The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-11-18

designed; for 1t was in accord witt
 mems ways of thinking and so intelli- gihle, and men are not saved by theil
 explanations of the facts of grace an(
 salvation, but by their acceptance ol
 the facts themselves. It was impossi-
 ble, however. that this system should | permanently abide. The New England
 divines sought its Improvement" but
 it remained the system of doctrine sub-
 stantially, held until the present centu-
 ry.
 With the birth of the scientific spirit
 and the habit of inductive thought, it
 was absolutely essential that the sys-
 tenn should be changed and that the
 facts of revelation should be explained by doctrinal statements corresponding with the life and habit of thought of
 medern times
 I In effecting this change, Horace
 Bushnell, one of Connecticut's most
 celebrated citizens and illustrious theo-
 logians. was a conspicuous instrument
 and most active agent. Born in Litch-
 field county in 1902, educated in New
 Haven and pastor of what Is now the
 Park church in Hartford, he won by his
 sermons and books an international rep
 utation.
 Bushnell attenmpted-and quite sue
 cessfully-to find in the words of Sa-
 cred Scripture their timer sense" and
 to penetrate beneath the facts of reve- Iation until he could perceive the spir- itual verities which underlie those facts. He brought to the study of the ology a new method The old method had been the formal construction of system by mechanical grouping of proof texts and, the maintenance Of it by formal logic. This method was for eign to Bushnells mind. To him God was a living God and, by the revela- tion in Jesus Christ loving God and therefore must be known by the heart and interpreted by the laws of life. Two quotations will illustrate this fact. In becoming a professed Christian and accepting the doctrine of the Trinity, he said: My heart wants the Father; my heart wants the Son; my heart wants the Holy Ghost" Later in his life he explained his writing the second volume on "The Vicarious Sacrifice by saying q was writing a discourse on the inquiry, How shall man be able to entirely and perfectly forgive his en- emy SO as to forever sweeten the bit terness of his wounded feeling and leave no sense of personal revuls.on? I was brought squarely down upon the discovery that nothing will ever &C., complish the proposed real and true but to make cost in the en- deavor, such cost as. new-tempers; and liquefies the reluctant nature"
 With such method-the method of the heart-and such a measure of truth--that of the actual experiences of a Christian man-Bushnell brought na- ture and the supernatural, man and God nearer than they had been before in mems thought. He saw In Christ a revelation of God; in the sacrifice of Christ an actual suffering for the sinsof men as only holiness and love can suf- fer; and he saw that the Christian life was to be nurtured in the love of God and should be thus nurtured even in I the heart and character of child I The various volumes of his published works. christian Nurture" Theory of Language" God in Christ" Ma ture and the Supernatural and "The | vicarious Sacrifice fully set forth his ] His style is vigorous and usually clear but sometimes too wordy and overladen with words and figures { intended to illustrate. A very striking i of this may be seen on page 20 of the book under review. The | doctrines of Bushnell in the form in which he stated them-like his doctrine ,f the Trinity for example-have not been so universally accepted as some i ,f his most ardent admirers think; but 10 man in modern times has surpassed Jim in stimulating the minds of stu- Tents of theology and in setting them thinking along true lines To no one nan, perhaps, Is the present genera lon of preachers more indebted for wholesome teaching. The book under 'eview, which combines Ia biographical sketch with a critical analysis of his works" could hardly have been written ,y more competent author. The writer of it heard Bushnell preach, when a student in college, knew him afterwards, has read his works and is in sweet sympathy with Jim theologically. To these qualitica-