the necessity of which we are now speaking. It is not right that these institutions should be brought down to the low level of mere secular seats of learning. College presidents and college professors are called upon, in view of the present tendencies, to humble themselves before God, and to ask, why it is that a larger number of their pupils are not controlled by the higher ambitions impelling to grapple with the hard problems and the hard realities of home missionary work. The wine-drinking and worldly alumni of these institutions should not be allowed to control by outside pressure, as to a considerable extent they are now aiming to do, the election of college officers and professors. Nor should this class be allowed, as is now largely the case, to be, in the various alumni societies, the chief representatives of their Alma Mater.

But no one class of men can bear the whole responsibility for the present decadence of interest in the work of ministering to the wants of the country churches in the land. There has been a general decay of public sentiment upon the point, arising largely from a failure to appreciate its importance and its hopefulness. We have but duly to reflect upon the problems to have the fire kindle in our bones. Any man in his calm senses would say that the winning of a hundred souls to Christ was a more satisfactory accomplishment and a higher type of success than the accumulation of a hundred thousand dollars worth of precarious securities, and yet but a small proportion even of men of marked ability who endeavor to attain the latter end are successful. On the other hand, scarcely any young man of even moderate ability can fail, after proper preparation, to find a neglected country field of Christian labor, where by patient effort in the lines marked out by heavenly appointed means he can win more than a hundred souls back to paths of righteousness and lead them. to seats of everlasting glory. And among these hundred stars of his crown it is more than likely there will be some of special brilliancy who shall be a guiding light to thousands more.

The great need of our country churches is of pastors who shall enter heartily into the work before them, and who shall properly appreciate their privileges and magnify their calling. To one who fully understands the opportunities of even a small country parish, the general hankering of the college graduate for business, and of the theological graduate for a city parish, is unaccountable; for, as is well known, nine-tenths of the business men fail of success, and, as we have seen, the country parish affords a much clearer field for influence than the city parish. The seductions of the city and the very bustle of its activities militate against the permanent influence of the preacher. The audience goes out from the sound of the metropolitan preacher's voice to listen to a very Babel of voices of every description and upon every class of subjects, and to have their eyes dazzled with the display of those who have become suddenly rich. Calm reflection is almost impossible, even for the youngest. But how different in the country, where the educated minister can by his mental attainments easily lead the thought of the whole community, and, with the young, follow up the impressions of one week with those of the next, and thus secure the cumulative force of continuous effort! The opportunity for study, also, which is open to the pastor of the country church, as compared with that of the city pastor, is of the very greatest importance both to his present and to his future work. Unlike the lawyer or the physician, the pastor is at the very beginning of his calling thrust into the complete performance of his arduous duties. He must prepare as many sermons from week to week at the beginning of his labors as during any later portion. The demands of the Sabbath-school, of pastoral visitation, and of the weekly lecture or prayer-meeting are the same at the beginning as at the end of the pastoral office. Whereas, with the lawyer and physician, the first few years of practice are likely to give time for reflection and study clients hesitate about committing their case

to a novice, and patients seek experience in their physician. Happy is the pastor whom Providence permits to begin the arduous work of his calling in some country parish, where he can command the situation rather than have the situation command him, and where in comparative quiet he may go over again, amid the practical affairs of life, the great themes of the gospel which he is to preach!

Much more might be said of the opportunity afforded in the country parish for the more protracted and profounder methods of study which are ever in demand in solving the deepest problems of human thought. It is a well-known fact that the deepest and most influential theological thought of New England has been done by country pastors. Such were Charles Backus, Lyman Beecher, Joseph Bellamy, Asa Burton, Jonathan Edwards, Justin Edwards, Nathaniel Emmons, Thomas Hooker, Samuel Hopkins, John Norton, John Smalley, Solomon Stoddard, Nathan Strong, Bennett Tyler, Eleazar Wheelock, Stephen West, John Wheelright, and John Wise. There is a mistaken notion, becoming increasingly prevalent, that successful study can be prosecuted only in the vicinity of large libraries. This depends upon what kind of study one has in view. For the prosecution of philosophical and theological studies, a comparatively small range of books if well-selected will furnish all the essential material. With one's Greek and Hebrew Bibles, with the lexicons and grammars and Bible dictionary, a few well-selected commentaries and systems of theology, and a not large collection of other books of reference, within the means of almost any country pastor, he is provided with nearly all he needs. He cannot by any means exhaust the possibilities of successful study with such helps, in the first ten years of his ministry. Besides, in the present progress of our civilization, libraries and literary centres are springing up in every part of the land, and so are accessible to him if he is wise enough to reverse

the custom of the city pastor and get variety by spending his vacation in the city, while the city pastor is in the country. Books, too, are now attainable from some of the libraries by mail, and thus the position of laborers in these diverse fields is being equalized.

But, after all, these are not the great considerations. They are only secondary. The appeal of the country population is to the Christian heart of the college graduate. The ideal of our civilization can be realized only when there is a highly educated preacher of the gospel, independent in thought, within reach of and in contact with every outlying neighborhood in the land. The appeal is that of the lost sheep on the mountain side, and whoever shall hear and heed that appeal cannot fail to return richly laden with its rewards.

ARTICLE VII.

PRIMEVAL CHRONOLOGY.

BY THE REV. PROFESSOR WILLIAM HENRY GREEN, D. D.,
PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.

THE question of the possible reconciliation of the results of scientific inquiry respecting the antiquity of man and the age of the world with the Scripture chronology has been long and earnestly debated. On the one hand, scientists, deeming them irreconcilable, have been led to distrust the divine authority of the Scriptures; and, on the other hand, believers in the divine word have been led to look upon the investigations of science with an unfriendly eye, as though they were antagonistic to religious faith. In my reply to Bishop Colenso in 1863, I had occasion to examine the method and structure of the biblical genealogies, and incidentally ventured the remark that herein lay the solution of the whole matter. I said: "There is an element of uncertainty in a computation of time which rests upon genealogies, as the sacred chronology so largely does. Who is to certify us that the antediluvian and ante-Abrahamic genealogies have not been condensed in the same manner as the post-Abrahamic?

. . . Our current chronology is based upon the prima facie impression of these genealogies. But if these recently discovered indications of the antiquity of man, over which scientific circles are now so excited, shall, when carefully inspected and thoroughly weighed, demonstrate all that any have imagined they might demonstrate, what then? They will simply show that the popular 1 The Pentateuch Vindicated from the Aspersions of Bishop Colenso, p. 128 footnote.