The present volume is the second work published by the Yale University Press on the James Wesley Cooper Memorial Publication Fund. This Foundation was established March 30, 1918, by a gift to Yale University from Mrs. Ellen H. Cooper in memory of her husband, Rev. James Wesley Cooper, D.D., who was born in New Haven, Connecticut, October 6, 1842, and died in New York City, March 16, 1916. Dr. Cooper was a member of the Class of 1865, Yale College, and for twenty-five years pastor of the South Co

Religious interests are quite as much involved in the world war as social and political interests. The moral and spiritual issues are tremendous, and the problems that arise concerning "the mighty hopes that make us men,"—hopes that relate to the Kingdom of God on earth,—are such as not only to perplex our most earnest faith, but also to challenge our most consecrated purpose. It is the sincere hope of those who have contributed to this volume that it may prove helpful in the solution of some of

In one of our more thoughtful magazines we were favored last February with an article entitled, "Peter Sat by the Fire Warming Himself." It was a bitter, undiscriminating arraignment of the ministers and churches of the United States for their alleged lack of intelligent, sympathetic interest in the war. It was written by an Englishman who for several years has been vacillating between the ministry and secular journalism, but is now the pastor of a small church in northern New York. The vigor of

Most urgent among the religious problems of the day is the question as to the relation of God to the events of current history. As was to be expected, many erroneous notions are prevalent concerning divine providence and the present war. Some of these errors are owing to intellectual confusion; others, however, impress one as due to an almost wilful perversion of the impulses of religious faith. In any case, most conspicuous among the erroneous doctrines of the day with reference to divine provi

Of Paul's three things that abide, hope is the one of which we are now most conscious of our need. Never before in our experience has hope been so much the center of our inner life and the heart of our religion. Our mood alternates between hope and depression, hope and fear; and we look to our religion to make hope strong, and turn to our sacred book to seek secure grounds and satisfying expressions for our hope. We hope for the winning of the war. We hope for the safety and the home-coming of t

"' Resist not evil,' means never resist, never oppose violence." Such is the motto, quoted from Tolstoy, with which our propagandist heads his pages. As he cites no other scholar, critic, or interpreter of the Sermon on the Mount, in support of this declaration of the meaning, the inference is perhaps allowable that the reader is expected to endow Tolstoy with a credit for scientific attainments in the difficult field of historical criticism and interpretation equally great with that which all m

It should hardly be necessary to explain that Jesus in deliberately giving up the career of purely non-political preacher, teacher, and healer, to assume the career of Christ and Son of David, fully conscious as he was of all the dangers it implied, was neither ignorant of the Isaian ideal, nor out of sympathy with it. When he rode into Jerusalem accepting the acclamation: "Blessed be the kingdom that cometh, the kingdom of our father David," he was not betraying the national hope; he was liftin

That Jesus intended to raise the standard of David by his public act at the Passover is certain. His pacifism was of the type of Micah's and Isaiah's. That he meant the act to convey a religious sense differentiating it from the merely political ideal of the Zealots is also certain. His doctrine of reliance on spiritual methods in the pursuit of the God-given aim exalts forbearance as a means in terms not less noble than the foremost champions of non-resistance. We may question whether he actual

There is a certain magnificence of logical consistency in the non-resistance doctrine of the pacifist who chooses the Empire of China (!) as the example of its perfect work in the field of international relations. [8] With the blessed example of the Celestial Kingdom before us we are asked: The question has an extraordinary resemblance to that addressed by the Kaiser to King Albert in Punch's famous cartoon: "Don't you see that Belgium has lost everything?" And Albert's answer is taken from Chri

Jesus, too, they tell us, though greatest of all non-resistants, was also "inconsistent." Was he, then, inconsistent with himself? Or was his pacifism the active pacifism of those who give their lives for just and lasting peace, the peace that is real and not mere devastation, not destruction and tyranny miscalled Kultur ; not might triumphant over right and unashamed; but a peace that endures because justice and right have been enthroned? Jesus closed his public teaching with the doctrine that

When the greatest crime in all history was perpetrated and the world-war began, it was natural and necessary that the ministry of all lands should buckle on the Christian armor and take its place in the fighting ranks. Thousands volunteered as chaplains and Y. M. C. A. workers. Thousands more—two thousand at one time in Canada alone—equally eager to don the khaki and endure their share of the hardships, waited impatiently until a door could be opened for them to go. In the training camps and in

The term "religious education" stands for two ideas that are ultimately one: for the inclusion of religion in our educational program, and for the use of educational methods in the propagation of religion from generation to generation. Over seventy years ago, Horace Bushnell pointed out the folly of reliance upon the revival method of dealing with the children of Christian homes, and urged the educational method of Christian nurture. He did more than any other one man to determine the present tr

It might seem to the uninformed reader that foreign missions and war have nothing in common; for "what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial?" Fuller knowledge of the varied work of missions and of its many helpful contributions to African, Asiatic and Oceanic peoples would remove this misapprehension. Professor Coolidge, of Harvard, suggests some important points of contact between missions and the less developed races, particularly of the enterprise as ca

Although the duration of this world-war, and the part which we may be called upon to play in it, makes the destruction in wealth and human life in this country uncertain, and although we cannot tell so far in advance what will be the probable extent of social reconstruction to follow, still the war has progressed far enough, and its effects upon this country are sufficiently apparent, to enable us to forecast more or less indefinitely certain changes which are likely to follow its close. With re

The great war has been conspicuously one of alliances. For its successful accomplishment coöperation and individual subordination have been manifested in military, political and economic fields in heretofore unexampled fulness. Liberties, the result of long struggles, and deeply cherished, have been laid aside, for the time, that larger efficiency may be accomplished. Individual opinions strongly held have been subordinated to a common purpose. The time has witnessed a reappreciation of values i

When we reflect upon the situation of the race today, with the leading nations in the throes of a war of unparalleled dimensions and destructiveness, we are appalled at the impotency of those forces that heretofore have tended toward world-organization. Time was when international treaties and laws seemed to have at least a semblance of inhibiting sanctity, but in recent years they are regarded in certain quarters as mere "scraps of paper," and the supposed "rights" of nations are treated with s