but literally all that directly touches it: the "advocate" and "the destroying the works of the devil" are hardly an exception. His apostolic brethren gathered up illustrations from human jurisprudence and forensic procedure: St. John takes us back to the temple from which our religion came. But it is hardly necessary to say that he has left very much of the temple phraseology of atonement unused. Only two or three sublime ideas express all his mind: blood, propitiation, taking away sin, issuing from love and ending in life, are almost all. Altar, sacrifice, high-priest, holiest, sprinkling, and many more are as absent as if Christianity had so learned the substance as to comparatively neglect the shadows.

One thing, however, is stamped upon the whole document: that the atonement enters essentially and vitally into the entire economy of the new life. There is no book of the New Testament which makes the propitiation of Christ so absolutely allpervading it is the beginning and the ending, and fills up all the interval. In other books the redeeming act appears here and there; in this it is every-where. In other books there are ecclesiastical discussions apart, and chapters of ethical applica tion; here every topic is connected with the mission of the Son to save mankind, and all duties are enforced by the argument "herein is love." The blood is sprinkled in the first paragraph, and it flows in the last. That first paragraph announced the manifestation of the Word of Life; but we find that he "came in the flesh" for the propitiation of God for sin; and the conclusion of the whole matter is, that "he came by water and blood," as if his coming was not perfect until he reached his goal, the cross. But we may hope to show this more fully by a paraphrase blending our seven testimonies

into one.

The design of the manifestation of the Word, as preached in the Gospel, is to restore us to fellowship with God. Sin has kept us in the outer darkness, but the blood of the Son of God incarnate in our nature avails for the cleansing away of all human sin. That blood, however, was shed on earth once and forever. Its abiding virtue is represented by the person of the Advocate in heaven, through whose intercession the faithful Father forgives the sin and cleanses the defilement. of all who ask him, even of those who, once pardoned, have

sinned again. He was manifested on earth sinless to bear our sins, and his sinlessness is the pattern to which the virtue of his cleansing blood conforms us. That work the Saviour is carrying on, and will perfect; so entirely perfect it that the works of the devil in the souls of his people shall be altogether abolished and done away. The source of the atonement is love; and the love which rescues us from sin and Satan must be within us the spring of perfect devotion to each other. We must be one with Christ in the love of his self-sacrifice; and our whole life must be a reflection of his charity. The eternal nature of God provided the Son of his love to be the sufficient propitiation on account of sin; the virtue of his death and intercession restores to us our forfeited life, saving us from the consequences of all our sins. But this virtue is not simply in the union of the sinless Son with our nature. He came in the flesh that through his death we might have the cleansing virtue of his blood and the life-giving virtue of his Spirit. Witness the last testimony of God given from the dead side of the Redeemer, whence issued the united though not mingled streams of water and blood.

There is something unspeakably solemn in the appeal of this last page of the Bible to the testimony of God concerning his Son, the atonement, and the life. And the force of that appeal applies to the whole of the epistle which thus closes. To us it seems as if the Holy Ghost would end his inspiring ministry at the very cross, and teach us there the eternal truth that we have our life in the Son through his propitiation. Whether LIFE OF PROPITIATION is written in larger letters we can hardly say; they are both alike clear and distinct, and certainly not the one without the other. Much of our current theology seeks to disjoin these accepting life through the Son, but rejecting the atonement by which he " came to bring it. Our Lord says to us in this final testimony, "I am the Propitiation and the Life."

EDITORIAL MISCELLANY.

CURRENT TOPICS.

UNIVERSITIES VERSUS COLLEGES.

ALL who have given attention to current discussions on education have seen signs of unsettling the old and time-honored courses of study which have till recently been accounted requisite for a "liberal education." That there should be changes in these things is only natural, as a result of the changes that have occurred in almost every thing pertaining to learning and to the affairs of society. The range of human knowledge has been very much enlarged during the not remote past, and the educated man of the present day must be much more widely learned than was one of the same nominal class three hundred, two hundred, or even one hundred years ago. These facts, therefore, compel the most conservative to consent to certain modifications of the prescribed courses of collegiate studies, and their adaptations to the new conditions; and they also show reasons why the requirements for college degrees should be much larger than formerly.

