PANTHEISM'S 
 
 DESTRUCTION 
 
 OF 
 
 BOUNDARIES 
 
 By ABRAHAM KUYPER, D.D. 
 
 f 
 
 N 
 
PANTHEISM'S 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF 
 
 BOUNDARIES 
 
 BY 
 
 Abraham Kuyper, D.D, 
 
 Frkf. Univkrsity, Amsterdam, Holland 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 J. Hendrik'^de Vries, M.A, 
 
 Bronxville, N. Y. 
 
 (^First publishfii in Method! it Revieiu, Nrw York, July and September^ l*93-) 
 
Copyright, 1893, by 
 J. HENDRIK de VRIES, M.A. 
 
-4). ^ 
 
 Pantheism's Destruction of Boundaries 
 
Methodist Review. 
 
 AuT. IT. — PANTHEISM'S DESTRUCTION OF BOUNDA- 
 RIES.— PAKT I.* 
 
 It is not our desire to be classed \vitli tliose wlio luive no 
 good word for puntlieisui in any form. The difference be- 
 tween our age and the age which preceded it is too deeply 
 marked for this. Then it was deism, cold. and grave ; a ration- 
 alism whicii withered the spirit ; a conventional affectation on 
 every hand; a state of society such as exists in the wait- 
 ing-room of the house of one dead, inanimate and weaned 
 from every ideal. In its place we have now an age full of 
 animation and thrift; a inuling and a fermentation of all the 
 elements of society ; a spirit to dai-e everything, together with 
 development of power which is astonishing. Were ours tlu; 
 choice, therefore, between frozen deism, which causes the blood 
 at length to coagulate in the veins, and this melting pantheism, 
 which from the midst of a tropical wealth commnnicates to the 
 soul a thrill of its own delight, there would be no room for hesi- 
 tation. In India we should have been Buddhists, and perhaps 
 have approved the Vedas. In China we should have preferred 
 the system of Lao-Tse to that of Confucius, and in Japan we 
 should have turned our back upon the official Shinto, that wo 
 might share the hardships of the oppressed priests of Buddha. 
 
 Fordo not forget that the deepest trait of pantheism consists 
 of a false love; a love which, it must be allowed, steps across 
 appointed boundaries, but which, even in thisialse and unright- 
 eous form, is born, nevertheless, from the motive of love. It 
 repels not, but it attracts. Its purpose is to unite, and not to sepa- 
 rate. Call it spiritual adultery, but adultery, nevertheless, born of 
 affectioiuite inclination, the outcome of homesickness and of the 
 pathos of sympathy. For all pantheism is religious pantheism 
 at first, and only later on is cryi-tallizcd into a philosophic sys- 
 tem ; and only by its degenerating effect does it work its prac- 
 
 ♦ Copyright, 1803, by J. Ilendrik de Vries. 
 
 [Tlio above nriiele, althou^li ii truiislation, is of such a quality as to render it 
 (icsiniblo for the i):i;,ns of iho liiu-iiw. As is well known, its aiiilior is u dislin- 
 frnislicii leader in lliu evan^eliail oilliodox inovcment f)f the Reformed Cimrcli 
 in Ildlland; and as the article in the orijj:inal is accessible to bnl few American 
 readers we have accepted for pnblicaliou the following admirable translation by 
 the Uov. Mr. do Vriea. — Ki). ] 
 
f- 
 
 PantheisirCs Destruction of Boundaries. ' 
 
 tical destruction in life. The soul seeks after God ; and when 
 the light of revelation is wanting, and he cannot be found by 
 the dusky glinnnerings of reason, the soul becomes impetuous 
 with longing and indiscreet even to the borders of the irrever- 
 ent, and agonizes after Gud, to enter his presence, to fathom 
 the hidden dei)ths of his being, and rests not until it has lost 
 itself in him or unconsciously made him become manifest in it- 
 self. This trait, this motive, is one and the same all the M-orld 
 over; and whether you hear the Hindoo utter his heart-break- 
 ing cry after his nirvana; or whether you see the Gnostic 
 delight himsblf in his syzygics ; or Bohme, coloring his panthe- 
 ism with Christian tints, theosophically ; or Madame de Guyon, 
 quietistically ; and anon Schelling, in a philosophic style, it is 
 with them all the one strong effort to restrain the soul from its 
 impetuous longings, to lose itself in the depths of the being of 
 God. Let ns call it once more a spiritual adultery ; but it is the 
 glow of a tragic passion, which is far more attractive and cap- 
 tivating than the cold egotism of the matter-of-fact man, wlio 
 may not question the existence of God, but has no further deal- 
 ings with him tlian jpro Tnemoria. And also in our age it is 
 noteworthy how the newly aroused Christian religion in Schleier- 
 maclier has kissed the hand of pantheisn), and how Schelling 
 (provided that the theistic name be retained) has allowed him- 
 self deep draughts from the foaming cup> of pantheism. True 
 piety shrank back from the rationalistic coldness and from the 
 conventional mechanism of our supranaturalists. But at the 
 hand of Schelling it regains its raystei'ies, its holy Triiiit}', its 
 Incarnation, including even the doctrine of the resurrection. 
 
 But, however luxuriantly this pantheism grew, like grass in 
 prairie lands, under tliat grass did hide a poisonous adder. That, 
 which in the tents of the saints received its corrective from 
 jiiety itself, lost this corrective the moment it began to sjiarkle 
 from the philosopher's desk ; for then philosophic pantheism 
 quickly repressed the religious element. "With Hegel eveiy 
 religious motive sank away in dialectics; and after him the 
 spirit of our age captured for itself the magic formula of pan- 
 theism, in order that, being freed from God and from every tie 
 established bj^ him, it might melt the world as it found it and 
 cast it into a new form for every man in accordance with the 
 desires of his own heart. 
 
Methodist Review. 
 
 Three motives siniultimcously impelled our a<^e in this direc- 
 tion : its overwhc'huin<^ t'cehng of power, its ex;i^<^erated sense 
 of human excellence, together witri its penetration into the 
 riches uf nature. In comparison with the age whicli preceded 
 it this age feels like a Titan, who carries everything on his 
 broad shoulder, storms the heavens, and cannot rest until eveiy- 
 thing has been put in a new, that is, a modern, form. By 
 this overwhelming feeling of power its sons have been aroused 
 to an impassioned and exaggerated sense of human excellence. 
 In its thought man is both alpha and omega — an anthropo- 
 theism, as some have named it ; a worshi]) first of the ideal 
 human, and then of self, however cynically deep this brutal 
 self may have sunk below the human ; an Ego-theism which 
 extends to its most repulsive consequence. In the intoxication 
 of his passionate self-esteem man cast himself with his exceed- 
 ing power upon defenseless nature, and he has put it under 
 foot, and ever since has led it about behind the triumphal car 
 of his science and of his materiality. And these three motives 
 taken together, that feeling of infinite power, that sense of self- 
 esteem, and that alliance into which the spirit of man has en- 
 tered with the spirit of nature, even without the mention of 
 more satanic or lower motives, entirely explain the pantheistic 
 keynote of our age. Hence it was spoken none too boldly 
 when, according to the several sympathies, pantheism was 
 praised as the "favorite sypteni " of our age, or condemned as 
 the " Iladikalhajresie " which now lifts its head ; or when an 
 English pantheist boastfully asserted that at least ninety out 
 of every hundred scholars of to-day were pantheists, either 
 openly or in secret. 
 
 Let no one think, however, that we assert that philosophic 
 ])antheism still sways its scepter in the schools of philosophy ; 
 for, with Haley excepted, the opposite rather is true. Ilegel 
 has long been dethroned, and with this the luxurious growth 
 of systematic pantheism has come to a standstill. Philosophy 
 beholds her lecture-halls deserted. Her votaries groan on 
 every liand under her Ahgelebtheit, senility, and spiritual iin- 
 l)otence. Since new philosophies appear no more, as Erd- 
 inann complains, the market is flooded with " Philosojihie- 
 Geschichte." Spencer has already exalted agnosticism into 
 a system. The long-forg(^ttcn Ilerbart is now conceded to 
 
Pa7ithcisins Destruction of Boundaries. 
 
 excel Ilegel far in wisdom. The Neo-Kantiaiis go back 
 to Kant ; a few even to Leibnitz. And, to show liow a 
 man of a very unpoetie name may espy the genius of the 
 spirit of poetry, Professor Knauer, of Vienna, proclaims in 
 flattering terms Hobert Ilamerling the greatest of all philos- 
 ophers, by whose hand was placed tlio keystone in the front 
 of her jxilacc. 
 
 But M'ith this the teeth of the "ever-gormandizing, ever- 
 ruminating monster," as Goethe calls pantheism, are not yet 
 broken. When recently, in spite of the interdict of Van Roest, 
 the socialists held their electoral meeting, they placed over 
 their entrance these words of Opzoomer: "Every citizen, as 
 a member of the commonwealth, has a share in sovereignty." 
 Call this an abuse, if you will, of the professorial dictum, but 
 recognize, at least, that such is ever the course of the statement 
 of a principle. It goes out from the desk ; but when in the 
 halls of the philosophers it has long been recalled, or weiglicd 
 and found wanting, it continues many years in the air of the 
 lower spheres, exercises its influence upon the special ecienccs, 
 predominates in our text-books, takes the premium in our 
 novels, glitters as tinsel in the daily press, vitiates the unction 
 of our poets, colors the tone of conversation by Schlagwortcr, 
 and, in the circles of the mediocrity, or of what the Germans 
 call the "Philisterthnm," it altogether subverts public opin- 
 ion. For instance, inspired by Broca and by Von Kiigeli, 
 Darwin admitted in the last edition of his Descent of Man 
 and Origin of Species the insufficiency of his selection theory ; 
 but second-hand science, in text-book and ]-)ublic school, has 
 not ceased to honor this defective selection theory as the 
 philosopher's stone. 
 
 It means nothing, therefore, that philosophic pantheism lies 
 vanquished at the desk ; practically it works its after effects with 
 no less power, both in special studies and real life. A professor 
 who would still indorse the system of Ilogol as such vronld not 
 be abreast of his times, and he would be more sharply hit than 
 Ilegel by the irony of the song : 
 
 And now lie talks of God in lis, 
 
 Who never is transcendent, 
 And all his Iiearcrs marvel nnicli 
 
 That God'a a German slndcnL 
 
Methodist Review. 
 
