what he undertakes to do, he would ultimately annihilate the race. This is a world of progress; it only exists by being a world of progress. "There is more light and more truth yet to break forth out of God's holy word," said John Robinson at Leyden. It does not break of itself; it does not pour down upon stone walls, or rock-ribbed mountains, or the crested billows of the sea. It breaks at the summons of the human mind; it pours directly in upon the human mind. The philosophy is all wrong which seeks to choke up the divinely-ordained channel for the inflowing of light and of truth. Instead of being afraid of new light and new truth, we ought to be eager for their coming; we ought to go forth to welcome them with all the windows of our nature open, just as the flowers turn lovingly towards the sun, and hold up their cups to catch the rain. What is it that ails men when they give such sanctity to a printed creed, which was never more than a statement of the conclusions of the human mind, and refuse to recognize the sanctity of the mind itself by denying to it the right to continue, as it has always done, to make new creeds and amend old ones. Let us press this issue home. Not one of the Protestant creeds, so valuable in some quarters to-day, would ever have had an existence, but for the men who did in their time just what Phillips Brooks, and Heber Newton, and Dr. Briggs are doing now.

It is the attempt to stop the running of the sap in the great tree of which they are all branches and twigs that is agitating the theologians all about us. These worshippers of light ancestral

"Make the present light a crime,

Was the Mayflower launched by cowards,

Steered by men behind their time,

Turn those tracks towards past or future,
That make Plymouth Rock sublime?"

"God cannot be exhausted," says John Weiss. "He has ever new things for new spirits who become the most religious when they submit to this onward tendency, and break away

in pursuit of the Infinite Mystery." What a pathetic confession of narrow bigotry and conceit it is to assume that all which can be stated of the infinite character and purpose has been stated; that it is possible now, or was ever possible, or ever will be possible, for the finite mind to comprehend, still less to formulate, the all-inclusive and universal.

What so entitled to respect, to admiration, as the onward tendency which leads men to keep their faces toward the rising sun. Shut up within the narrow enclosure of self, unable to see over the fence which surrounds his own little sect, knowing no standards save those antiquated ones which his fathers knew before him, how mean and insignificant the life man leads is! With such an one, how often ecclesiasticism passes for the highest morality, and formalism for the highest worship. Brought out into the light of day, sensing the oneness of that humanity of which he is a part, cherishing high ideals which reach up and on before him till they are lost to sight in the infinite unseen, how broad and inspiring the life he leads! He becomes so reverent in his attitude toward every new message from the eternal that he is always expecting another and a better word, always bending an attentive ear to the possible prophet of new truth. That everything which comes does not prove infallible, that but few things that come prove lasting and final, can never blind him to the fact that his first and highest mission is to be a seeker after the truth. There is no other course possible for him in the light of reason and of common sense, and the men whom he persecutes for heresy are only they who are striving conscientiously to exercise their own reason and common sense. In the light of philosophy, therefore, this setting up of cast-iron standards, this condemnation of the free spirit of inquiry, this denial to conscientious men of the right of private judgment of the creed, just as all of Protestantism began in insisting upon the right of private judgment of the Bible, is destructive in all its tendencies, undermines the foundation of every Protestant structure, and, if unresisted, would ultimately put an end to progress.

But bad as is heresy-hunting from an intellectual point of view, it is even worse from a moral point of view. First, because it enthrones distrust. Secondly, because it makes search for the evil a dominant purpose in life.

Nothing is more disastrous than the mood of distrust. Arouse the spirit of suspicion in any sphere of human activity, and you have invited in a whole brood of vipers. Do you know that the estimates we make of everything and everybody are more or less subjective? The photographer who takes my picture has something to say as to how that picture shall look. By throwing the light on one or another part of the face he varies the effect, and even in mounting the counterfeit when taken on the card, he may slightly lengthen or broaden it, according to the way he works in the operation. The final result is my picture more or less modified by him. What we see with our physical eyes, you know, is not the actual object, but a picture of the object formed upon the retina. And here again the picture is necessarily modified, more or less, by the condition of the organs through which it is conveyed to us. It is just so with our mental pictures of mind and character. When we focus our critical judgment upon somebody, and think we see exactly what that somebody is thinking and doing, and why he is thinking and doing it, we are really, though unconsciously, coloring the objective facts with our own subjective mood. It is inevitably so; cannot be otherwise. One must put himself absolutely in another's place before being able to render an absolutely just judgment of that other. One cannot put himself, absolutely, in another's place, therefore he should not undertake to render an absolute judgment at all.

