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PREFACE

HE chapters forming the content of this volume appeared, primarily, as a

series of articles in the columns of The Sunday School Times, and are not written from a sectarian or denominational standpoint. The principles and propositions discussed are fundamental. The differences which raise the issues considered, show a line of cleavage that runs through all denominations.

In May, 1923, the Presbyterian General Assembly (North) issued a pronouncement on five of the questions which are considered in these chapters, and the position taken by the Presbyterian Church at that time represents the views of a large majority of the rank and file, not only of its own communion, but of all the Evangelical Churches, and of the Catholic Church as well. It is the same moreover, as that taken in the same month by the Southern Baptist Church in its National Convention at Kansas City.

In November of the same year, the Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church met at

Dallas, Texas, and reiterated their acceptance of the Apostles' Creed as the foundation of their Church's belief, specially emphasizing the Virgin Birth.

In the Northern Baptist Church the same questions have arisen, and the Baptist Bible Union of America has been formed to give expression to the views of those of that denomination who hold to "the faith once for all delivered unto the saints."

The Southern Methodist Church is agitated by the same issues, as is shown by the controversy raised by modernist lectures delivered at Junalaska under the auspices of the General Sunday School Board.

In the Northern Methodist Church, the issue has been accentuated recently by the enforced retirement of one of its ministers on account of his liberal views. Most of the theological seminaries of the Northern Methodist Church describe themselves as liberal.

In the Christian Church the lines are being drawn between those who call themselves conservatives and those who style themselves liberals or modernists, and the Congregational Church is not entirely free from dissension on this subject.

The conflict of opinion has even reached the foreign missionary fields. The Bible Union

of China has been organized to protect the Bible from the attacks of liberal missionaries. The Bible Churchman's Missionary Society of England has just been organized to defend the Bible from the attacks made upon it by one of the leading missionary societies of that country. Missionary work in India is being embarrassed by the same division as to the authority of the Bible.

The Church papers in all denominations are taking sides, each charging the other side with menacing the Church's welfare. While the Presbyterian Church is reiterating a declaration made by the Assembly in 1910 and 1916, that "It is an essential doctrine of the Word of God and our standards that the Holy Spirit did so inspire, guide, and move the writers of Holy Scriptures as to keep them from error," the editor of one of the leading papers of that church says, "God only knows how many souls that folly ruined."

I may add that the question of pre-millennialism or post-millennialism does not enter into this discussion. Both schools rely upon the Bible as their authority; it is not a question of inspiration but of interpretation. Both realize that Christ's Second Coming depends upon His First Coming; unless the Bible is inspired, He did not come as a Saviour at all; He was

not divine; had no preexistence; was not God incarnate in the flesh; was not conceived by the Holy Ghost; performed no miracles and never rose from the dead. In like fashion, the story of man's creation and origin rests now and always on the authority of the Word of God.

It is time for the spiritual forces of the nation and the world to unite in opposing the teaching of evolution, not as an unproven hypothesis, but as if it were an established fact; all who give a spiritual interpretation to life are vitally interested in combatting materialistic influences and in defending belief in God, the foundation of all religious faith. The future of the race is at stake. All Christians, of every sect and denomination, should unite in defense of the Bible as the inspired and infallible Word of God and in defense of the Bible's Christ, Saviour as well as Example and Teacher.

As modernism attacks all that is vital in the Christian religion, the real issue presented is: Shall Christianity remain Christian?

W. J. BRYAN.

Miami, Fla.

The cartoons in this book are from "Christian Cartoons by E. J. Pace. Copyrighted by The Sunday School Times Co., Philadelphia, Pa.