 Or with more fairness, since I n)yself am a professor, let me 
 turn the laufjh on tlie professoiaite, by quoting Goethe's well- 
 tnown witticism from his " Xeniun : " 
 
 Wlia't do I cnre for your scoff, 
 
 Over tlio All and the One ; 
 Tlie profoHSor is surely a person, 
 
 But God, us surely, is none. 
 
 But the deadly effect of this irony does not save us. In 
 the place of one prufessorial head which is struck off from this 
 monster at the desk, a hundred other heads appear, all equally 
 poisonous, in the lower strata of society. Then we obtain de- 
 rivative theories, which ]\Iarat rightly designates as doubly 
 dangerous, together with their application, in which the princi- 
 ples themselves are passed by, or covered over, or more often 
 not even surmised to exist by those wlio write, or sjieak, or act. 
 I>y way of example lecaU the entluisiastic woi'ship of progress. 
 lK»wever much the onward step has been accelerated there is 
 never a res])ite, never a rest, but a life without a Sabl)ath. 
 There is no looking backward upon that which lias been done, 
 nor occu[)aiicy, much less enjoyment, of that which has been 
 obtained, i^o new point is reached in the way, but immedi- 
 ately a new start is made from it. It is like the sansenden 
 Gidop in the "Todtcnritt" of Burger's '* Leonore." It is the 
 AVaiidering Jew this time, because of a passion which absorbs 
 and attracts, and not because of an agony of fear which relent- 
 lessly drives on. It goes ever forward and farther, ever hasten- 
 ing on ahead, an -Excelsior which may never end. And is the 
 assertion too l>old, that, of every thousand v.ho kce]> pace as well 
 as they can with this hurrying ])rocession, no two discern or 
 surmisj the genetical coherence of this feverish progress with 
 tlie avowed jiiirpose of the pantheistic world ? That TruVra 
 Ittl Koi ovdtv fitvei" is no longer put as a pro])osition, Ijut taken 
 U[) as the life motto, until at length the want of an eternal 
 Sabbath is predicated of God liimself, and he, too, as Svhiiler 
 wittily remarked, has been charmed into "a veritable God of 
 prouress." 
 
 But enough of this. ^Vo were not to treat of Pantlieism in 
 general, but merely one of its effects. Therefore we will not 
 even sketch hastily this grasjvelusive Proteus, but focus all our 
 * Everything is ia prf>ccs3 of becoming, but nothing is. 
 
Pantheism^ 8 Destruction of Boundaries. 
 
 powers on tliis one point — that pantheism effaces distinctions, 
 obscures boundary lines, and betrays the tendency to wipe out 
 every antithesis. This tendency derives its impulse from th^ 
 pantheistic jn-inciple itself. This is shown by religious pan- 
 theism, which, afraid of a God " afar off," has no peace even 
 with God "at hand," but in the prayer-mystery here seeks to 
 penetrate the being of God, and, in the hereafter, yearns after 
 idcntiticatioa with the divine Being, until at length every 
 boundary between God and the soul is lost. The same is true 
 of i)ractical pantheism, which restlessly seeks to equalize all 
 things ; and, as long as there is any upward growth, is bent, 
 first upon tying down, then upon curtailing and cutting off, 
 until, finally, every distinction between the cedar and the 
 hyssop ceases to exist. But this is most clearly demonstrated 
 by philosophical pantheism, which systematically fuses every 
 thesis and antithesis into a synthesis, and, by the tempting 
 notion of identity, explains everything which seems dissimilar 
 as similar and, in the end, as being of like essence. 
 
 Herein lies the explanation: This philosophy does not deal 
 with reality, but with the image which it saw reflected in the 
 mirror of its thought, or which, more correctly, it formed 
 for itself. Kant struck a blow for this in proclaiming that 
 reality escapes us, and that the form, at least, and the dimen- 
 sion of that which we observe have their rise in us. Then 
 came Fichte, who thought it better not to reckon with that 
 which escapes us, and declared that that which seemed the 
 image had been imagined by ourselves, and hence Avas the only 
 real. And finally Ilcgel transposed everything which existed 
 into a purely logical formula, and, after the object had been 
 destroyed together with its image, asserted that the idea alone 
 remained. In this wise this phihisophy, with ever greater neces- 
 sity of consecpience, transports us from the real, living world 
 into an abstract world of thought ; and in this world, of course, 
 it has free play with every distinction and antithesis. For then 
 we deal no longer with living ]ierfons, but with heads sketched 
 by ourselves ; and from these crayon-sketches all sorts of lines 
 and wrinkles may be effaced and charmed away as by magic, 
 which from the living face will nevermore depart. 
 
 And if pantheism in this wise creates for itself the possibility 
 of escape from the dilemma of distinctions which really exist, 
 
Methodist lieview. 
 
 then the very law of thought compels it to use this possibility 
 with ever greater prodigality. Our thinking occasions the 
 arrangement in a fixed order of the phenomena we observe. 
 Thought, from its very nature, demands system. He who 
 thinks looks for general principles in particulars, in order to 
 ex[)lain particulars by general principles. Every dualism an- 
 tagonizes the processes of thought, and tlmught can rest 
 upon its laui'els only when everything has been grouped under 
 one idea. If now we deal with reality and render homage t<> 
 its law of existence, then with our mode of thinking we arc re- 
 ])ulsed, stroke upon stroke, by that which obstinately resists 
 our generalization. But if we live as the pantheist lives, not 
 in the real world, but in a gallery of portraits which we 
 ourselves have i)ainted, then of course there is no opposi- 
 tion; then we tolerate no obstinate resistance from our brush 
 and erase all lines which, as they were drawn, do not fit into 
 our system. 
 
 Pardon this somewhat dry demonstration. It was needed to 
 show the inner motive as one of sheer necessity, M'hich com- 
 pels pantheism everywhere to wipe out boundary lines. De- 
 clensitm and conjugation forms may remain, according to 
 Spinoza's figure in grammar, which differ in time and in mood, 
 in person and in case ; but all these forms are simple modifica- 
 tions of the primitive word, which always remains the same. 
 Or, as it is expressed by a German philosopher: 
 
 All that ai)pear.s to our eyes as diirerence and distinction, 
 however mucli our consciousiu'ss insists upon nonidentity, is 
 nevertheless in essence one and the same ; it is but the ])resenta- 
 tion, the formation, the diaracterization, the development, alter- 
 ation, expression, revelation, or form of the single substance whicli 
 alone exists. 
 
 This becomes manifest at once in the relation which is 
 thought to. exist between God and the world. For centuries 
 the Church of Christ has guarded its barrier against every 
 open or crypto-pantheism by the solemn confession in the 
 inaugural of its Articles of Faith: "I believe in God, the 
 Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth;" and, in the 
 third century, justly denounced the first M'cakening of the cre- 
 ation idea, together with the lirst elTort to make the world co- 
 eternal by putting Origen under her ban. The most distinctly 
 
PaniJie'ism' s Destruction of Boundaries. 
 
 marked bouiidaiy line lies between God and tlie world; and 
 with the taking away of this line all other boundaries are 
 blurred into mere shadows. For every distinction made in' 
 our consciousness — aye, the very faculty itself of onr conscious- 
 ness to make distinctions — takes I'oot at last in this primordial 
 antithesis. Tiiink it away, and it becomes night, in whose 
 shadowy darkness everything in our horizon dissolves in a som- 
 ber gray. But every pantheist starts out with the denial of this 
 primordial antithesis, which is mother to every antithesis among 
 creatures. The pantheist stands ready, the moment we open our 
 Bible, to invalidate the solemn inaugural of Genesis. No, not 
 "in the beginning," he says, for there was no beginning; not 
 "created," for the world is eternal ; and not ''the heaven and the ' 
 earth," for the beyond is a mere dream. In this way the three 
 most deeply marked lines of our distinction are wiped out with 
 a single stroke, and every boundary is taken away between God 
 and the world, between time and eternity, between the here 
 jand the hereafter. And yet, i^antheism must needs begin with 
 the revocation of these antitheses. It can do no other. As far 
 as histoiy extends our thinking travels along a smooth path, 
 but stops at the point where history began, as well as at the 
 point where histoi*y ends. There it finds before and behind 
 it a bottomless abyss, over which it dares not leap, and which 
 is much less to be spatmed by a bridge; and hence it must, 
 at any price, cipher away both that end and that beginning. 
 For the pantheist tlieie is no existence of God and the world 
 thinkable as two individual substances. 
 
 Objection may be made by reminding us of what we stated 
 above, namely, that it is another wind which blows in the 
 higher circles of science ; that in those better circles pantheism, 
 together with nniterialism, has long since been shown the door; 
 and while the no7i liquet is freely expressed concerning the 
 origin, basis, and end of things, there is general content to in- 
 quire more carefully into the phenomena of tlie natural and the 
 spiritual world, and to live on poetry for the heart. And this 
 is 60. But has the principle of evolution, or the DesGcndenz- 
 theoricy as the Germans call it, therefore ceased to be the Credo 
 of the science of our day? And what is this evolution theory 
 other than the aj^plication of the pantheistic process to the 
 empiric investigation of phenomena? llei-e, also, the ^^ natura 
 
 1 
 
) 
 
 Mei/iodisi Bevieuo. 
 
 sallus no)i facif'' — "nature takes no leap." — is motto. Here, 
 also, everytliirif^ that appears is explained by a preceding ap- 
 pearance. And here, also, both with spiritual and natural 
 phenomena, are denied all real differences of kind, together 
 with independence of origin, and every deeper distinction of 
 being, in either pphere by itself, as well as between the two 
 spheres mutually ; and hence, as a mat'er of fact, ever}' line 
 which marks a boundary is wiped out, and every boundary post 
 which divides tlio jurisdiction is leveled to the ground. Yon 
 Ilartman did not exaggerate when he said that "for our times 
 the Desccndenz-lheorie is unconditii)nally correct, and is stead- 
 ily gaining ground amid the spiritual tempest;" or, as an 
 English writer expressed it, "Science amongst us is at it;5 high- 
 est whon it intei])rets all orders of phenomena as dilTerently 
 conditioned modes of one kind of uniformity." Though Dar- 
 win himself conceded that his selection theory was insufficient 
 to explain the moi-phological differences of species, the evolu- 
 tion tlieory was therefore not dismisicd. That which was ex- 
 plained by Darwin mechanically could likewise be interpreted 
 dynamically^ and even if need be telculogically, as a sponta- 
 neous ])rocess in the cosmos whicli received its impulse from 
 the first gorm, whose motive starts from the telcological idea 
 which dominates the entire process. One may thci'efore be a 
 Darwinist, and with Darwin bend the knee reverently before a 
 " God," for surely God created this "force" which potentially 
 included the entire cosmos within itself; or it was he who 
 determined for tl^j cosmos the aim of ito development proccss. 
 This system is so pliable that more than one Ilerbartian, in 
 spite of his own jjrinciple, is found to side witli Darwinism. 
 
