation in
unselfish enterprises. It is a high calling to which the church is sum-
moned by Dr. McGiffert. The address is printed in Religious Educa-
tion for June, 192 1.
The Milwaukee Conference. — The forty-eighth annual meeting
of the National Conference of Social Work, held at Milwaukee, June
22-29, was attended by some 3,000 people. The aim of the conference
was the examination of the present status of social work in America,
and a study of ways and means for increasing the efficiency of the
agencies for social betterment. President Allen T. Burns, director of
methods of Americanization of the Carnegie Corporation, struck the
note for the conference in his presidential address on the theme: "Does
Social Work Promote Social Progress?" The address, in the main,
was an argument for the intelligent study of values in social work,
indicating the need of scientific research and attention to the organic
relationships of social laws in any efficient scheme of social progress.
544 THE JOURNAL OF RELIGION
The program of the conference represented a wide scope of interests,
including contributions from social workers of many types, psychiatrists,
physicians, government workers, criminologists, sociologists, and econo-
mists. Labor conditions were discussed by Sidney Hillman, president
of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, "Prohibition —
What Is Its Effect?" by J. L. Gillin, professor of sociology in the Univer-
sity of Wisconsin; and "Immigrant Heritages and How to Deal with
Them" by R. E. Park, of the University of Chicago. The conference
will meet in Providence in 1922.
As One Having Authority. — The boy in Nazareth had his schooling
in a carpenter's shop, in the village street, and out on the hills of Galilee.
Lincoln learned from the same books— work with his hands, elemental
people, and the lonely backwoods of Kentucky. This was education
for individuality, for creativity, for leadership. "But what child nowa-
days has such teaching?" asks Dallas Lore Sharp in "Teaching for
Authority" in the Atlantic Monthly for July. "A child cannot be educated
for authority on lesser books, with sophisticated people, with pointless play
instead of work, with ordered lessons in school in place of the dear dis-
order of nature and her companionship and his own soul's." The task
of American school education is "the mighty making of the democratic
mind" — the average mind. It is education in the interests of leveling
life's extremes, averaging up and averaging down, to produce a com-
mon, democratic, uniform level of life. But where is the education for
poetry, for prophecy, for genius, to find its place? The challenge of the
article is not to the schools, but to the parents of today. It is they
who must provide for the education for authority.
Mr. Wells and Religion. — We are unanimous in our interest in the
mental processes of Mr. Wells. Groping ineffectually for an under-
standing of his mental daring and his prolific power, as manifested by
his literary output in recent years, we welcome any examination of the
operation and the results of his thinking. Many who shrink slightly
from the controversial examination of the History by Mr. Wells and
Mr. Gomme in the Fortnightly Review and the Yale Review will welcome
with interest the expository article by Mr. A. E. Baker in The Living
Age for July 16 (reprinted from the Church Quarterly Review for April),
on "The Religious Development of Mr. Wells." Between the earlier
stages of Mr. Wells's religious thinking, which Mr. Baker characterizes
as "reluctant agnosticism," and the later fervent apostleship of God the
Invisible King, four main influences are recognized: (1) Mr. Wells's
CURRENT EVENTS AND DISCUSSIONS 545
interest in Utopias, or ideal states; (2) the realization of the solidarity
of the human race; (3) the belief in a supranational authority: and
(4) the sense, quickened by the war, of God as an immediate helper
and savior of mankind. The dominant interest of the resultant religious
consciousness is suggested in the lines quoted from Mr. Wells: "Man-
kind will awake and the dreams of nationalities and strange loyalties
will fade away, and there will be no nationality in all the world, and no
king, nor emperor, nor leader but the one God of mankind." Pre-
dominantly sociological rather than theological or ethical, such a con-
cept of religion asks of course for supplement from other fields. Mr.
Baker very rightly suggests its failure to bear comparison with the ideal of
Jesus, who stated the rights and duties of individuals in concretely ethical
terms, and defined the nature of the God-King in the warm, vital symbols
of human personality and fatherhood.
Remnants of a Jewish Sect in China. — An interesting survey of
Jews in China has been given by Mr. W. C. White in the June number of
the Church Missionary Review. The Jews came over to China as
early as the third century a.d. and settled in many important cities.
But at present the only Jewish community left in China is that in
Kaifeng, Honan. There are about two hundred families at that locality.
They have sold all their Hebrew scriptures partly because they are poor
and partly because they are no longer able to read them. They have
given up circumcision because they no longer understand the reason and
tradition concerning it. Their synagogue buildings have been com-
pletely destroyed. As a religious entity they are quite disintegrated
and their clan relationships are almost non-existent. Furthermore,
many have intermarried with the Chinese. While many have followed
Chinese customs and beliefs, there are others who come to Christian
churches on Sunday.
