Upon his return from Russia John Haynes Holmes reports to the press that "Christianity" in Europe is in a bad way; that the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Protestant churches are being "driven together in confused retreat before the on-sweeping forces of triumphant atheism," and that

ATHEISM IS SWEEPING GERMANY TODAY

among the finest younger generation he has ever seen. Probably Mr. Holmes exaggerates, but, even so, any semblance of disaster such as he reports is alarming. But let us seek its cause.

When Mr. Darwin laid down his "hypothesis" seventy years ago, Christians cried out that it was atheistic in principle and would prove destructive in practice. But "the Higher Criticism" succeeded in making room for it in the church seminaries, with the result that today many of the clergy hold it. These are termed Modernists.

But when the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy was at its height six years ago, representatives of the latter protested against the charge of conducting the youth to atheism. They declared that, far from so doing, they were safeguarding them from such a peril; that they understood and sympathized with them, and by training and outlook were able to serve them as Fundamentalists could not; that if the latter would cease from clamor and observe what was transpiring before their eyes, they would discover that the men they were traducing were doing a safe and sane work among a generation that understood their message because expressed in modern terms.

Let us then appraise the results. Mr. Holmes will point them out to us.

Passing over his remarks regarding Roman and Greek disaster, we will consider his report of Protestant disaster. He says:"Atheism is sweeping Germany today among the finest younger generation I have ever seen." Heretofore that country had been lauded by Modernists as the best exponent of their theories. But Mr. Holmes, as an observer upon the ground, assures us that its youth is being swept into atheism. Of course, he has the temerity to blame this upon orthodox Lutheranism, affirming that the swamped generation "has no use whatsoever for the Lutheran Church, which cannot speak its language and makes no attempt to." But he conveniently forgets that the orthodox are invited to look on and see what a fine job Modernism is doing, seeing that it does speak the language Lutheranism cannot speak. Nevertheless, he is the reporter who reveals that Modernism at home, and speaking the language of the lost generation, could not save it. He exhibits that generation engulfed beneath the shadow of schools reputed as its guardians.

Why did not Modernism save this generation from the abyss? It could not, because it had no message with substance in it. When put to the test, it was revealed as a system that had mortally injured the young, turning their ears from the truth, and making them susceptible to stark atheism. Young Germany, imbibing its theories, proceeds as directed and arrives in atheism.

None are less astonished at the Holmes' report than Christians (even while discounting its wholesale character), for they know that the repudiation of God's testimony to His Son in pulpits formerly dedicated to its maintenance is the seed-sowing of atheism. This report reveals the common-sense of Thomas Huxley long ago when, as one of his biographers says, "His intellectual honesty caused him to sympathize less with the 'half-and-half sentimental school,' represented by divines of the type of Dean Farrar, than 'with thorough-going orthodoxy,' as represented by the late Mr. Spurgeon." For, although a rejecter of God's gospel, Huxley readily discerned that the new theology was a thing of sentimentality without the semblance of substance. But Christians see now, what they foresaw seventy years ago, that it is an atheist-producing thing. But that is not all. They see it at work before their eyes as a fostering agency of

CRIME AGAINST THE STATE.

In these days when many of the young are being enticed to shady conduct by tales of a wealthy "business underworld," the response to this glamor is in great part traceable to the absence of that instruction which our fathers received, the conscience of the young having become dulled by a systematic repudiation of the government of God as revealed in the gospel of His grace. That gospel proclaimed by the majority of preachers in the successive generations of Whitefield, Finney, and Moody, is now confined to narrower limits. It may be replied that some very good gospel is still being preached; but it is also true that a large percentage of pulpits that proclaimed it fifty years ago, subvert it today. And in result a vast population, otherwise fairly well informed, are steeped in darkness as to the terms of the gospel, to say nothing of ignorance of its power. The church seminaries sending out fewer and fewer speakers with the knowledge of God and with ability to address the human conscience, no longer secure those steadfast audiences that exercised a restraining influence upon the trend toward crime. Need we be surprised, then, that many of our young men and women are becoming increasingly responsive to the lure of a treacherous underworld? The theology that produces atheists in reference to God, cannot produce law-abiding citizens regarding the State. Nor can there be permanent recovery from present lawlessness while the gospel that shows the individual's proper relations with God is set at nought.

WHAT GOD PROPOSES IN THE GOSPEL

is the recovery of lawless sinners to Himself. This recovery is necessary because "sin is lawlessness" (1 John 3:4, N. T.). Let us explain this by an old illustration. As the sun is the center of the solar system and controls its movements, the planets move in their orbits in obedience to the power of that great central body. That is law, or rule. But if a planet could get out of control and take an independent path, it would start upon a lawless course and head toward destruction. That is what our parents did in Eden; they rejected divine control, and began to make their own movements; they became lawless.
But the sinless Son of God came into the world to save sinners, to save us. This He could only do by maintaining the rights of God, by meeting our liabilities and bringing us under divine control by subjecting us to Himself. Thus He took our place vicariously upon the cross, enduring the wrath of God against sin, and ending our history in His death for us. Consequently He is presented to man as Lord-"He is Lord of all" (Acts 10:36). But mankind is called upon to acknowledge this, to submit to Him, to confess Him as Lord and thus come under His beneficent control. Otherwise there is no deliverance from lawlessness nor escape from destruction. Thus it is written:"If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus [Jesus as Lord], and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Rom. 10:9). R. J. Reid