Our college system, it is well known, grew out of the conventual schools of the Dark Ages, and even since the revival of learning in Europe it has been the principal agency for the promotion of the best forms of education: and though it has preserved its essential identity, it has nevertheless submitted to new adjustments as these have been called for by the changes brought about by time, and by the wants of the ever-changing conditions of society. American colleges, as they were projected in colonial times, were copied after those of the mother-country; but of necessity they began at a comparatively low grade, and they also lacked the compactness of organization and the social articulation of the colleges of the old countries, which were the outgrowths of a more advanced civilization, and usually were appendages of the State Churches. As by virtue of the accepted universal liberty in all things ecclesiastical the number of independent sects have been multiplied beyond all reasonable necessity; so by a like liberality in respect to educational institutions, there have come to be the projects, and often the feeble beginnings, of almost innumerable schools claiming to be of collegiate grade, some of the least considerable ones calling themselves "universities," though often, as to their courses of actual instruction, very little more than primary schools. And yet, with all their diversities among themselves, there has prevailed among all such institutions a remarkable unity of general character and design, substantially following, in respect to both the studies pursued and the methods of their administration, the forms and examples of our oldest and best

American colleges. Nearly all of them have made the mathematics and the Latin and Greek languages their staple studies, with some attention to English grammar and rhetoric, and a very little to philosophy and the elements of social science and natural history. And from these common elements, with incidental variations and additions, the college system of the country has advanced to its present status. The mathematics and the two classical languages are still the foundation-stones of the somewhat advanced superstructure of our college studies, though upon these much of modern learning has been superimposed.

Our college system, as now developed, is largely a home production. It is in many things not unlike the English and Scotch systems, as seen in their so-called universities, and yet the differences are quite as marked as the points of likeness; and it is entirely diverse, in form and kind and purpose, from the German university system. These things should not be lost sight of in the discussion of the wants and capabilities of our American colleges. Great changes have been made, and still greater and radical changes are talked of; in what directions and how far these should be carried are practical questions of not inconsiderable interest. Respecting them wise men will make haste slowly.

The average American college of the current century is a school to which youth and young men of fourteen years old and upward resort for study and instruction. The course of study usually extends over four years; a fixed grade of preparatory training is required before admission, including the usual primary and high-school studies, with a mastery of the elements of arithmetic and plain geometry, and the first principles of algebra, and also a well-advanced introductory course in Latin and Greek. Of the four collegiate years, the first two are chiefly devoted to the three fundamental studies, with, however, more or less attention given to other departments. In nearly all cases the studies of these two years have been obligatory upon every student who proposed to pursue the course required for the regular degrees. For the latter two years some liberty of selection is usually allowed, though in most cases nearly the same subjects are pursued by all. Attendance upon recitations and lectures is required, and a register of each student's standing in his class is kept, ascertained by the record of his recitations, and by special examinations, and a minimum grade is predetermined, which must be reached in order to advancement from a lower to a higher class: and because these examinations usually occur only once a year, the full time of four years becomes a kind of necessary condition to the completion of the course required before graduation.

With this general plan our American colleges have proceeded with only slight and incidental modifications till comparatively recently, and indeed scarcely any have as yet departed from the methods just indicated; but all of the larger and better colleges have very considerably increased the matter of their teaching, and a few of the principal ones have added departments and lectureships that approximate to the character of universities.

And now the demand is heard in various quarters for still greater

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changes; in fact, for a new departure in college education," so wide and radical as to constitute a reconstruction that will necessitate the destruction of that which has been hitherto. While none ought to oppose any real progress in education, nor to object to any needed readjustments for that purpose, still in so important a matter changes should be made only after careful examination, and in answer to clearly ascertained require

ments.

The German system of education has no schools of a grade corresponding to our colleges. Its gymnasia, which hold the place of our high schools and academies, carry their pupils as far as the end of the second year's course in our colleges, and in these the studies are nearly the same for all. After completing the course in the gymnasium, the young man ceases to be specifically a "pupil," and he proceeds to such university as he may have selected to pursue certain chosen studies, usually in view of a selected profession,-by attending lectures, being aided, perhaps, by private tutors. University students are entirely free from all preceptorial surveillance as to their manners or morals, nor are they compelled to attend the lectures for which they have been matriculated; nor is their success or failure to obtain a degree determined by their diligence or proficiency, but solely by examinations. The entire unlikeness of that system to ours is obvious, and the substitution of that for this would require a more definite ordering of our universities and the reduction of most of our colleges to high schools-to gymnasia. Whether or not any thing of that kind is practicable, and if so whether it is desirable, are open questions that may well be considered; but the introducing of the German university system into our American colleges, and grafting it upon the prescriptive college system, many experienced educators believe would be altogether and intensely evil.

The time is perhaps at hand when a regular system of university instruction should be established in this country. Already some half-dozen of our most advanced institutions have become universities in fact, but still holding on to their original characters and work as colleges,—a process by which some of the cherished, and as many believe the most valuable, functions of the latter are of necessity sacrificed. To effect that, admission to our colleges should be made much easier than it now is in all really good institutions. This is also demanded for other considerations, so that the second year's studies would be about the same as are now those of the first. This would afford a very great relief to the large and desirable class of candidates for college who lack opportunities at their homes for the thorough preparation now required; and it would secure for all a better grade of preparation than can now in many cases be obtained. Four years in college, after entering at the point indicated, devoted with very little variation to the common curriculum, almost no electives being permitted except in the last year, would secure the necessary amount of drill, and also sift out the incompetents, and the better prepare the successful ones for their special and professional studies at the universities or professional schools. The relief to the colleges by