The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-12-09

At the monthly meeting of the Pastors union of Birmingham, held in the First Methodist church last Monday, two able papers were read--one by the Rev. Dr. J. c. Hiden, Baptist minister, and the other by the Rev. Dr. A. R. Moore, pas tor of the First Christian church. Fifth avenue and Twenty-hrst street. The title of Dr. Hiden's lecture was "The Plain Christian versus the Advanced Critic" pr. Hiden said:
 ,. For the words "criticism," "critic.' ''crticise" and critical our language is indebted to the Greek. They are all derived from a Greek verb which means "to pick out to choose, Ito separ ate to discern and hence to judge" In order to judge correctly We must sep srate the true from the false, the good from the bad, the valuable from the worthless. According to the genius of the Greek language Il man who winnowed barley was a critic because he separated tho valuable grain from the worthless chaff.
 Criticism. then is the exercise of the judgment upon the merits and demerts of any person. place, work or thing; and this whether the decision be favorable or unfavorable. Criticism is not confined to fault-tiinding. It may be altogether fav orable. For instance, in the "Presbyte- ran and Reformed Review" for January, lS9j, l read Prof. Howard Osgoods notice of Prof. William Henry Greens great work on "'rhe Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch." In this striking notice there is not the slightest sign of an objection on the part of the critic. Professor Os- good does not even hint that Professor Greens work could have been better done. Still, it is genuine criticism which we have here and criticism of very high order Indeed, it recalls Coke Upon Littleton" in which the notes are of as high authority as the text
 Few literary men since Voltaire have ventured to find serious faults in Ham let" Macbeth" "Othello" or, indeed in any of Shakespeare's best plays, and yet there is no lack of Shakespearian criti- cism. Our literature is full of it, and you cannot read even Goethes 'Wilhelm Mester' without seeing how profoundly Shakespeare had impressed the greatest of all the writers of Germany.
 Criticism is inevitable. if you have any sense of the meaning of what you read, hear or see. Without criticism you can not have an intelligent opinion about any bcdy or anything. If you say. "I had pleasant trip yesterday" you have crit 
 When a famous British author, after visiting Cologne said that he had there found seventy-two genuine and well de- fined bad smells he criticised Cologne. When he wrote '"rhe River Rhine, as is well known, doth wash the city of Col ogne but tell me what but power divine can ever wash the River Rhine" he was very decidedly critieising the famous river
 It is evident then. that no one can in- telligently read his Bible without being tE the strictest sense a Biblical critic. If pastor on visit to an afflicted member of his church selects for his reading at the bedside the list of the returned cap tives. as given in the 7th chapter of Ne hemiah, l should pronounce him bad Biblical critic.
 If you accept the Bible as a divinely in- spired guide of your life. you do so be- cause you judge the Bible to be a true and authoritative expression of the will