 This would not be difficult to underotand if Darwin, with the 
 help of the fossil discoveries, had succeeded in laying before us 
 the steps of transition in specimens fro:n the plant to man, 
 all which would fit into each other as links of a chain. Hut this 
 is not so. And it is not merely the search after the missing link ; 
 but even if wc go back a period of three hundred thousand 
 years, for which it ii claimed there is ccrtiin j)roof, traces of 
 species arc found in the fossil world which are now extinct, 
 and also deviating forms. But the skeletons of t'.ie still existing 
 species arc strikingly analogous to the skeljtons of our animals. 
 In simple honesty, therefore, Darwin acknowledges that the 
 
Pantheism's Destruction of Boundaries. 
 
 proof is far from coin|>leto, tliat it is still incomplete inTi^ 
 domain of nature ; and let us add that for spiritual purposes it 
 tinds no supjiort for a single point. J>ut says he repeatedly, 
 "This, therefore, shakes not my faith in the evolution theory." 
 It follows, therefore, that we are not dealing with a comj)ulsory 
 theorem, which has beeuconclusively demonstrated, but with an 
 hypothesis Avhicli is supported by a most defective induction, 
 whose general ap])lause takes root not in inco'.itestable facts, and 
 much less in complete proof, but in a general mood of spirits ; 
 since Darwin's theory ])laces before our learned and civilized 
 public a solution of the world problem which responds to its 
 most secret sympathies. And if it is known that the keynote 
 of our age is pantheistic, and that in the evolution theory there 
 appears one of the richest thoughts of pantheism, namely, that 
 of the ever-continuing process, in its most attractive form, is 
 tlien the assertion too bold, that in the Descendenz-theorie is 
 f :>und, as its chief motive, the impulsive force of pantheism? 
 
 Or, to probe the real motive deeper still, in the evolution 
 tlieoiT, even as in pantheism, hides the desire of the -human 
 heart to rid itself of God. In spite of his iiractische Ytrnunft 
 it was this desire which actuated Kant, of whom Baader cor- 
 rectly wrote : "The fiuidaniental error of his philosophy is that 
 man is autonomous and spontaneous, as if he possessed reason 
 of himself ; for it transforms man to a god, and so becomes pan- 
 theistic." And Feuerbach uttered merely the consequence of 
 this system whon ho said, "God was my iirst thought, reason 
 ray second, and man my third and last thought. The subject 
 of the Godhead is reason, but the subject of the reason is 
 man;" and by these words he likewise expressed the deepest 
 thought of our age. Buchner, himself an avowed atheist, 
 frankly declares that, even more than that of Lamarck, Dar- 
 win's theory is purely atheistic ; and we heartily agree with this 
 opinion. For what advantage is it that we trace the course of 
 the law of causality without a break back to the first gaseous 
 nebula and cell or germ, when behind this cell or germ the in- 
 explicable act of a creative God still demands our recognition, 
 and with all our thiid<ing we strike upon the very rock to 
 evade which the whole theory M'as invented ? If it be true, 
 therefore, that the Moses der modernen Freigeister, as Feuer- 
 bach calls Spinoza, lias not led us into the promised land of 
 
 35 — FIFTU SEUIKS, VOL. IX. 
 
Methodist Review. 
 
 ])liilosoi)Lic rest, and tliat tlie failure of pantheistic philos- 
 ophy call no lonn^er he concealed, it is still in the evolution 
 Jiheory that the harmful impulse of pantheism works in the 
 most seductive manner, since it spends all its power to maintain 
 the nonexistence of separating houndaries in every dej)artment 
 of our knowledge. Valentinus, the most sensible of (inostics, 
 relegated evolution hack of the creation to the [ivOoq (the 
 dfcji), hut was so much aware of the danger for the erasure 
 of boundaries which concealed itself in this that out of the 
 AvTOTTaTup he makes suddenly a God to appear in the form of 
 the Iloros, or Ilorkos, that is, the boundary for the mainte- 
 nance of the fixed order of all that exists. This thought, how- 
 ever strange its form, is nevertheless entirely correct as a poetic 
 image. Faith in the living God stands or falls with the main- 
 tenance or removal of boundaries. God created the boundaries. 
 lie himself is the chief boundary for all his creatures, and the 
 effacement of boundaries is virtually identical with the oblitera- 
 tion of the idea of God. If, then, it be never so true that mod- 
 ern philosophy "began with doubt and ended with despair" 
 this whole pantheistic stream has left a j)oisonous slime upon 
 the shore, and it is in Darwin's evolution theory that this slime 
 reveals its power. 
 
 It may truly be said that with all differences of opinion this 
 evolution theory is the "formula of unity," which at' present 
 unites all priests of modern science in their secularized temple. 
 A few dreatners may utter com])laints against this, but they are 
 aged manikins, who, as described by Ilartman, " feel them- 
 selves incapable of a second education, but whose numbers liave 
 so long been diminishing that they are powerless to stop tho 
 victor's march of the new truth." This evolution theory has 
 become the fashion-system, not merely with the Darwins and 
 Ilacckels, the Spencers and the jSTagelis, but equally so with 
 our theologians, with our psychologists and moralists. Even an 
 adherent of Lotze, my learned colleague Dr. De la Saussaye, 
 of the city university, wrote only recently: "Xowhere is a 
 definite frontier between the domains of nature and of spirit 
 clearly demonstrable, nor may an unmixed expression be predi- 
 cated of either sphere." 
 
 Ihit we are most concerned about the favor with which this 
 critical theory gains among our jurists (tho divinely appointed 
 
Pantheisin's Destrvctin of Boiuidai ies. 
 
 watcljers of tlie boundary of the "Mount"), as is shown by the 
 example of the late Ihering. We are second to none in warm 
 admiration of his talents ; but it may not be concealed that Iher- 
 ingwasan evolutionist. Being himself no natural j)hih)Sopher, 
 he withholds an oi)inion on Darwinism, but definitely declares 
 "that the result whicii he has reached in his studies of law- 
 establishes it most firmly in my profession," The "sense of 
 right has grown with him to be eternal, since everything' which 
 comes into being is devoted to destruction." And this eternal 
 process is continued of necessity' by evolution, which evolution 
 begins in the brute creation ; for, writes lie, " By the same 
 necessity under which, according to Darwin's theory, one spe- 
 cies develops itself from another does the one end of justice 
 find its origin in another," and then adds, in an altogether 
 pantheistic sense, "Right knows as h'ttle of a break as nature; 
 that which goes before must first exist, before that whicli is 
 higlier, of course by evolution, can follow after," 
 
 He docs not deny, therefore, the existence of God, In his 
 preface lie even derives the "purpose" which explains to him 
 cveiything from a conscious God. But Avith him, as with all 
 evolutionary theists, this is none other to him than an x for thip, 
 to him, unknown greatness, of whose authority he rids himself 
 in every concrete case. According to Ihering, the sense of right 
 is not innate, but only "begotten in us" by the evolution of 
 right. Christian ethics, whicli still holds to eternal principles, 
 lie condemns because of this clinging to the absolute ; and when 
 rightly he ])rotcsts against the separation which snatches right 
 from its moral basis, and traces for himself the origin of moral 
 life, he represents tliis moral life as produced by the " jmrpose," 
 which is again the process of endless generation. "Wlicn the 
 question is put, " Who is the subject of this purpose, who ordains 
 it and renders it real ?" then theism is again abandoned, and he 
 affirms that " God is not the iiTial purpose of morality ; the 
 end and purpose of ethics is society," Whether or not God is 
 still spoken of in the Gnostic sense as "a final end of morality," 
 with this interpretation the Christian ground is entirely de- 
 serted. The fulfillment of man's being i?, looked for in "self 
 becoming one's Own end," and whatever has the insolence to 
 attack him in the holy temple of that ideal is treated with con- 
 tempt. Faith is put in Michael Kohlhaas, who, in Yon Ivleist's 
 
Methodist Review. 
 
 iiovi.'I, draws the sword against society. And when we are 
 taught, "Rather suffer wrong," and Christ exclaims in his Ser- 
 mon on the jSIoimt, "If any man take away thy coat, let him 
 have thy cloak also,'' Ihcring rejects this as apathy, which be- 
 trays how blunt and weak the sense of right has grown ; and he 
 jirovokes strife among the citizens by exhorting them never to 
 suffer anything in jirivate life to go unpunished. Hence, if 
 his theory triumphs, not merely our Christian, but even IIer« 
 hart's system, which in a more Christian way makes right to 
 be born from the {esthetic thirst after peace, must pass under 
 the juridical ban. For then it will not bo, "Blessed are the 
 peace makers,'' but "Blessed every one who as a fighting-cock 
 flies in a passion for his right." And when an heros like Ihering 
 teaches thus, what may be looked for at the hands of lesser gods ? 
 To show to what extent the influence of this pantheistic tend- 
 ency and of the evolution theory which has become its Credo 
 has effaced, one by one, all formei'ly recognized boundaries, 
 must we thread our way across the entire domain of cosmic 
 phenomena and the still broader field of sciences? This is not 
 necessary. Here also " the lion may be known by its claws." 
 And it is quite sufficient for the question in hand that the chief 
 boundary lines which have become Ijlurred be noted, and that 
 as theologians we halt a little longer at the boundary removal 
 on theoloiric c;rounds. Xow, the blurrin<i: of boundaries begins 
 of necessity in our senses and ideas. Beal boundaries, such as 
 exist, for instance, between man and woman, are not to be 
 wiped out. It is as true of philosophy as of the English Par- 
 liament that "it can do ever^-thing excej)t making a man a 
 woman." And though a l)i-illiant scholar, whose oratory has 
 more tlum once delighted ns, once stoutly prophesied that, like 
 the diabolic love of unnature, so also the divinely innate love 
 between man and woman shall extinguish its torch, we ven- 
 ture to(l(!ny that among our own contemporaries, or yet among 
 the younger generation, we have ever discovered the slightest 
 decrease of this natural love. No, tl;c boundaries which, inde- 
 ])endcnt of our thought, exist in real life, are immoval)le. Water 
 is never reconcilable with fire. IIcMice an erasure of boundaries 
 can be spoken of only in our representation, in our senses and 
 ideas; and of these ideas Thihj complains none too strongly 
 that " Finally, all concepts lose themselves in each other amid 
 
Paidheism^s Destruction of Bouncliiries. 
 
 the one i;reat tan<;lc of the absolute Ego." This was not 
 clone all at once. Tlie very majesty of logic, with its unchange- 
 able laws of thought, stood in the way of this amalgamation; 
 licnce, violence had to be done to the logical l)oundaries first, 
 before the other boundaries could successfully be blurred. Thus 
 the unhappy process began, llegcl clearly saw that his iden- 
 tity system would not do for common logic, and therefore did 
 not shrink from attacking logic itself by cutting the sinews of 
 the principium, exclusi tei'tii inedii. Thus only did he clear 
 the course for his cavalcade of identical ideas. And then he let 
 them file before his thinking spirit two by two and arm in arm — 
 the something with the nothing, the here with the 3'onder, 
 the finite with the infinite, the ideal with the real, the being 
 with the thinking, tlic object with the subject, the different 
 with the nondifferent, liberty with necessity, the imaginary 
 light with the imaginary darkness. 
 
