which is all that is needed. But a man may benefit from the vicarious death of Christ without even formulating a theory thereof. We must distinguish between the fact and theories about it. Doubtless there have been many caricatures of this great truth. Certainly no ransom had to be paid to the devil before God could save men. We are the ones to be reconciled, not God. No theory like that of Caiaphas, that it was expedient that one should die for the people, is rationally satisfactory. Nor is it morally conceivable that the death of one innocent human being, albeit a sinless one, for another sinning human being, was either a demand of divine justice, or efficacious in atoning for the sins of those who were not called upon to die; nor can it be that God's love was hindered nor His purpose thwarted in saving men before Christianity came. Love and power were His eternally, as well as the plan and purpose of redemption. "The Lamb of God was slain from the foundation of the world." In the fullness of time that yearning, suffering love found fullest expression in His only beloved Son, given to the world, that whosoever believed in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. His death satisfied the demands both of divine holiness and love, and has real and vital relation to the new life of the forgiven sinner. God's love

and holiness would never so deal with the sin as to make light of it.

The full meaning of the vicarious death of Christ may be shrouded in mystery, but that does not discredit it. All ultimates, such as God, immortality, love, life, the relation of soul to the body, conversion, the death of Christ, are mysteries. But we may enter into a personal apprehension of them all through vital experience, even when our mental orientation is more or less clouded. I may not be able to tell exactly how the Christ redeems me, but I need never doubt the glorious fact.

Four arguments demonstrate that the death of Christ was vicarious and has the deepest significance for human salvation and the Christian life. 1. The principle of vicarious suffering is in harmony with the very nature of things. From the tiny amoeba which navigates the invisible seas that divides itself every half hour, up through the love of a mother that loves her child unto the death, upward to the very heart of God, who gave His only begotten Son for a perishing world, it is woven into the very warp and woof of the universe. The death of Christ is but the highest manifestation of the suffering love of God. God in Christ suffered for sin. The thorn crown of Christ was pressed down on His brow, the spear was thrust into His

side, the divine love was crucified on Calvary. "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ."

2. The New Testament is full of unequivocal declarations of the efficacy of the vicarious suffering of the Christ. "God commendeth His own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." "He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.' "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many." "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself." "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” “I am the Good Shepherd, I lay down My life for the sheep." "This is My body which is broken for you-this is My blood which is shed for the remission of sins." Christ's death is therefore fraught with the utmost significance to men's salvation. One may not approve of this or that imperfect interpretation of the fact, but to reject the reality altogether can only be done at the sacrifice of New Testament Christianity, taking square issue with it.

3. The efficacy of the vicarious death of Christ

is demonstrable in Christian experience in the forgiveness of sins and the inculcation of a new life. "If any man be in Christ he is a new creature; old things are passed away, behold all things are become new." Whether Christianity gives birth to a life that is redemptoral in character, is possible for any honest man to prove for himself in his own experience. Stress is sometimes laid on the ethics of Christianity as its great essential. "But Christianity," says Professor Royce, of Harvard, "is a redemptive religion as well as ethical. What is most vital to Christianity is contained in whatever is essential and permanent about the doctrine of the incarnation and the atonement." "I do not," he says further, "for a moment call in question the original teaching of the Master regarding the Kingdom of Heaven as a vital part of Christianity, but I do assert that this so-called purely primitive Christianity is not so vital, is not so central, is not so essential to mature Christianity as are the doctrines of the incarnation and the atonement when these are rightly interpreted. In the light of these doctrines alone can the work of the Master be seen in its most genuine significance." (Page 483, "Harvard Theol. Review," October, 1909.)

4. The omission of this most vital element of

Christianity loses to the gospel at once its saving power and attractiveness. The old, old story has in it pathos and tears, love and laughter, salvation and heaven. The "new theology" leaves out the heart of the gospel, which is the Cross. None will be moved by such doctrines to conversion, Christian faith, or conduct; none to tears and repentance. It has no dynamic with which to draw men from sin. It has "crowned whim lord of all." Thus driven back upon the shattered remnants of their own character, men could as soon leap to the skies as to be saved thereby. The people are not fed with such preaching, though they are very hungry. In their great need Christ comes to them as Hugo's good bishop came to Jean Valjean, saying, as he grasped the hand of the man overwhelmed by a divine love flooding him in his bitterness: "My brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. I have bought your soul of you. I withdraw it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition and give it to God."

Certainly it is the preaching of the time-tested fundamental truths of Christianity that has won and is winning men. Wherever Christ is lifted up, men are drawn to Him. Returning from a world tour of evangelism, J. Wilbur Chapman reports: "To-day wherever men and women are loyal to