It is already known to most of our readers that an organization under the title above given was effected last winter. A convention held in New York City during the first week of May, in which addresses were delivered by a number of the most eminent scholars in the United States, first arrested the public attention to its existence and purposes.

      Both the secular and religious papers of our Eastern cities gave its proceedings special notices, some of them favorable and some unfavorable. The comments of the [451] Independent are the most unfavorable which I have seen, and I devote this article to a consideration of them. The editor says:

      The form of application for membership in the League thus defines the conclusion which must be reached by the studies of its membership: "Believing in the divine origin, inspiration, integrity and supreme authority of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, I desire to become a member of the American Bible League."

      To say that this conclusion "must be reached by the studies of members" is an unfair representation. It implies that these members are to enter upon a course of studies with the conclusion which they are to reach dictated in advance; but the statement quoted from the League defines the members as having already reached their conclusions before applying for membership. The latter position is a sensible one, and is one which is common to persons applying for membership in any kind of league; whereas, the position ascribed to them by the Independent is too absurd to be thought of by sensible men. The attitude of the Independent toward the League is more fully indicated in the following paragraph:

      The Bible League does not represent a healthy or courageous attitude towards the Bible. The Bible needs study, not defense. Students of the Bible are not its enemies, but its friends. The proper sentiment toward any investigation of the Bible is not that of hostility, but of co-operation and friendship. To attack the higher critics or the believers in evolution as enemies of the Bible, is a suicidal kind of war. It is the most effective way of discrediting the Bible.

      There are four statements in this brief paragraph to which I invite separate attention. First, the charge that the League does not represent a healthy and courageous attitude toward the Bible; because the Bible needs study, [452] not defense. When and how did this editor learn that the Bible needs study and not defense? Has he never defended it himself? Have all the books written in defense of it through past ages been written in vain? Were none needed? The Bible is assailed by ingenious sophists and by men of such general learning as to turn thousands of people away from it. When assailants of the Bible are so numerous, powerful and learned, is it a cowardly thing to undertake its defense? Surely this statement was made by the editor in the hurry of writing an editorial without serious reflection.

      In the second place, he says that students of the Bible are not its enemies, but its friends. Everybody knows that this depends on the class of students to which reference is made. The editor knows full well that multitudes of men have studied the Bible for the sole purpose of finding fault with it; that many of its students have been its bitterest enemies. He knows that the real friends of the Bible have always found it necessary to defend it against some of the students of it.

      In the third place, he says that the proper sentiment towards any investigation of the Bible is not that of hostility, but that of friendship. According to this, when an infidel investigates the Bible for the purpose of destroying its influence with the people, the proper sentiment toward him is one of friendship and co-operation. But if the Independent co-operated with Colonel Ingersoll during his lifetime in his "Mistakes of Moses," the fact has faded from my memory.

      In the fourth place, he says that to attack the higher critics or the believers in evolution as enemies of the Bible is a suicidal kind of war, and it is the most effective way of discrediting the Bible. If the critics and evolutionists were correct in their positions, to attack them [453] might prove suicidal to the man who makes the attack, and it would certainly discredit him as a logician; but how it can be the most effective way of discrediting the Bible, is seen, I think, only by the editor. If he has made this remarkable discovery, he ought to exhibit the reality of it to the members of the Bible League; for his mere assertion of it is not apt to have much weight with them, especially as he belongs to the party they are attacking.

      In another paragraph the editor demands:

      Why should any lover of the truth be afraid of investigation, no matter how radical? Who ever knew truth worsted in a fair encounter? If these men do not think conclusions reached by nine-tenths of our Bible scholars and ninety-nine hundredths of our scientific men are true, let them meet the enemy in the fair field of discussion.

      This is a very strange demand to make in the face of the fact that this is precisely what the leaders of this League are doing, and what they propose to continue doing until the truth shall be vindicated.

      In the next paragraph the editor resorts to innuendo by saying:

      We do not like to say it, but there is a look of a big publishing and financial scheme behind this League.

      I sincerely hope that the big publishing scheme here hinted at will prove a reality, and I shall not regret if some persons find it a good financial scheme. I think this will be no worse than if the publishers of the Independent shall be able to make their enterprise a big financial scheme. He thinks that the League contemplates the supplying of a million and a half Sunday-school teachers with primers, and that they may finally publish some works as elaborate as Hastings' "Bible Dictionary" and [454] Cheyne's "Encyclopædia Biblica." He sees no fault in the big publishing schemes which have brought out these famous works, but it fills him with distress to anticipate a publication of works equally elaborate in refutation of these mischievous volumes. It is devoutly to be hoped that his worst fears in this respect will be realized.

      The last criticism that this editor makes upon the League is that "they confessedly take positions, not as investigators, but as advocates." It would seem from this that he objects to the position of an advocate. He would have a man spend all his life investigating without reaching any conclusion of which he can be so certain as to advocate it. He ought to know, and if he does not know it now he will probably live to learn it, that there are men who have already investigated the question of "the divine origin, inspiration, integrity, and supreme authority of the Scriptures," and are now prepared to advocate these characteristics of the Bible in no hesitating tones. They have also so thoroughly investigated the positions and arguments of the destructive critics that they are prepared to make aggressive warfare against them.

      Comments on the convention by several secular papers are quoted by the Literary Digest. The New York Sun thinks that "in describing as a 'crisis' the present situation in Christendom regarding the Bible, the League does not exaggerate." The Sun says:

      If this subversive and destructive criticism was confined to avowed opponents of religion and the church, as it was formerly, it might not be an enemy dangerous enough to require the formation of a Christian league against it; but now it has affected profoundly the thought, and radically changed the view, of a large part of Christendom itself.

      The New York Globe expresses surprise that some [455] such organization as the American Bible League has not been formed before.

      The Boston Transcript expresses the fear that the launching of the Bible League will merely stir up controversy, and suggests that before the summer is past the country may be plunged in bitter religious strife. It says:

      The League comes in at this time and brings controversy with it. The effect will be, it is predicted, that the higher critics will fight back.

      To "fight back" is the very thing which the friends of the League want the critics to do. Hitherto they have been laying their eggs like the ostrich, and leaving them to, their fate. If they can be provoked to the defense of their positions, the people will all the sooner detect their sophistry. Which of them has replied to Baxter's review of Wellhausen, or to any of Professor Green's critical works? When has even the warlike Professor Briggs taken up a formal defense of himself against the many refutations of his books and essays? If the work of this Bible League shall bring these men, with their boasted scholarship, out into the open field of controversy in which blow shall be exchanged for blow, we shall soon see which way the tide of battle will turn.

      Not the least significant agent in the predicted strife will doubtless be the Bible Student and Teacher, published by the League, which has already begun to make the fur fly, and whose sledge-hammer blows have not yet been resented by the critics. The gauntlet lies at their feet, and we are waiting to see when they will take it up. It is to be hoped that they have the courage with which the Transcript gives them credit. [456]

[SEBC 451-456]