Professor Drummond has undertaken to show us what this is. "We have been accustomed," he says, "to be told that the greatest thing in the religious world is Faith. That great word has been the keynote for centuries of the popular religion; and we have easily learned to look upon it as the greatest thing in the world. Well, we are wrong. If we have been told that, we may miss the mark. I have taken you, in the chapter which I have just read (i Cor. 13:), to Christianity at its source ; and there we have seen, ' The greatest of these is love.' It is not an oversight. Paul was speaking of faith just a moment before. He says, ' If I have all faith, so that I can remove mountains, and have no love, I am nothing.' So far from forgetting, he deliberately contrasts them. 'Now abideth faith, hope, love,' and without a moment's hesitation the decision falls, ' The greatest of these is love.' "

This is a fair summary, in his own language, of Prof. Drummond's views on the question he discusses. That those views are erroneous – lamentably erroneous – it will not be difficult to show. We cannot wrest any scripture from its context without altering its whole meaning; this is just what Prof. Drummond has done in this case. St. Paul, in this chapter, is speaking of the extent of the duration of love ; many other things, he says, as prophecies, tongues, knowledge, shall cease and vanish away:love never χπίπτει – falls off or ceases. Faith will fade into sight, hope into fruition; but love remains eternal. That this is the true sense of the whole chapter is further shown from the closing verse :" And now," says the apostle, "abideth (μέvει – continueth) faith, hope, love:these three, but the greater of these is love." It is to be noted that the apostle does not say, the greatest (μέγιστη), but μείςωv – " the greater," – that is, not the greatest in all respects, but greater in the restricted aspect of continuity only. It is to be noted also that in the Revised Version this distinction between the comparative and superlative is marked by the translation "greater" being given in the margin as an alternative reading.

Prof. Drummond appears to have an uneasy suspicion that the continuity of love is really the ground of the precedence given to it by the apostle over faith and hope. In his closing chapter, entitled " The Defense," he seems unconsciously to admit this. St. Paul's reason, he says, is "a very remarkable one. In a word, it is this :It lasts." But this apparent dawn of light is soon clouded over, for a few pages further on, more suo, as those who are familiar with his self-contradictions in his " Natural Law in the Spiritual World" will recognize, he says, "Some think the time may come when two of these three things will pass away,-faith into sight, hope into fruition. Paul does not say so. We know but little now about the conditions of the life to come. But what is certain is that love must last. . . . You will give yourselves to many things:give yourselves first to love."

This brings us face to face with the unscriptural error running through the whole of Prof. Drummond's address. Luther thought-inspired Paul was certain-that God's greatest gift to man was faith :to be justified by faith was the keynote of the Reformation, and has been for three centuries the central point of all evangelical teaching. When the jailer at Philippi cried to Paul and Silas, what must I do to be saved?" they replied, not Give yourself first to love, but "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." "Without faith," the apostle says, "it is impossible to please God." Neither love nor hope, nor any gift or grace, can be a substitute for faith. Faith is first of all,-the very foundation of all:love, and all other Christian graces are simply its necessary and inevitable outcome and fruit. It is very acceptable to God that we should please Him by loving Him ; but without faith first, it is impossible to please Him.
Our Lord Himself set this great truth before us in the clearest light in His reply to the lawyer who, tempting Him, asked Him what he should do to inherit eternal life. "What is written in the law?-how readest thou?" said our Lord. And he, the lawyer, answering, said, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself." Now, mark the Lord's reply :" Thou hast answered right:this do, and thou shalt live." And mark, also, how diametrically opposed are the teachings of our Lord and those of Prof. Drummond's address. Our Lord knew that neither the lawyer nor any other of our fallen race could keep the law; His own words tell us that "by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight." He simply used the law as a schoolmaster to bring the inquirer to Himself.

