broader acquisitions of the race since the time they were transcripted. A revelation of the revelation itself is now, and is always, taking place.

The social and civil conditions of the Scripture times have passed away. The Jewish ceremonial is dead. The Levite code has no application anywhere. The patriarchal life and its modes of thought, as we have them given in Genesis, are not known anywhere on the earth. The great Teacher called the people about Him in the byways and open spaces to listen to His words, which they comprehended only with darkened understandings. Revelation certainly did not complete itself in these hearers. A religious cataclysm was not ordained to be closed with them. The proposition that all possible and final messages of religious truth to this world culminated and completed themselves through a small number of people more than two thousand years ago is absurd. They comprehended only parts of the Christ message, which had in it then the principles of all progress, some applications of which were in reserve because the conditions were not there to call them out. Life now is more complex-more advanced and mandatory of higher experiences and stronger obligations-hence the

revealing, records must be interpreted in the light of the larger range of subjects and interests with which the human mind has come into positive and permanent correspondence.

The Scripture content is a growing content. It is a well of water fed by ceaseless currents. Fresh religious values are being sent to men through the records all the time. What fatuous blunders of Church councils through the ages attempting to fix things by decrees which declare just what the Scriptures mean, so much and no more, and the future fastened down. Decretals of the Church can no more fix and limit the divine revealing than they can stop the advance of the sciences. The inbreakings of research throw new light on the ancient revealing. One of the ceaseless fascinations of the Word lies in the fact that the old truths, with which we are familiar, like diamonds well-cut, show facets for a new glint of light from any direction. Would a student of science undertake to fix and limit the application of any physical principle? He may write out the law of it, but he turns it loose. He knows that the principle itself is always strengthened by its related understandings. The human mind is not permitted to play hide-and-seek with any quality

of truth which may break in on it from the outstanding universe. The assured results of science are as clearly a revelation of God as anything found at first hand in the Scriptures. Indeed, the Scriptures provide for the appropriation of their religious values when the spirit of the Word is declared to be a leader into all truth. Then is natural truth, so called, and the wisdom which comes of common experience of equal and binding force with the plain first teaching of the Scripture message? Why not? We are obliged to obey the nature of natural law; and if it has an ethic and a devotional voice, these are also binding. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmanent showeth His handiwork; day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge."

CHAPTER XVI.

A COSMIC ABSURDITY.

Institutional Defects.

MAN has not yet learned the fine art of creating an organization which is perfectly self-adaptable. The institutional feature of any set of principles, in the nature of the case, is a kind of unyielding matrix, needing constant attention. Men combine themselves in collective understandings to foster and carry forward any interest they may think worthy of their mutual efforts, and they find that the methods they employ are easy to get at outs with the spirit of their enterprise. This is especially so in any time of swift transition, when the old and the new are brought, often, into disagreeably sharp contrasts. In the family life it is the direct attrition between youth and old age. In the social body it is the conservatism which is slow to yield to progressive policies. In the law its enactments become effete before they can get themselves off the statute books.

The life of nature does better with its organisms, because it puts on the inside the principle which works outwardly towards the renewals and transformations which are to meet the exigencies of a new day. This dullard of a human is inclined to neglect his social mechanisms and let them cramp the life out of that for which they stand. He really can not put into them the fluid principle which nature does. No sooner is any cause taken to heart by any number of people, and they put themselves together to promote it, and have success with it, than the need arises to consider the betterment of the means they have employed. Guilds, clubs, orders, schools, charities, Churches-if they answer the ends for which they were begun, must pay the price of a struggle against opposition somewhere, or they must beware of worn-out methods, or they must have some trouble with the gate-keepers who, as soon as they reach a snug place, begin to warn folks not to touch the ark.

But institutional defects are often overmagnified. You can wear your out-of-style hat, comfortably, a while after it really needs attention. Your grandmother is out-of-date; and yet it is usually best to let her alone. Her age has an