Who but knows how this works in the every-day, practical relations of life? No human relationship can survive in an atmosphere of suspicion; almost any relationship can live and grow strong in an atmosphere of trust. If I doubt my friend and my friend doubts me; if I suspect all the time that he is false and will in some unguarded moment show it,—and if he

feels the same way about me, it is as certain as fate that we shall each look false to the other, though we are both as true as steel. The character never existed so just, so frank, so generous, so pure, that the eye of suspicion would not defame it. Set it down as an irrevocable fact, dear friend, if you have no warm, loving friendship in the world, if you repel people and quarrel with people, it is partly due to yourself, to your lack of trust in them. I would rather be deceived a hundred times than to harbor an unjust suspicion once. Well, it is just so in this public matter. These heresy-hunters are suspicious. They get their critical eyes fastened upon somebody, and they see things, if I may use the expression, all askew. The picture they make of Phillips Brooks is not Phillips Brooks; the picture they make of Dr. Briggs is not Dr. Briggs; the picture they make of any supposed heretic is not the real man. It is the man distorted by their own imaginations. It is the man with a tendency underrated here, and another tendency exaggerated there, until he does not himself recognize the picture they make of him, or would at least set it down as a caricature of his real self.

Why, the unsuspecting mind has been contemplating these same heretics for months and years without being greatly disturbed by them. But somehow it began in some little way to harbor a suspicion, based very likely upon some real or supposed departure from the accepted standards, and then it proceeded to brood upon it, and brood upon it, until it grew bigger and bigger and bigger, and finally overshadowed everything else. There is no plant of more prolific growth than suspicion, and it cannot be rooted out too quickly whenever and wherever it appears. I do not say,-please note,-I do not say that there are not real differences, and serious differences, between the conservative and progressive elements in all denominations, but I say that heresy-hunting begins in a spirit of distrust, proceeds in a spirit of distrust, ends in a spirit of distrust, such as is essentially immoral and irreligious in its nature, whatever may be the badge it tries to wear.

But heresy-hunting does another thing which is unspeakably demoralizing in its influence. It makes search for evil a dominating aim in life. Search for evil-why not? says. some one; is not the world full of evil? Undoubtedly. But not so full of evil as of good. Is there not a persistence in evil not to be ignored? Undoubtedly. But not such a persistence as there is in good. Search for evil is the method by which suspicion works. It is the road over which suspicion travels. Well, can we-any of us-stand it? Is there one person; honoring me with a hearing at this hour, who on candid self-examination can say I will gladly abide the judgment of myself which shall be based on searching for the evil within me?

We are all human. Even the harshest of critics is human. Even those who throw stones are human. No one is so free from weaknesses that he will not at times need to invoke a little of that fellow-feeling which makes us wondrous kind. Did you ever have occasion to feel, with an inexpressible sense of injustice, that your motives were misinterpreted or your character maligned because something had been found in your word or your deed which, under the critical search for evil, looked doubtful, or could be made to look so? Did you ever have to endure the injustice of a judgment formed upon some one seeming element of weakness or of wrong in your course, which could not be fairly understood, save in the light of a dozen modifying considerations? Life is made up of many threads. It is a very complex affair. Suppose there are two, three, or even a large minority of black threads. They are not so overpowering that we need to forget the vast majority of white ones. I think these theological inquisitors, looking so sharply for the black threads and holding them so closely to their suspicious eyes, somehow lose all sense of proportion. They attack the noblest souls in their respective communions; they would, if they could, disable the best minds in their respective communions, because of some slight departure from what they deem to be required standards.