 And of course he did not stop short with abstractions. His 
 object and that of all his followers was the application to life of 
 the identity idea. Then it became a serious matter. For the 
 boundary between God and the world also fell awa}', which 
 boundary, according to the formula of old Hellas, may possibly 
 refer to a distinction in thought, but never to a distinction in 
 time or in essence. According to Dr. Mayer's formula, God 
 was " reduced to a world-power," and, worse still, his conscious 
 life dissolved in our human life. In this wise the boundary 
 between God and man was taken away, with the preponderance 
 on the human side. The boundary bctw'een man and man 
 must needs follow. We rise as ocean waves and disappear 
 among its waters. AVe bud as leaves on the tree, that in with- 
 ering wo may give place to the new leaf in spring, which 
 interprets Homer's line, "The wind poui-s the leaves to the 
 ground," essentially, and not chronologically. 
 
 The spiritual boundaries came next. Between our physical 
 and psychical life also every boundary had to fall away. Truth 
 was given in marriage to error. Hirner even boasted of the 
 '' Heroism of the Lie." Good and evil, also, and sin and holi- 
 ness, were to reconcile their hatred. What is good ? " Each one 
 is only what he can be." Nei-o and Jesus are merely dilfercnt 
 manifestations of one and" the same divine impulsive power. 
 The ancient Parsces were no fools when, next to Ormuzd, they 
 
Metliodlst Review. 
 
 rL'M.icretl divine homage to Ahriiiian and liis Devs, because, 
 t'orstiotli, what we cull Satan is but another nan)e for tlie Hoi)' 
 One uf Israel. And, when we lind in society much that is no- 
 ble and mucli that we dislike, the old lif^ure of liolune declares 
 that in our own organism likewise there is much that is noble 
 in the brain nnd Uiuch in the entrails to rouse our dislike, but 
 that without the entrails these brains could not exist. 
 
 In this wise the blurring of boundaries is restlessly continued, 
 not merely in the identification of force and matter, but practi- 
 cally by identifying power and right; by dissolving responsi- 
 bility into a pitiable atavism; by confusing property and theft,, 
 by weakening the antithesis between the authorities and the 
 subject, making both divisors of the one idea of State. In this 
 State, which jjrovides for every want, as Hothe wills it, the 
 Church of Christ also must disappear. The love for native 
 land must give way to cosmopolitan pi-eference. Ko difference 
 is countenanced between city and village — only communities 
 are known ; and no difference is longer tolerated among classes 
 of societv, in modes of living or national dress. Uniformity 
 is the curse which our modern life willfully feeds upon. In 
 music Beetliovcn was the first to grasp this pantheistic tendency 
 of our age, and to voice it for thousands u[)on thousands of 
 hearts by his C minor and Ninth Symphonies; and after him 
 "Wagner has willfully broken down the boundary between the 
 worlds of sound and of thought. Certain stylists incline more 
 and more to confuse the inkpot with the jiallet. Yes, there 
 has been formed i^ circle which would be glad to have the 
 boundary removed between language and language, and which 
 would think the world idealized if it were peopled with four- 
 teen hundred millions, who, iroxn the North to the South Pule, 
 ppake none other than one holy Yolapuk. 
 
 But enough. We made no mention of the theory which 
 makes man descend from the chimpanzee, simply because this 
 theme — pardon the term — is too thi-eatlbare. Only it is worthy 
 of note that the X. II. Courant recently announced that in our 
 zoological garden the orang-outang was not dead but deceased i 
 also that the vocabulary of the monkey language now numbers 
 four words, clearly understood by means of a j>honograph, which 
 disarms Max Miiller, who still thinks language the bouiulary 
 line drawn between i:ian and r.uimal. But wc need say no 
 
Pantheism'' s Destruction of Boundaries. 
 
 more on this. For all this theory really asserts is that every- 
 thing^ is allied, and whether a stone drops, or rain clatters, or 
 the hirk lia[)s his.wiiiirs ami sii)ij:;s his iiioniiui; son<y, or man 
 thinks, composes poetry, and kneels in prayei', it is all one life- 
 ntterance, altogether an excitement of feeling and a spontSr 
 neous life-utterance of the unknown absolute Spirit. 
 
 But the religious interests briefly claim onr attention, for with 
 these entered the strongest motive for boundary removals. Onr 
 Christian religion drew a new and very deep boundary line 
 between the profane and the sacred, which was rejected by the 
 secularizing spirit almost with insults and sneers. There was 
 no longer room for theology as a science ; her metaphysic was 
 identical with philosophy, and, for the rest, was lost in literary, 
 historical, and ethnological studies. The boundary between 
 God and idols fell of itself away, since animism and fetich- 
 ism were classed with our Christian religion under one head. 
 In this organic connection the origin, essence, and idea of 
 religion could be known from religious phenomena, and in 
 tliis way arose the newborn "science of religion," M^hich more 
 and more supplants tlieology. The knowledge of the object 
 of religion is no more cared for, but merely the knowledge 
 of the sensations, representations, and utterances to which 
 religious feeling moves the subject. With this every leading 
 difference in religion fell away, and every boundary between 
 heresy and doctrine ; and that which moved the spirits in the 
 world estranged from Christ, was bound, as some affirm, to 
 work its effect in the Church also with utmost pliancy. And 
 then — O, why not otherwise? — the " Yermittelungs-theologen," 
 so attractive in other ways, have in Schleiermacher's track 
 sought salvation in their ethical, theosophical, and apocalyptic 
 diversiflcation — in that unhap[>y YerviitteJung by which in 
 advance the opponent gained the da3\ We do not say this 
 because we do not appreciate their labors, so brilliant in many 
 respects, or because Ave do not understand the goodness of 
 their intention, and much less from a desire to offend any of 
 them personally, but because their ]">osition was simply un- 
 tenable. They were^?oi5 de tcrre^ and proposed a walk with 
 fot defer ^ and they did not Avin the spirit of the times for 
 Christ, but the spirit of the limes estranged them more and 
 more from confessing Christianity. 
 
Methodist Review, 
 
 Selileiennaclier was pantheist ami subjectivist. lie l)roui,^lit 
 religious ])aiitlieisiii with liiia from the circles of the ^foia- 
 vians and found philosophic pantheism in Gernianv's univer- 
 sities of his day. This was at once manifested in liis propo- 
 sition that God is not thinkahle without the world, which 
 proposition was defended among us, as Professor Bavinck 
 correctly showed, by the late Professor De la Saussayc, of 
 Groningen ; and every invention by the Martensens, the 
 Kothcs, the Keerls, and the llolfmans, in Germany, to remove 
 the ancient landmarks from the domain of the Christian re- 
 ligion, has been echoed from our pulpits ever since and 
 reprinted by our press. By the conversion of truth into ethics 
 the boundary fell which separates moral life from the life of 
 thought, and presently dogmatics had to surrender its birth- 
 right to the ''description of nioral life." A "Union Church" 
 without confessional discipline became the ideal also among us. 
 To be e(|ually stern with tlie Calvinist and sympathetic with 
 the rationalist became indicative of a higher life; and by 
 degrees there stole in all manner of strange doctrine. Christ 
 would have come in the world even had sin never entered, for 
 Christ was the natural ideal toward which the progress of the 
 human race was dii'ected. In Christ the Son of God was not 
 incarnate, but human nature had reached in him a higher, 
 divine-human character. As a human being Jesus could not 
 liave been mere man, and in this way was renewed the legend 
 of the Androgyne. Soul and body were no longer two, but 
 lost in the mingliui; of the Gehtleihllclie. The mystery of the 
 Trinity \vas a})plauded, but recast as by charm in the sense of 
 the newer pliilosophy. The atonement consisted not in the 
 dying of the Lamb of God for our sin, but in the appearance 
 upon the tree of our race of its ideal Ijrauch. The Holy 
 Scriptures are no longer the protluct of a positive rt'vehition, 
 but the fi'uit of Israel's organic development, under higher 
 influences, in connection, therefore, witli whatever was im- 
 parted to other nations. Justification by faith became lost 
 nearly altogether in the nursing process of a heaveidy holiness. 
 Even the absolute boundary between this and the conn'ng life 
 Mas taken away. Conversion may occur after death ; and there 
 have I)ecn theologians among these who jireached the contimi- 
 ance, on the other side of the grave, of a sacramental Church, 
 
Panthelsm''s Destruction of Boundaries. 
 
 destined }X)iKlcr to complete the ]ioliue.=s process which here 
 renmiiis unKnished. 
 
 That which stares ns in tlie face in all these parts is the effect 
 of what SchleiernKicher spun, and of what Schelliiig, more 
 dangerous!}', emi)r(»i(lered with the glittering thread of gold. 
 It is the recasting of forms, the wii>ing uut of lines, and iitting 
 out the Christian essence in a modern philosophic garh. And 
 by doing this truth was lost, not merely that objective truth 
 which stands gi-avcn in the tables of our confession, but that in- 
 ward truth by which this confession meets with the rcsi)onse of 
 *' Anum" from our heart. It all became a confusion of tongues, 
 one cluKJS of floating nnsts. And then Schelling completed in 
 these men what Kant had begun with his '''' statutarische Reli- 
 gion^'' bj' inspiri!:g them, as Seholtin expressed it, with the art 
 of proclaiming ''new and strange ideas in ecclesiastical terms 
 as the decisions of ancient orthodoxy." And let us grant that 
 they jumped after the drowning man in the philosophic stream 
 to save h.irn ; but the tragic fate overtook them of being dragged 
 down to the deep by him whom they tried to save. 
 