Was the God of Jesus the God of the Jews?— It is infrequent indeed
that scholarship, and particularly scholarship in the field of religion, is
criticized for its neutrality. Perhaps Mr. Edmond Holmes, in his
article "Does Contemporary Scholarship Do Justice to Jesus?" in the
July issue of The Nineteenth Century and After, is right in his contention
that complete impartiality in the sphere of religious sentiment is beyond
the grasp of human thought. In any event, Mr. Holmes has presented
an interesting challenge to the position of Dr. Foakes- Jackson and
Dr. Lake, in their first volume of The Beginnings of Christianity, that
the God of Jesus was the God of the Jews. Their attempt to be fair
546 THE JOURNAL OF RELIGION
to Judaism, and to free themselves from any taint of partisanship, has,
Mr. Holmes maintains, withheld them from a just estimate of the
originality of the thought of Jesus and the revolutionary character of his
teaching about God. Mr. Holmes is assuredly right in his position
that there is other evidence to be considered in such a question than the
specific utterances upon the theme in question. The general outlook
on life and attitude toward its practical problems furnish criteria, both
legitimate and decisive, for scientific criticism. Out of this larger field
of evidence, Mr. Holmes brings his testimony. He shows that there
was implicit in Jesus' attitude toward the Jewish law a conception of
God less limited and less legalistic than the conception which Jewish
theology had produced, and he suggests that in Jesus' attack upon other,
similar problems of the day there is abundant evidence of the originality
and unorthodoxy of his thought about God.
How to Christianize the Chinese Family. — Shanghai College has a
new idea of solving this difficult problem. The college has founded
a "Christian Home Club" with the purpose of bringing wholesome
ideals definitely before the students through addresses, exhibits, and
personal contact with Christian homes of the faculty. Both Chris-
tian and non-Christian students are allowed to become members on
an equal basis. The club is too young yet to ascertain the full results
of this experiment, but valuable testimony from students shows how
the seed has already been sown. Here are typical comments: "I owe
so much to the C. H. C." "The things 1 learned there I am trying to
work out in my home." "I am starting a C. H. C. here in the school
where I am teaching." "But now I know that my home can be made
sanitary and attractive, that my wife and I can be companions, and
that our Christian home may be a blessing to many others."
Recognizing the Social Background for Mission Education. — Pro-
fessor Paul Monroe points out in his article entitled "Mission Education
and National Policy" (International Review of Missions, Vol. X, No. 39,
pp. 321-50) that there are at least four distinct types of culture in the
foreign fields: (1) that of tribal life; (2) that of people who are highly
cultured, but are in the period of transition; (3) that of people who have
adopted definite procedures for realizing their national aims; (4) that of
people who are under foreign mandates. Each type has its own dis-
tinctive problems. Mission education should take the total environ-
mental conditions into consideration and adapt itself in such a way as to
aid the natives for whom it labors.
CURRENT EVENTS AND DISCUSSIONS 547
What's Wrong with the Catholic Missions in China? — This inter-
esting question has been raised by George M. Stenz, a Catholic priest
in the July number of the Ecclesiastical Review. He has keenly felt
that the Catholic missions have failed to reach the upper ranks of
Chinese life. This is largely due to the fact that the Catholic school
situation in China is still in a most deplorable condition and the consensus
of Catholic opinion has not awakened to the importance and the actual
necessity of producing books treating of other subjects than those
referring directly or exclusively to religion. He also hopes that the
Catholic benefactors in America will furnish funds not merely for the
erection of chapels, but also for the support of the Catholic schools and
the Catholic press and of some capable converts to complete their
education in America.
Co-education and Mission Schools in China. — The time for co-
education has at last come to China. The National Educational
Conference of 1919 in Shansi voted co-education for China. The same
conference meeting in Shanghai the following year discussed ways and
means of encouraging co-education. The Peking Government Uni-
versity has opened its doors to girls and has now more than ten co-eds.
The Nanking Teachers' College, starting co-education during the
summer session of 1920, has more than one hundred girl students.
Among missions schools, the opinions are still divergent. Some
entirely ignore the problem, others have decided to start co-education,
and still others stick to their traditional policy. Mr. Chang, in his
article on "Students' Social Problems" (The Chinese Recorder, Vol. LII,
No. 5, pp. 329-35), points out that mission schools should not only
have definite policies toward co-education, but also be active and careful
in directing the social intercourse between young men and women.
This is especially important now, for the old ethical standards have
been discarded, while the new ones have not yet crystallized.
History for Everybody.— Few serious books have awakened more
popular interest and called forth more scholarly criticism than Mr.
