In his leading editorial, published in the Biblical World for August, President Harper enters a complaint against the editors in general of religious papers. He puts his complaint in the modest form of questions. He asks, first of all, "Is it not true that a great deal of space has been occupied by the editors of our religious papers in statements intended to turn opinion against those who are called 'higher critics'?" He answers his own question by adding: "The attitude of many has been polemic in the extreme. One wonders, sometimes, whether it has been altogether Christian-like."

      The President ought to remember that, on such questions as those made prominent by the "higher critics," a man's personality and his teaching are so identified that it is next to an impossibility to keep them separate in thought. When the religious papers feel called upon to combat, with all their might, opinions which they regard as subversive of the Christian faith, it is not very easy to so aim their blows at the false teaching as not to strike the false teacher. Indeed, if a man comes forward with teaching which he knows beforehand to be very offensive to his neighbors, it does not appear very manly to complain when the latter are offended at him as well as at his teaching. A brave man is willing to bear all the personal consequences of any opinions which he may be constrained to propagate. If he dares not do this, he had better hold his peace. [233]

      The President feels his way a little further by a second question: "Has it ever occurred to those who have written these polemic statements, and to those who have read them, that perhaps the great duty of the church is to train higher critics rather than to fight them?" As one who has done some of this polemic writing, I answer for myself, Of course not. How could we be making "polemic statements" against a certain class of critics, and at the same time think that perhaps the church ought to be training some more of the same kind? We don't hatch rattlesnakes to have the fun of killing them.

      But I observe that in this second question the quotation marks are omitted from the phrase higher critics; and if by this omission the President intends the phrase to mean higher critics in the better sense of the term, his question must be answered in the affirmative; for critics who devote their powers and the methods of the science to the defense and confirmation of the Bible are in great demand on the part of the very editors who write polemics against "the higher critics." Here we encounter the ambiguity still attaching to this phrase in the popular mind. The President realizes the confusion growing out of it, and proposes a possible method of correcting it: "If, for all time, we could drop the phrase 'higher criticism,' and substitute the phrase 'literary study' it is probable that there would not be any serious difference of opinion on this question. And yet it is true that higher criticism is only 'literary study'."

      Has not the President here, in his eagerness to be conciliatory, forgotten to be candid? Can he possibly mean that the expression, "literary study," includes all of higher criticism? What has he done with historical criticism, the very branch of higher criticism in the [234] pursuit of which he has himself given the greatest offense to his generation? Has he forgotten his essays on the early chapters of Genesis, in which he proved to his own satisfaction that these "stories," as he called them, are all unhistorical? And if his extreme desire to minimize our objections to the kind of criticism in which he indulges has led him thus to merge it all into the literary branch of the system, why does he go still further, and make a change in the established phraseology from "literary criticism" to "literary study"? Is he playing the game of the spider and the fly?

      The gauze which he seeks to spread over the criticism which religious editors are fighting is too thin. These editors are not to be deceived by mere words and titles. When the writings of certain critics lead to the discrediting of large portions of the Bible, and bring those who accept them to conclusions in conflict with plain statements of Christ and the apostles, the editors of religious papers that are truly religious will not cease their philippics because of a new and innocent name applied to the poison. Arsenic is arsenic, even if you call it sugar.

      Having thus minimized higher criticism, and reduced it to nothing but innocent literary study, our President proceeds to deprecate harsh treatment of those who engage in it:

      The literary study of the Old Testament has had a long and honorable career. The students, or, to use the other term, the critics, have been for the most part good, pious and honest men. Their only desire has been to find the truth, and to accept it when found. In the great majority of cases these students have shown a kind spirit and a calm judgment. The men, as men, do not deserve the harsh and unkind statements which are often made concerning them.

      Undoubtedly this is true of purely literary study, and [235] of the literary students of the Scriptures; for in the broad sense of the terms here employed all the good and pious commentators and expository writers of past Christian ages are included. But what of those critics from whom President Harper has learned the kind of criticism which has arrayed the editors of religious papers in this country against him and his university? He can not deny the fact, and he ought not to disguise it, that the system originated in the brains of unbelievers and has been brought to maturity by men who deny everything supernatural in both the Old Testament and the New. These men, however amiable any of them may be, are enemies of the cross of Christ, and they have worked out their theories for the purpose of overthrowing the Christian faith. If President Harper is in possession of a single argument in support of his theory respecting the early chapters of Genesis which did not spring from this source, or if there is a single element of his theory which he did not learn directly or indirectly from this class of critics, he would do himself credit by publishing it to the world.

[SEBC 233-236]