 "We do not idealize Ritschl, but after all the chaotic would- 
 be theology there is relief in the clearness of his thought. Of 
 him it is known, at least, that he has broken with the old meta- 
 physics. But with Hitschl we wander still further off. Xo 
 single boundary in religion is left unweakened or nnwarped to 
 mark the ancient track. Piety is still demanded, but it must 
 be altogether gratuitous, S[)ontaneous, such as in the eiul is also 
 thought to 1)0 found in atiimals. Some scholars claim to have 
 discovered in our house-dogs real ti-aces of religion, as first be- 
 gimiings of "piety," which idea is so grotesque that involunta- 
 rily it raises the question whether it is likewise agi'eed to class 
 them w'ith polytheists or moiiotlieists. Fur an answer to which 
 (since, with Islam cxcei)ted, nionog imy prefei's to be classed 
 with mf>notheism) some clown may point us to the analog_y of 
 their lower love; for the evolution from p(^lygamy to monog- 
 amy has not been attained by oni- poodles and our dogs. 
 
i 
 
 Methodist Jieoiew. 
 
 Aki. VII.— PANTlitrSM'S DESTRUCTION OF IJOUND- 
 APJES. — PART II. 
 
 As far as the scopo- of this article allows ns we tliink wc have 
 shown coiK'lusively that tlic ]>aiitht'istic tendency of our a^c 
 and the evohitiun doctrine, which is its legitimate (laughter, 
 have in large measure effaced the boundaries and are bent 
 upon their entire destruction. Facing now the question, What 
 dangers threaten us by this dcsti'uctiun of boundaries? we con- 
 sider first the k^son which history teaches. For under like 
 inHuences a state of society has been developed upon a broad 
 scale for centuries together on the banks of the Ganges, and it- 
 part, also, in the Celestial Kingdom ; and afterward both gnosti 
 cism and mysticism have inspired smaller circles with the same 
 spirit. This is to us a beacon at sea, for a wreck is a fair image 
 of what these states and circles show. In India's beautiful 
 domain lives one of the most richly endowed races, ])rofound \\\ 
 spii'it, mighty in numbers, in the midst of tropical weahh — a 
 people which in everything competes with our Western nations 
 and may even exceed us. And yet that peo])le is asleep, has long 
 ceased to make history; and, almost without effort, Ihlam first, 
 then the Mongols, and lastly England have conquered this royal 
 people. However energetically a Keshub Chunder Sen lately 
 organized his propaganda in a most mastei-ly way to arouse his 
 people from their deathly slumbers, he utterly faileil. And the 
 human ideal of {haYogi ITindoo still consists of a benighted her- 
 mit immovably staring into the sun, his loins girded with a 
 serpent's skin, his naked breast covered by coarse hair, wild 
 ghrubs growing up about him, and a songless bird building its 
 somber nest uj>on his holy shoulders. 
 
 And what has become of Lao-Tse's beautiful fancies in China ? 
 Mr, Balfour, who learned to know Taoism by ])ersonal obst'rva- 
 tion, conqilains in his South Place Institute lecture that Taoism 
 has lapsed into "a low and des|)icable superstition, into a reli- 
 gion in its worst and lowest sense, a hocus-|)ocus and an inqjo- 
 sition." And vhen in the pi'ovince of Kiang-si he calUnl on 
 the Chang-]'"cn S/nTi, or high priest of this sect, his holiness 
 showed him in his beautiful i>;dace to a room filled with eartlien 
 jars, carefully corked and sealed, in which by his magic powei 
 
Pantheism'' 8 Destruction of Bonn 
 
 he had confined hundreds (tf evil spii'its. The self-deiri:>dation 
 and cruel iinniorahty of the Vulentinians and Ophites among 
 the Gnostics needs no new demonstration. The moral destruc- 
 tion which this self-same m^ystical pantheism wrought among 
 the Beghards and their consorts, and in our country among the 
 Antinomlans, is well known from liistorj. It all ended in the 
 "rehabilitation" of the flesh, as Iluudeshagen calls it. The 
 connnon system is, ^'' quod Deus formaliter ent^ omne id quod 
 estP Tlius the boundary between good aiid evil falls away. 
 "The will of God determines our disposition, and should a 
 man commit even a thousand deadly sins by tlie force of such 
 predispositioTi he need not even wish that lie liad not committed 
 them." The lesson of history is sufficient!}' alarming. Feuer- 
 bach once wrote: "The eternal, supersensual death is God;" 
 and, indeed, everything seems here to pass away in national 
 and moral death. Of course this needs delineation, in l)road 
 outline, at least, wliich we will do in the order of our personal, 
 ecclesiastical, and political life. 
 
 A thoughtful student who had suffered himself to drift with the 
 tempting current of this stream prefaces his translation of one of 
 llcrhart's works with these significant words : " I allowed myself 
 to drift with it because it promised my soul peace and rest. 
 And what has it brought me ? A feeling of powerlessness and of 
 heaviness. Then I turned to Herbartand regained that buoy- 
 ancy of spirit which was fast failing me." We understand this 
 well ; for wlien the boundary between God and the world falls 
 away, and in the Holy Trinity we can no longer worship, the 
 fullness of the richest personal life, the mainspring of our own 
 personal existence, is broken. He who deals with God as his 
 holy Friend deepens the traits of his own nature; and llerbart 
 expresses it beautifully: "Ko longer to feel the need of this 
 Friend were devotion to such loneliness as only egoism creates 
 in the midst of society, making the dwelling of man a wilder- 
 ness." No strong character can be formed when the etcher, who 
 should deeply tnai'k the lines in the metal, lias his graver taken 
 from him by the dreamer, who dissolves every line. Char- 
 acter demands strength of conviction coupled with firmness 
 of will, a deep sense of a calling in life, bound up with faith 
 of success in this calling; and these factors of our pci'sonality 
 refuse to do service when the stability of lines in our con- 
 
^Tcthodlst Review. I 
 
 ceptioii uf life vanishes away and wlit-n tlierc is no more laitii 
 in any known tnirli, nor in law, which governs the will, nor in 
 God, who calls ns to ii lit'ework and who makes everytliinii; sub- 
 serve its aceoinpiishnient. Underneath your feet the iountains 
 rise higher, and from above the rain ])our8 down to soak tlie 
 roadbed, which was once well i^raveled and iirm, and turn it 
 into mud, where walkini^ becomes stumblin;^ and slidimr- 
 Hence the cionplaint, which was never more general than in our 
 days, about the dearth of character, (jf impressive personality, 
 and oi:" men oi ii'on will. In sooth, we need be no "admirers of 
 the pa<t" to stand aggrieved at the dullness of the faces about 
 ns, at their weakness of expression and want of maidy power, in 
 comparison with those porti'aye<l on Uembi-andt's canvases. 
 
 jN'(., we do not look down with self-conceit upon agnosticism ; 
 and when we hear Tyndall reverently say, "Standing before 
 t!ii«i power which from the universe forces itself upon me, 1 
 dare not do other than speak poetically (»f a II im, a Spii-it, or 
 even a (.'ause ; irs mystery overshadows me, but it remains a 
 mystery," then this agnostic reverence touches us more deei)ly 
 than the Kantian refrain of God, virtue, and innnortality. 
 Ihit forget not that the clearness of our human consciousness 
 is here at stake ; the clearness of our thiid-cing becomes dimmed. 
 In England science is delined as the statistics of what is meas- 
 ured, weighed, and mimbci'ed. '•'• Bene docet qui distinqxr^V 
 (" He teaches well who (Jistinguislies well'') is the rnl& of dis- 
 cipline from which our thinking, if it is to be sound, may not 
 escape; i)ut here the rule is made to reaii, " /?r;?/' docct qui 
 omnia bene permiscet'''' ("He teachco well who mixes all things 
 well"). And, as mentioned above, Hegel had to invent a new 
 logic for this amalgamating process of thought. Before this 
 cloudy manner of thinking the strength of conviction recedes. 
 Everything clothes itself with the garb of modesty, which in re- 
 ality is naught but hesitation and uncertainty, until in the end 
 the thirst for knowledge turns its "love glance" upon the not- 
 knowing, and Du Bois Reymond proclaims his "?y7ioraZ»/m ?«.?," 
 which is followed by the agnostic axiom of Spencer. In this 
 way it is not merely philosoi)hy that languishes and the horizon 
 of science itself which becomes narrow, but in practical life 
 skepticism takes jwssession again of the human heart and draws 
 the clouds ever thicker across the clearness of our vision, until 
 
Pantheism's Dcf<tnictwn of Boundaries. 
 
 in tlie end tli:it spark of holy ontliusiasin is extinrrnislied wliicli 
 can glow only in higher latitudes beneath the azure sky. 
 
 Sport is excullenr, and we felt flattered when recently our 
 batters and bowlers returned from Eiii^land laden with honors; 
 but it would cause us greater joy if we discovered among our 
 youth enthusiasm for the lK)nor of our history, for patriotism, 
 and for a holy conviction in things lovely, pure, and beautiful. 
 But alas! here, too, the erasure of boundaries stands otfensiv^ely 
 in our way, especially in the sjiheres of morality. The word 
 ''sin" became too pungent; "holy "was replaced by "lu-ave." 
 " brave " by " decent," and " decent " by " neat," a word descrip- 
 tive of dress, not of personality. And how can it be otherwise, 
 when the noblest thinkers of our age have reduced good and 
 evil to a dilferem-o of degree ; when the law for moral life is al- 
 lowed to be fixed autonomously by the subject himself, by Mdiich 
 every moral idea is robbed of its absohite character; when the 
 aesthetic is exalted at the cost of the ethic, and the doctrine is^ 
 proclaimed from our housetoj)s that the sensual life also must 
 demand satisfaction for its claims? Is the boundary between 
 truth and falsehood still fixed ? Is it still known what honor 
 is? What is right if it be not the right of the stronger? 
 Who distinguishes between theft and property? Where, 
 above all, is the boundary which distinguishes guilt from fate, 
 i'.nputability from irresistible inclination? Has not Buckle 
 statistically shown how each year there must take place so 
 many divorce suits, so many accidents, so many murders with 
 the dagger, so many others with the pistol, and so many, again, 
 l)v strancjulation ? It is all the one process, which, restlessly 
 turning the wheel of life, hurries it on from that which is real 
 to the ideal. Why, then, be surprised tliat excise duties of a 
 less honorable sort ai-e ever enlarged ; that the dissolute woman 
 presses her claims with ever-increasing shamelessness; and that 
 our sturdy Dutch integrity, which was once proverbial in the 
 market of the world, buries itself in its legends ? 
 
