The Westminster Books
Do Dead Men Live Again ? By V. F. Store, M.A.—What is Salvation ? By E. S. Waterhouse, D.D.—is Sin Our - Fault ? By Stewart A. McDowell, B.D.—What Shall We Say of Christ ? .By Sydney Cave, D.D. (Hodder and Stough-
ton. 3s. each vol.) -
TUE keeper of a certain Highland cemetery was accustomed to recommend the purchase of a burial-plot, on the store that if not required for personal use, it "would make a bonny present for a friend." In much the same way, many people who have found their own answers to the questions propounded by the writers of the "Westminster Books," will feel that here, at last, " just what so-and-so needs." And though the titles chosen by the Archdeacon of Westminster and Mr. McDowell make their essays rather formidable greeting cards, it is to be hoped that they will be very widely distri- buted at a convenient season among the restless crowd which surges to and fro on the frontier between faith and unfaith. All four volumes are excellent. Each problem discussed is brought into direct relation with modern life and thought ; theological technicalities are avoided ; the difficulties of honest minds arc squarely faced. If we are bound to admit that the essays of Professor Waterhouse and Mr. McDowell stand out by reason of their vigorous and unconventional thought, this judgement in no way disparages the work of their colleagues.
Those called upon to teach religion may learn here how to meet some of those recurrent questions which are too often regarded as an embarrassment instead of an opportunity. Dr. Cave's discussion of the problems of Christology is clear, competent, and takes full account of the special difficulties felt by the modern mind. Archdeacon Storr's lucid statement of the arguments in favour of personal immortality is sure of attention ; since our social and individual self-occupation makes the majority of men far more interested in the survival Of their own personalities than in the nature of the Person of God. Taking as his starting point the fact of personality and all that is implied by it, he makes full use of the con- clusions of modern science, and is not afraid to borrow illus- trative material from the results of "psychical research." The necessarily brief account of the relation of spirit to matter and mind to brain, leading on to speculations as to what a " resurrection body" might conceivably be, are particularly interesting and suggestive. In the essays upon " Sin " and " Salvation " we at once notice, as a sign of the times, the definitely psychological method of approach ; the refusal to take a religious formula for granted until it has been brought into relation with the real experience of real men. Salvation, says Professor Waterhouse, means priniarily the transformation alike of personal life and of thought : and might and should mean such a fundamental transformation of society as would save our modern world, by subjecting it at every level to the consecrated sanity of the Christian law. This admirable essay cannot be summarized ; but it is packed with germinal ideas. The Professor's own experience as a psychologist provides him with many illustrations of the power of religion to " save " individuals, by releasing them from neurotic obsessions and fears. History suggests that this same influence is slowly working a change in the common thought of humanity which, because still unfinished, we often ignore.
"The average man little realizes how thoroughly his habits of thought arc shot through and through with sentiments that owe their existence to the new thought Jesus gave to man . . . To-day the world thinks as it was taught to think from Galilee. Miehelet once said that Galilee was all very well, but he was thirsty and could quench that thirst only in the deep springs of the inspiration of Hellas. If Miehelet had to drink all that those springs contained, one thinks he would find the draught rather bitter."
In a striking chapter on " the transformation of commerce," Professor Waterhouse points out that in spite of considerable improvement in the modern conduct of industry, the root of the matter is still untouched. Here Christian thought and business behaviour are unharmonised. "The taproot of evil in the commercial system is the fact that the common de- nominator of business life is personal gain irrespective of social gain." We refuse to face this manifest truth, and calm our consciences by "social service," which mainly consists in "acting as an ambulance to pick up the casualties of the system under which we have prospered." Here we approach the whole problem of sin,, and of our personal responsibility in regard to it. Such a subject in the hands of Mr. McDowall—whose essay should be read with that of Professor Waterhouse—is sure of distinguished and unconventional treatment ; and in fact his essay stands out for directness of appeal and brilliance of attack. If at times he rouses our anxiety by a tendency to follow in the wake of Dr. Tennant and identify atavism and sin, and in his final pages seems to lean to the Patripassian heresy, he earns our &sip gratitude by his vigorous assertion of our moral responsibility and of the fact that sin is essentially a religious conception, " not a matter. of cold ethical error." It is " the choice of a lower standard when the higher is known. It is a turning away from God." This, the essential character of sin, is a constant. Its expressions will vary, according to the moral and cultural level at which the sinner lives. The crime of the garden suburb may be the commonplace of the South Seas : for its sinfulness abides in the fact that it is recognized as a wrong choice, or is the penalty of an earlier wrongful choice. Only the fact of man's free will makes sin, in the strict sense, possible. It takes a creature who is capable of heaven to.. do the-deeds which
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