SIR,—Is Sir 0. Lodge's " re-interpretation" after all so very
new ? Practically to ignore sin as a fact, and consequently to deaden the sense of it in the individual, and thereby to make repentance a superfluity,—this surely is a doctrine we have heard many times before, but assuredly not in the Gospels nor in the teachings of St. Paul. " Repentance toward God, and faith toward Jesus Christ,"—that is St. Paul's own summary of his message. The "higher man of to-day, not worrying himself at all about his sins," and who (it seems implied) would not be "good for anything" if he did, is a being clearly not contemplated by the Apostle. And it would be interesting to know, if we could, how many of these " higher men" in fact exist even now. Do they form any appreciable proportion of the Christian community? These busy workers, "ever struggling upward towards every kind of improvement "—except, it would seem, the conquest of sin in themselves, for to them conviction of sin and repentance have no meaning—would a new Diogenes find many such among the crowds of any Christian city, in West, e.g., or East London ? How many, in fact, are " the righteous that need no repentance " we are nowhere told ; but experience, I believe, will tell us that " improvement " of every kind has come mainly from those who have most been conscious of imperfection in themSelves, and of their need of its remedy. It is surely hardly fair to assume that when St. Paul speaks of the blind gropings of mankind after religious truth his words will bear application to such as now decline to accept a re-interpretation which virtually excludes repentance from the circle of necessary Christian doctrine. To that old blind- ness, he says plainly, his Gospel brought an end; for "now God commandeth all seen everywhere to repent." A more emphatically comprehensive refutation of the new "re- interpretation" could not well be devised.—I am, Sir, &c., R E. T.
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