 Israel once sang, " I love the Lord, because he hath heard 
 my voice and my supplications." Our age raves with altru- 
 ism, because its heart is too faint for real egoism. And when 
 the noiunena withdraw themselves in the far distance and, 
 at a still greater distance, disappear behind the ever-changing 
 phenomena, and a jjontifex is no longer near to bridge this 
 
Mdliodist Review. 
 
 uistunce, nor a Ciirtius to fill this abyss with hiinself, then 
 a poetry is still spoken of which with its thousand forms will 
 blood upon this iutinite void. But they forget that all poetry, 
 to find its symbols, must start from the antithesis which exists 
 between the spiritual and the natural. And therefore look at 
 those who now occupy the seats upon Parnassus, where Von- 
 del once shone, and Bilderdijlc won his laurels, and M'here Da 
 Costa lost himself in worship. Against this mystic ])oetry 
 llerbart wrote: "The concept of God as the Father of men 
 should be retained in its strength. A purely theoretical cou- 
 ce])t is worthless ; an idea is bare of comfort." However, we 
 do not satirize our age ; God has infinitely enriched it, and 
 in many respects it far exceeds the age that went before it. 
 There are many worthy people now, many lovable people, who 
 do not wear the purple, but who constantly remind us of it ; but 
 we miss the ])owerful figures, the great men, the stars of first 
 magnitude. How have the stars, like those in Leyden, been 
 extinguished one after another! Who is Caprivi compared 
 with Yon Bismarck? "When Gladstone dies who will succeed 
 him ? Alas ! the dynamic weakening can no longer be denied. 
 Ejngonoi have taken the places of heroes, and at their feet 
 crowd the multitudes weary of life, whose satiety betrays itself 
 in the dullness of their eyes. See how listlessness stares us in 
 the face; how suicide attracts; how the number of our insane is 
 ever on the increase. And when we think how this century 
 began with placing man on a pedestal, higher than ever before, 
 and how in closing -it leaves him behind so weary of life, then 
 does not this century seem like the soap bubble which glittered 
 in the light as the boy blew it out on the air, but which, as he 
 blew too hard, condensed into one unsightly droj)? 
 
 Euroj)e has twice known such })eriods of spiritual atrophy, 
 once under Koman rule, and again at the close of the Middle 
 Ages ; and both times the Church of Christ caught the paralytic 
 by the hand and lifted him up so that ]»e walked and life 
 once more coursed freely through his veins. Hence the ques- 
 tion arises. Will the Church of Christ be able to do this again? 
 And is there no cause for fncreasing anxiety when, by this 
 blurring and eventual destruction of boundaries, we see the 
 Church of Christ inwardly ebbing away lier life and outwanlly 
 ivduced to an ever-narrower ecclcsiasticism ? If there is one 
 
PantheisvCs Destruction of 'Jouadai'les. 
 
 who protests against the idea of evolution it is lie wlio came 
 clown from the Father of lights in order to reveal himself as 
 God in the flesh. Christ is the miracle. It is Bethlehem that 
 opens a branch in the line of lunnan genealogy. "Imnianuel's 
 resurrection" breaks through the order of nature. And when 
 the Church of Christ starts out upon her mission in the woi'ld 
 lier deeply marked characteristic is not to be of the world. 
 Hence the Church of Christ stands ipso facto opposed to the 
 unity dream of the paTitheistic process, and denies that salva- 
 tion can ever come by evolution to a world lost in sin. This 
 is her character and her nature. Abandonment of this antith- 
 esis is the sacrifice of her character. She must hold up this 
 dualism in the face of the unregenerated world. And as soon 
 as the boundary is blurred which sepai'atcs her from the natural 
 life she ceases to be the Church of Christ. This, of course, is 
 the very thing ojiposed by the pantheistic tendency of our age, 
 and no less sharply by the principle of evolution. Pantheism 
 cannot triumph unless the 6tuml)ling block of the cross be 
 taken out of the way ; the evolution theory cannot exist if 
 that notion of Golgotha be not removed, flence the a^^sertion 
 by a German philosopher, that "where culture breaks through 
 there can be no more Church." Hence Hegel's statement that 
 the State, as " the divine will in the present," must make the 
 Church subservient to its end, uniil finally she be dissolved 
 in the State. Hence Rothe, m'Iio was himself a theologian, 
 threw away his honor and committed treason to the Church, 
 by prophesying her rapid declension and disapjiearanee in the 
 State; and from this, no less, comes the cool determination 
 of the leading jurists in Germany to forge the shackles by 
 which to chain the Church. By a circle of almost thirty 
 professors of law, among whom Ihering was one, the ductrine 
 has been published that the Protestant Church "is a ])urely 
 worldly organization," and, stronger still, " that, rightly con- 
 sidered in the sense of modern ecclesiastical law, the Church is 
 onh'' a part of the world." Tliis shows whither this erasure of 
 boundaries lends us; and we are no longer surjirised at the 
 boldness of Pi-ofessor Lorn in writing that the Church of 
 Christ is nothing more than a Relnjions-Yereln^ and that the 
 present relation between State and Church "rests on the prin- 
 ciple of the sovereignty of the State, to which even the Church 
 
Methodlist Review. 
 
 is buhjected." Tin's would not signify anytliing if tlic watchers 
 at the bcjiuidai'ies wore fouiul at their post, or, at least, in the Ciunp 
 of the Church. But it is well known that the opposite is true. 
 They who rise up for its defense are put outside the boundary 
 line. Every boundary of confession is wiped out l)y the pu')- 
 i;e proclamation of liberty of doctrine. The Cliurch must be 
 as like a worldly society as one drop of water is like anotlier. 
 Even thoui^h Christ be denied by all the ])eople it must still 
 be named the peo])le's Ciiurch. He wlio believes in no Father 
 in heaven may proclaim unto the people his philosophy as 
 (iospol. And, when hope is fostered that "believing" theolo- 
 ijians will rebel against such repulsive contradictions, tlie Ver- 
 tnittel unf/s-thcologen of every predilection may be seen wilh 
 fully wij)iiig out the confessional boundary and adding ever 
 more freely their philosophic wine to the pure juice of life, 
 as if bent upon the entire destruction of that deeply nuirked 
 boundary line of our Christian mysteries which separates God's 
 holy revelation from our darkened reason. 
 
 No resistance, therefore, can be looked for from this quarter 
 against what Hermann calls "the spiritual disturbance" of our 
 age. As long as a spiritual tohu va hohu remains the lauded 
 ideal among these leaders no invincible principles of morality; 
 no deeply inculcated convictions of soul, nor any fixcil, general 
 ideas can come to our people from their ecclesiastical guides. But 
 the restoration of a iixed point of departure, of a religious and 
 moral "place where to stand," in view also of the social storms 
 foretold by our poli-tical meteorologists, is the only saving means 
 by which a footing may be regained by our generation. Re- 
 cover the faith in a last judgment, and as long as we hold this 
 faith we may calmly witness the constant violation of right in 
 the earth, which is practiced not merely by juiblic offenders, but 
 by legislative boilies and by judges. For our sense of right is 
 secure in that of God, which he himself shall one day avenge. 
 Proceed, liowever, upon the half-truth of the pantheist, that 
 "the world's history is the world's judgment," and we must 
 secularize our sense of right ; that is, we may recognize no 
 longer any law except that 'which amid constant changes the 
 authorities create and maintain. And by this fluctuating notion 
 of right (since the jns const it utum is never at rest) we destroy 
 the majesty of law in the minds of those who live under it. 
 
PanifieisirCs Destruction of Boundaries. 
 
 This has been accomplished. Von Stahl confines absolute riglit 
 within the boundaries of our human economy, and does not see 
 ]io\v it has its primordial rise in religion, and how all ethical 
 right is rooted in this rehgiuus right of God over his creature. 
 All this is the result of Kant's partially correct endeavor to in- 
 terpret right as the shield of liberty, or of Fichte's effort to assign 
 its rise to the struggle between the double ego. With Ilegel, 
 therefore, it is put down as a morality of a lower order. Accord- 
 ing to Ihering it is born from an " end-impulse of society." In 
 Darwin fashion it is reconstructed by others as the mechanical 
 product of historic and external factors ; while the later Herbart- 
 ians perceive it as the cruse of oil which the seaman pours upon 
 the seething waves for the salvation of ship and crew. But, 
 endless as these representations of the oi'igin of right may be, 
 the idea is common to them all that it is only by the State, as 
 the instrument of society, that absolute right receives its sanction. 
 It is too bad that, with the exception of Von Stahl, none of 
 these men hold to the immutability of State authority. The 
 scepter of authority is swayed now by one party and again by 
 another — Napoleon is superseded by Bourbon, Bourbon over- 
 come by Orleans ; and in this wise is formed the series of those 
 who make themselves master in turn of authority in the State, 
 because for a v.-hilc they are the stronger, lie therefore rules 
 the State who actually gets the power in hand ; and in this 
 stronger one who establishes right and law, the right of the 
 stronger triumphs, not merely de facto, but likewise in theory. 
 And by this the boundary falls away which separates the au- 
 thorities, as the powers ordained of God, from the people, who, 
 by the same God, are appointed to be subject unto them. Both 
 are dissolved in the one all-sufficient State. The State takes 
 the place of God. The State becomes the highest power, and 
 the fountain head also of right. The higher powers exist no 
 longer for the sake of sin ; but a State is the highest ideal of 
 human society — a State, before whose apotheosis every knee 
 must bow, by whose grace alone we live, and to whose word all 
 must be subject. And when in this wise the boundaries are 
 destroyed between the authorities and the people, between the 
 authorities and Ilim whoso servant they are, and consequently 
 between right as a divine ordiiumce and right as a magisterial 
 command, nothing remains but the one single State, making 
 
Meth odlst lie v icw . 
 
 provision for everything, in wliicli all liiuiian energy seeks its 
 ideal develojmiont. 
 