H. G. Wells's The Outline of History. In the Yale Review for July,
Mr. Wells answers his critics at length in delightful, rollicking spirit,
driving home his reply with the announcement of the preparation of a
new edition.
To Mr. Wells this was a serious task, to set forth the sweep of events.
It was written to help oust such teaching of history as one still finds going
on in England, — of the history of England from 1066 to the death of Queen
548 THE JOURNAL OF RELIGION
Anne, for example, without reference to any remoter past, or to the present,
or to any exterior world, — forever from the schools.
For the work of some American historians he has warm words of com-
mendation, e.g., for Professor Breasted, but severe words for the British
universities with their exaltation of the classical studies — "a world-wide
nuisance, and as a patriot, a parent and a schoolmaster I have raged
against them." He talks of wishing to take some younger critic "across
his knee and establishing a truer relationship in the simple way boys
have." But withal the new Outline will benefit by the criticisms, he
adds.
What Are the Real Relations between Christianity and Judaism? —
"Back to the study of Jewish sources" is the answer to the present stress
on Hellenistic influences in the effort to recover the story of the rise of
Christianity. To that end Professor G. F. Moore, in "Christian Writers
on Judaism" {Harvard Theological Review, July, 192 1), has this to say
of Emil Schtirer's History of the Jewish People:
Schiirer's volumes are an indispensable repertory for all sorts of things
about the Jews [He] did what he set out to do, and made an immeasur-
ably useful handbook. But the reader must take it for what it is, not for
what its author, notwithstanding the title, never intended it to be, — history.
.... To Schiirer Judaism was synonymous with legalism and legalism was
his most cherished religious antipathy The problem of the origin
of Christianity historically conceived demands, however, an investigation of
every other phase of Judaism at the beginning of our era, and the endeavor
to define what Christianity took over from Judaism as well as what was new
in it.
Wundt's Conception of Religion. — "Wilhelm Wundt's Significance
for Theology" is considered by K. Thieme in the Zeitschrift fur Theologie
und Kirche (May- June, 192 1), pp. 213-38. Wundt regarded theology
as the science of religion and religion as consisting of historical phe-
nomena. As an exponent of collectivism, he looked upon the relation
of the community to individual existence as the problem of problems.
His last work, Erlebles und Erkanntes, published shortly before his
death, shows that he synthesized experience and knowledge into a
world-view. For him, religion was the feeling that the world of sense
belongs to an ideal, supersensuous world; so he counteracted the natural-
ism of Haeckel and Ostwald, partly on the basis of a mystic experience in
his youth. He held to the unity of the religious and the philosophical
treatment of the world, the rights of religion side by side with science,
and experiences of worth as conditioning a world-view.
CURRENT EVENTS AND DISCUSSIONS 549
On Translating. — For the person who uses the Bible only in English
it is often real service of emancipation for someone to remind him that
his New Testament is a translation and that the art of translating has a
history. Frederick Harrison in the Forum for June has gathered together
some "brief notes on translation" which must impress the student of
general literature with the advance our age has made in this art. "The
laws of translation," he says, "are three: — one, exact rendering of the
full meaning; two, some echo of the original form; three, clarity,
grace, vigor in the translation." He proceeds:
All through the eighteenth century almost down to living memory in the
nineteenth century, famous translations were produced in defiance of the
first two canons of translation, aiming only at clarity, grace and vigor in
literary English, neglecting the meaning of their author and substituting a
totally different rhythm of their own. The most brilliant example of this
was Pope's Iliad.
And he shows how something of fidelity to the original, something of the
"feel" of the original which the first readers had, has come into the new
versions to take the place of that elegance of style which the litterateurs
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries made the desideratum.
But his dictum on the English Bible provokes a word:
Take the supreme case of the Bible, of which the Authorized Version
formed the master-type of the English language. To the millions the power
of the Old Testament is due to the sublime eif ect of a unique translation from
the Hebrew: and to me the New Testament in English is grander than in
the Greek, — itself being largely a translation of other tongues.
The 161 1 Version is one of the enduring monuments of Elizabethan
English: it has left its stamp indelibly upon all our literature since and
upon the language of every day as no other influence has — and that for
many reasons. But Greek is the original, not the secondary language
of the New Testament; and much water has flowed under London Bridge
since that translation, much more than since Pope's Iliad. Some
vigorous thinking is "embalmed" for us in the King James's English.
The new renderings, e.g., Moffatt's and Weymouth's, are pointing the
way to a better day. The "Authorized" Version will remain a classic,
but the New Testament writers have a right to be understood today.
The "translation" English of the Revised Version will yield to idiomatic,
stately English with "some echo of the original form."