This is the true gospel-the blessed evangel of Christ and the Scriptures; but Prof. Drummond preaches another gospel which is not another. Listen to his version of it :" You remember the profound remark which Paul made elsewhere,-'Love is the fulfilling of the law.' Did you ever think what he meant by that ? In those days men were working their passage to heaven by keeping the Ten Commandments, and the hundred and ten other commandments which they had manufactured out of them. Christ said, I will show you a more simple way. If you do one thing, you will do these hundred and ten things without ever thinking about them. If you love, you will unconsciously fulfill the whole law." Now, this is the mere substitution of one kind of "doing" for another. Listen further to another statement of Prof. Drummond ; speaking of the patience, kindness, humility, sincerity, and other graces enumerated by the apostle, he says, " Now, the business of our lives is to have these things fitted into our characters. That is the supreme work to which we need to address ourselves in this world -to learn to love. Life is not a holiday, but an education ; and the one eternal lesson for us all is, how better we can love. What makes a man a good cricketer? Practice. What makes a man a good artist, a good sculptor, a good musician ? Practice. What makes a man a good linguist, a good stenographer ? Practice. What makes a man a good man ? Practice. Nothing else."

Not so teaches St. Paul. He tells the Romans that the righteousness of God-that is, God's gift of righteousness-is, "by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe."

And to the Galatians he says, " So, then, they,"not those who have been long practicing the art of loving, but "they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham."

Notwithstanding some isolated passages in Prof. Drummond's address which appear to be more in accord with evangelical sentiments, the general drift and tendency of the work is, to elevate love, the fruit, above faith, the cause,-to put the fruits of faith in the place of faith itself, which is the one only cause revealed to us from which love and every other grace can flow. It is none other than a complete reversal of the gospel plan of salvation.

To what straits a man may be driven to bolster up a false position, Prof. Drummond furnishes us with a singular example. "Nor is this letter to the Corinthians," he says, "peculiar in singling out love as the summum bonum. The masterpieces of Christianity are agreed upon it:Peter says, 'Above all things, have fervent love among yourselves.' 'Above all things' " That is, doubtless, among the various warnings and exhortations he was giving, suited to the peculiar circumstances of that day, he gives special emphasis to that grace which the bitter opposition of heathens and unbelieving Jews would be likely to lead them to forget.
But if Prof. Drummond builds an argument on St. Peter's exhortation in this passage, what force does he attribute to that of St. James, "Above all things, my brethren, swear not at all " ? Is abstinence from swearing the summum bonum ? It must be that if Prof. Drummond's use of St. Peter's exhortation is warranted,-that is, it must be as sound an inference in one case as in the other. But it is equally unsound in both cases. Both St. Peter and St. James used that expressive form of appeal only in connection with the circumstances referred to in the contexts in which they respectively appear. There could not possibly be two gifts or graces equally entitled to the position of the highest or greatest good.

It is not probable, however, that a difficulty of this kind, springing from the incompatibility of his views with scriptural statements, would occasion much trouble to Prof. Drummond ; he has a short way of solving such difficulties. Some time since, he delivered a course of lectures on Sunday afternoons at the Duke of Westminster's residence. The subject of one was "Christianity Looked at from the Stand-point of Evolution." Now, the account of the creation of the universe in six days out of nothing-chaos-is utterly irreconcilable with the theory of Evolution. Prof. Drummond disposed of this difficulty very briefly-by sweeping away the scriptural account as a mere instructive fable. I quote from the report of this lecture which appeared in The Christian Commonwealth, and which I have never heard that Prof. Drummond has repudiated.

"In the course of his lecture, the Professor said,' Most of us have accepted the doctrine of evolution in some form or other. It cannot be proved yet, but that does not matter much (!) Great things and great thoughts fill the mind and make their impression. . . . The book of Genesis must be regarded as presenting truth to children's minds,' and the Professor illustrated this idea by George Macdonald's poem, 'The Baby,'-not literally true, but true for the child. ' So Moses gave truth in the form of a poem. If you say it is a scientific book, I give it up; but if you regard it as a poem, then I can deal with it. One great difficulty was the Fall. Theology gives us its version; and it appears, after all, not a fall, but a rise. . . .

"'Another class of difficulty was that of accepting miracles. No need of accepting any miracle but the Resurrection, and this science makes possible, and even probable.'" (!)

" Irreverence " is but a feeble term to describe such presumptuous handling of God's Word.

Can its author be trusted to teach us what is "the greatest thing in the world," or, indeed, any thing which depends upon the plenary inspiration of Scripture for its foundation ? P. Carteret Hill.