 A gi-eat danger lui-ks in this ; for, however eloquently the 
 boundary has been reasoned away between the authorities who 
 rule and the peo]>lc who must obey, that duality does exist, a 
 duality from which of necessity is born a twofold strife, the 
 strife of the State evermore to increase its power over the peo- 
 l>le, and the strife on the part of the people to make themselves 
 masters over the State. Absolutism from one side and anarchy 
 from the other stare us in the face ; and the (juestion lias already 
 been raised whether constitutional public law has not served its 
 time, and whether tlic parliamentary system has not outlived 
 its usefulness. The next step is to found upon the ruins of our 
 civil liberty the government of Schleiermachcr's virtuosos, that 
 is, of those who are learned and genial — a repetition of our old 
 rcgent's-misery, clothed this time in the scientilic garl). 
 
 But against this, of course, the people rebel. The boundaries 
 have been destroyed ; why then longer render homage to him 
 who is high and declare those who arc low politically under age ? 
 Are not rich and poor an antithesis, which, since all boundaries 
 have been effaced, offensively disturbs your much-lauded har- 
 mony ? Why I'ender obedience, when authority finds no more 
 sujiport in the conscience and right is no longer founded upon 
 eternal principles? Power has its rise in the State, and we are 
 the people ; we, the millions, constitute the State ; hence ours 
 is the power, the power also to recreate the right, and we will 
 enact that right in such a form as shall satisfy all our senses. 
 And what can you do, yo mighty ones of earth, ye that extol 
 in song the State-apotheosis, how oppose this wild cry of nihil- 
 ism ? I3y the conscience ? But that you have disjointed. ])y 
 the moral senses? But these you have set afloat. By the fear 
 of the final judgment? At this you scoff yourselves. By the 
 majesty of law ? This you have violated. By the influence of 
 the Church ? This you have destroyed. Xo, nothing, nothing 
 remains to you but your power. Upon actual, positive power 
 your entire building has been raised. And with your j)ower 
 you may still offer resistance for a long time, for your forces 
 are stronger than ever (and fearful havoc they may create) ; 
 but woe unto you when in the end this poison begins to work 
 among your armies and as a cancer feeds upon their vitals. For 
 
PantheisrrCs Destruction of Boundaries. 
 
 tljcii you are uiidoiie. Then tliesc people, armed by you, before 
 thu sun lias set uj)on that day of ven<ijeaiicc shall with a siiiirle 
 stroke dispel your enchanting power, and, while crushing j'ou to 
 the earth, proclaim it loud and far that boundaries are no more, 
 that all has become evolution, and that they but inaugni-ate 
 a movement which could not fail in your pantheistic process! 
 
 Max Mlillcr once sketched the nirvayia of the yoga in the 
 picture of a lamp which was being extinguished. l\)ward sucli 
 a social nirvana we shall see the nations of Enrope move, 
 unless something be done to stop the weakening of boundaries. 
 "VYhen, in the human body, the boundary is distnrbed between 
 the tissue of the veins and the flesh of the muscles, then, with 
 an avdyK-q (necessity) which is irresistible, there follows the de- 
 composition of the corpse. 
 
 France was not saved twenty years ago by the injudicious 
 supply of arms to the mob, nor by Grnnbetta's wild hue and 
 cry that not an inch of ground nor a stone of the stronghold 
 should be surrendered. No escape was possible through the 
 iron network with which Yon Moltke had invested France, and 
 in the old imperial town of Frankfort the Gaul capitulated. 
 But this did not flnish France; for when, at length, it wisely 
 took copy from Prussia's" example after the battle at Jena, and 
 forcibly restrained its chauvinism and exerted its utmost efforts 
 in home discipline and recovery of strength, it soon appeared 
 possessed of so nnich energy of national life that Germany's 
 emperor already feels uneasy and has called out ninety thou- 
 sand more men per annum for the better protection of his fron- 
 tiers. Is there no lesson in this for us, when, having shown 
 the erasure of boundaries and the dangers which it threatens, 
 we face the final question, What resistance may we offer? 
 
 In sooth, the j^resent condition of believing Christianity is 
 very like that of France after Sedan and Gravelotte. The 
 assault made upon us has nv)t been successfully beaten off in 
 any single point. Stronghold after stronghold has been aban- 
 doned. Treaso!! has been committed, time after time, within 
 our own rardcs. Intoxicated with transports of jo\', the enemy 
 prophesies the near dawn of the day of our entire defeat. And 
 he is quite correct. "With shame we must ackn()wledge the 
 cowardliness and lamentable want of tact which have charactc!"- 
 ized our Christian conduct during these last hundred years in 
 
Methodist lievieic. 
 
 tliis stiifu :if(:iiii.st unbelief. Aiul if any one thing is able to 
 8tren<rtlien our faith that One i'reater than we luis battled for 
 our people it is tlie surprising fact that, in spite of such ill- 
 directed resistance, our strength has not waned, but has grown 
 intensely stronger. 
 
 We have notliing to say of the doctrinaire. God be praised ! 
 tlie last echoes have died away of the hollow phrases whereby 
 stu[)id self-sulKciency deemed itself able to vanquish a Strauss, to 
 disarm a Darwin, and to drive a Xuenen out of the fight. These 
 were the scoffing bulletins of the princeling who gathered bul- 
 lets at Wissembourg, the boastful call of men utterly ignorant 
 of the enemy, both in his earnestness and in the strength of 
 his weapons. And, as it always lia])pen8 with the boastful 
 pride of cowards, of the ten who protested then so loudly per- 
 haps eight now appear among the leaders in infidelity. No, 
 when we consider what resistance has been offered we refer not 
 to that ineffectual skirmishing, but rather to the earnest three- 
 fold effort put forth to save the threatened ]iosition, whereby 
 men gathered under the banner of the apologist, the compro- 
 miser, or the amphibian. 
 
 Apologetics have first been tried. As often as the outworks 
 were attacked the defenders of Christian truth hastened to the 
 breach to answer each shot from the enemy with a ball from 
 their own cannon. AYliercver the enemy showed himself they 
 crept after him in trenches. Though often repulsed with bleed- 
 ing heads they still held firm, and, with a sturdy patience 
 which compels' respect, lance crossed lance, dagger sharpened 
 dagger, and blow followed blow. But, in spite of this defense, 
 they gained nothing ; for on the heels of one host of objections, 
 winch were upheld for a moment at the most, another army of 
 still heavier critical grievances loomed uj) at once. Meanwhile 
 they permitted the enemy to prescribe the plan of campaign, 
 fell in consequence into hopeless confusion, and in the end 
 were cut off from their own basis of operation. The lamen- 
 table course of that apologetic resistance is well known. A rus- 
 tic militia measured itself against a Prussian guard. And henco 
 the endless series of concessions, till at length the bravest hero 
 lost the fire of his eye and all courage from his weary heart in 
 the grief of disai>p(>intment. 
 
 No wonder, therefore, that, in view of this sad spectacle, our 
 
Pantile lam' 8 Destruction of Boundaries. 
 
 Verrnittelunga-theologen felt tliomselves more attracted by tlio 
 rule of the Mittelsmann, as our German noigiil)oi'S say. All too 
 trustfully our apologists had entered the unequal sti-ife ; these 
 with deeper vision, gentler feeling, and i-ij)er philosoph}- cor- 
 rectly saw how unproductive such clumsy striving must be, 
 and, therefore, peace-loving as they were by nature, they rather 
 employed a spiritual polity. So they entered the field j)receded 
 by the white flag of truce, and, as the enemy drew near, ordered 
 the trumpeter to blow o. j^ax vobiscum^ and readily assured the 
 men of modern views of their warm sympathy with their mo- 
 dernity and of their deep dislike for the old school ; yes, that 
 they would like nothing better than the honor of marching with 
 these moderns, if only the name of Christ could be embroidered 
 on the banner and the cross ornament the top of their standard. 
 And the success of their polity was naturally brilliant. "Mod- 
 ern-orthodox," a genuine pantheistic comjiound, was the adopted 
 name of the new auxilinr3\ And we behohl the hemes who 
 were to rescue oiir faith d) service as sappers, chai-ged with 
 the clearing away of " orthodox obstacles," 
 
 However (whether under the influence of De Genestet who 
 shall say?), the compromise method soon ceased to enchant; 
 and then, at lengtli, we beheld how men gathered under the 
 shield of the amphibian. Jacobi had been a heretic in his 
 intellect, but a believer at heart. If, then, this dualism in feel- 
 ing of Jacobi were supported by the philosophic monism of 
 Ilerbart and by the Erhenntnisztlieorie of Lotze, how safe the 
 position would be, how easy would be their movements, and 
 liow freely would they hunt with criticism to their very hearts' 
 content, and still engage in praj-er with the pious wife ! That 
 was it. Head and heart, the intellect and the will, must be 
 divorced; Werth-xirtheil was the magic motto which would save 
 from every dilemma. And thus arose that generation of spir- 
 itual amphibians who plunged so playfully into the depths of 
 the modern waters, and again would nimbly scale the river-bank 
 to graze in the sweet clover of tlie hallowed Christian pasture. 
 But there was no defense in this. A dualism of principles gives 
 no system. And, moreover, our Christianity is a revealed, his- 
 toric religion, which at every point of the way inexorably faces 
 us with ideas which demajid analysis and with facts which must 
 find room in our cosmos. 
 
Methodist Revieio. 
 
 However Iiif^lih', therefore, we appreciate the intention of 
 these three classes of defeiulers, and however much we owe to 
 their study of detail, we cannot be incorporate with them — not 
 with tlie apolo^etes, because no plea can avail when reason is 
 l)oth defenthint and judge; not with tlie Mittelsmannc)\ be- 
 c.iuse they exiiaust tiieir strength in a monstrous marriage, 
 and " hyi)rids do not propagate;" and not with our spiritual 
 dualists, because logic and ethics have but one consciousness 
 at their connnand, and all such spiritual divorces must end in 
 iiyiK'rtrophy of the head coupled with atrophy of the heart. 
 
 An altogether dilfei'ent and much safer method was employed 
 wherever resistance proved effectual. God calls Abraham out 
 of Ur, separates Israel from the nations, and thus, in real life, 
 casts up a dam against the flood of j)aganism. Christ conies 
 and forms in Israel a following of his own, which, by separa- 
 tion from the world, is being trained to vanquish the spirit of 
 the World. In the sixteenth century similar resistance was 
 offered by men who witiidrew their forces within self-created 
 bounds to regain strength, in order, by life's reality and deeds, 
 and not by theories and phrases, to strengthen themselves for 
 the strife which awaited them. In the self-same maimer You 
 iStein rallied Prussia after Jena and France has restored her 
 strength. And, as regards our sti-uggle, they who adhere to the 
 Christian faith and appreciate the danger of the destruction of 
 boundaries must begin by drawing a circle about themselves 
 within which to develop a life of their own, of which life, thus 
 constituted, they nni;;t give account, and so to increase strength 
 for the strife wiiich is upon us. 
 
 This is the only method which, as often as correctly applied, has 
 stood the test of fire, which Rome never abandoned, and which 
 is the only rational one again to pursue. IIow have pantheism 
 and ev(»lution risen to be so powerful \ Certainly not because 
 of Kant or Hegel, Darwin or Haeckel, for no single man can 
 transform the spirit of his time if he be not himself a child of 
 his time. Xo, the general mood of mind, the teinj)er of soul, 
 the inclination of heart, all of life down to its deepest impulses, 
 had risen up in rebellion at the close of the last cetitury against 
 the boundaries appointed l)y God; pantheism was in the air; 
 and Hegel and Darwin, as children of their age, only hastened 
 the birth of the monstrosity, which our age had long carried 
 
Pantheism's Destrxiction of Boundaries. 
 
 under its lieart. There is no need, therefore, to exhaust our' 
 strength in a conflict of words. So powerful a movement of 
 life can be faced with hope of success only by the movement 
 of an antithetic life. In opposition to those who efface the 
 boundaries both in life and consciousness a life nmst be devel- 
 oped with deeply marked chai-acter lines ; the floating fogs of 
 pantheism must be confronted with the clear and positive ut- 
 terances of a truly embraced confession; and in like manner 
 the exaltation of the world's dictum must be opposed by the 
 absolute authority of the Scriptures. Thus an indei»endent 
 basis of operation will be regained and a reality will originate 
 which already as such exercises an influence upon our inspiration. 
 Thus only will a fortified line present itself at the front which 
 will render it possible to postjjone a giving of battle until 
 quietly and definitely the forces are dcTcloped, the weapons 
 sharpened, and the ranks well exercised. Thus also is revived 
 that holy comradeship, tliat confidence in one's own cause, and 
 that enthusiasm for the colors of the baiinoi- which double the 
 strength of every army. 
 
 That this system demands great sacrifice is not denied. It com- 
 pels an entire break with much that is attractive. It cuts off all 
 intercourse with the nobler heathen, however fascinating that 
 may be. A great ])rice must l)e paid for it ; and, worse yet, it 
 will cause the resolute man all manner of family inconvenience, 
 and will render it difiicult to find a position in life for the sup- 
 port of oneself and family. But with the Scriptures in hand we 
 declare that this sacrifice must be laid on the altar. " lie that 
 loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me." 
 Christ came not to bring peace in a pantheistic sense, but to 
 malie discord among men, that is, to establish a boundary which 
 none can remove between those who touch the hem of his gar- 
 ment and those who reject him. And therefore this system 
 must not be accused of exclusivism. Of this they are guilty 
 who on their own responsibility establish a false boundary that 
 separates things which belong together. But this reproach will 
 never touch the system we commend, for at the very point 
 where the boundary is drawn by our deepest conviction of life 
 the pigeonhole system lies condemned, and broken down is every 
 false wall of separation. This system has as little in common 
 with the recluse who shuns the liijht of the ont^^ide world. 
 
Methodist Review. 
 
 Living in u house of one's own by no means forbids :i going 
 abroad in every pathway of life. And, as we said abo\-c, Ixjhind 
 our line we desire to arm ourselves more completely that we 
 may be the better ready for the strife. 
 
 Of one claim, we grant, we can make no surrender; it 
 must be born within us — that we believe. Even as wc are 
 stabbed by those who announce themselves as the enlight- 
 ened and the civilized and label us as the '* nonthinking part of 
 the nation," so they must suffer us to wound them as often as 
 we distinguish ourselves as " believers" from the " nonbelieving 
 ])art of the nation." But this is the verj' thing in question. 
 It is the protection of that boundary for which wo stake our very 
 life. They deny the fall by sin ; for us it stands firm and lixed. 
 And therefore they cannot recognize a bou?idary which is estal> 
 lished by the entrance of grace, while for us this transition is 
 one from death unto life. 
 
 We are taught by the word of Gud that sin not merely 
 spoiled the will and corrupted our nature, but that it also dark- 
 ened the understanding. On the contrary, the palingenesis not 
 merely renews the will and transforms our nature, but also sheds 
 a light of its own into our inner consciousness. lie who believes 
 receives not merely another impression of life, but is also dif- 
 ferently affected in the world of thought, which difference 
 cannot be better interpreted than by Augustine's celebrated 
 hiterrogatoriiim. Augustine had himself been a pantheist at 
 first, and had not been able to conceive God otherwise than as 
 hiding in the- vXt]. But when, led by the Spirit of God, he 
 turned away from tiie Jesus patihilis of the Manichaians and 
 lixed his gaze nj)on the Man of sorrows, then, with the self-same 
 ears with which he had heard the sound of the jiarticles of light 
 in leaf and stem, he now heard this entirely different speech of 
 the creation. Then, as he wi-ites in his Confessions, 
 
 I asked the eartli, and it answered, "I am imt lb-;" and wliat- 
 soever arc tlK-rein made the sanii' ronfc-ssion. I asked the sea and 
 the deeps and llie creepint,' things tliat live<l, and they replied, 
 " We are not thy (iod; seek liii^Iier than we." I asked the breezy 
 air, and tlie universal air witli its inhabitants answered, " Anax- 
 inienes was deceived; we are not tliy (itiil." I asked the heavens, 
 the sun, nioon, and stars; " Neither," said llu-y, " are we the God 
 wlioni thou si'ckest." And I answered uiit() all thiuLTs which stand 
 about the door of my Hesh, " Ye have told me concerning my God 
 
Pantheism" s Dt'stnictlon of Boundarks. 
 
 that ye are not he; tell me somethinj^ about liiiu." Ami wiih a 
 loud voice they exclaimed, "It is lie who hath made us! " 
 
 In the grandeur of the faith Augustiuu was now another 
 man, and therefore lie heard differentlv and tlioii<rht dilYer- 
 ently. Then also he heard the voice of God addressing him 
 in the Scriptures ; and our circle holds this in common with 
 Monica's great son. "We also bow ourselves before that Word ; 
 and therefore that Woixl also draws the boundary line between 
 us who camp behind our line and tliose who live beyond it. 
 AYc are often told that w^e cannot hold this opinion in sincerity ; 
 the pious housewife may, but not the man of science. And he 
 M-ho throws away his respect exclaims, "Ye are deceivers!" 
 Of course, they who are not stupid must agree with such wis- 
 dom or else have their integrity suspected. We are familiar with 
 such ways. But this much must be granted : faitli in tl)e Scrip- 
 tures can never be the result of criticism, for then no one could 
 ever have believed, as criticism is not yet a finished science. 
 Moreover, how could the Scriptui-es ever excite faith among 
 the humble laity who understand nothing of criticism ? If then 
 it is very true that in the Scriptures there arise many ditiiculties 
 and objections which have by no means been straightened out, 
 this does not delay us, this does not trouljle us, since we stand 
 on other ground. In 170-i it was Kant himself Avho denounced 
 ^'' die Keckheit der Kraftgenies^'' yA\\Q\x deemed itself to have 
 outgrown this norm of faith, and added these weighty words : 
 
 If ever the Scriptures which we now have should lose their 
 authority, a similar authority could never more arise, for a mir- 
 acle like that of the Scripture authorit}^ caimot repeat itself, simp! v 
 because the loss of the faith i.i the Scriptures which was mi'.in- 
 tained for so many centuries would render faith impossible in any 
 new authority. 
 
 And the deep significance of these words was felt by us yeai's 
 ago when first we read them. In the Scriptures we have a 
 cedar of spiritual authority which for eighteen centuries has 
 been putting forth its roots in the life-soil of our hununi con- 
 sciousness ; and beneath its shadow the religious and nioi-al life 
 of humanity have increased inconceivably in worth and merit. 
 Now hew this cedar down, and for a little while green 
 leaves wnll still appear upon its downcast trunk; but who will 
 give another cedar for the children of our people? who guar- 
 
 51 KIKTU SEUIES, VOL. I.X. 
 
Jldhotliat licview. 
 
 autcc ;i shade like unto this? This is why we have bowed be- 
 fore these Scri};tures with tlie uiialfeeted sim])Hcity of the little 
 child, in simple faith, and not as a result of learning ; iov this 
 we have zealously defended these Scriptures, and now rejoice 
 in our soul as we render thanks unto God for seeing a new 
 increase of faith in these Holy Scripture.'?. You know we are 
 not conservative, but this is our conservatism : we seek to eave 
 the foliage of this cedar for our ])eople, lest shortly they should 
 ho without a covering in a barren, scorching desert. As our 
 Saviour believed in Moses and the prophets, so we desire to 
 believe in the Sci'iptures. For he who in this matter of the 
 Sciiptures accuses Christ of error attacks thereby the mystery 
 itself upon which is founded the whole Church of Chiist, deny- 
 ing that he should be our Lord and also our God. 
 
 '' Isolation is your strength." This is the golden motto Groen 
 van Prinsteren becpieathed to the isi<u8 de Caloin. AVhat we 
 have said is plea for this significant device. And is anyone 
 afraid lest, uiuler this motto and by this system, poetry be sac- 
 rificed to pantheism and the unity of the cosmos to evolution? 
 Then listen liow from the tents of the saints throughout the 
 earth there arises one voice, which gathers everything that lives, 
 and breathes, and thinks, and does not think into an entirely 
 different unity, namely, the unity of praise; as the ancient 
 player on the harp sings of a God who " has established an 
 order for his creatures which they cannot transgress," so that, 
 with the sound of cymbals, all, all may sing in unison : 
 
 Praiso Ilim. yo heavens, and yo waters that be above the heavens; 
 
 Praise the Lord, yo eartli, yo drajroiis and all deeps. 
 
 Praiso him, yo mountains and all hills, yo beasts and all caitle, 
 
 Ye fruitful trees and all cedars, yo kinps of the earth and all people, 
 
 Botli yoiuii; men and maidens, yo old men and children; 
 
 Lot all praiso the numo of tho Lord. 
 
 For he hath exaiterl the horn of his people, 
 
 Tho praiso of ail his saints, a peopjo near nnm him. 
 
 Ml