certain of his predecessors had been able to introduce was more than dissipated by him. Like other princes of the blood, his early life had been spent among slaves, eunuchs, and lalas, or head servants. His portrait, taken on his accession to the throne, reveals a sinister and unattractive face, yet one not devoid of intellectual strength. He has shown that strength, not in any constructive statesmanship, but by a remarkable cleverness in setting the European nations one against another in their territorial or commercial ambitions, and thus obtaining for himself a breathing-spell, in which he has exercised a despotism the most complete recorded by modern history.

This despotism rested largely on a system of spies, of whom it is said over two thousand were in his employ. His Government was a vast system of espionage through which he attempted to reach his ends either by bribery or by assassination. Last week overwhelming evidence of his connection with the recent reactionary revolt was discovered, not only by the seizure of telegraphic correspondence, but also by the discovery of an incredible amount of money, evidently received as bribes, found in possession of the captured soldiers who composed the guard of the Imperial Palace. One company of gendarmerie is reported to have taken from its prisoners about twenty thousand dollars, one officer having no less than four thousand dollars in his pocket, and the total amount collected reaching nearly $1,500,000. Of course only one person could command such a sum. The Sultan's use of assassination was shown during the Armenian massacres of 1895-6; and it is believed that the Armenian massacres of last month may ultimately be traced to the same source. It is significant that the Vali, or Governor, of Adana, not only refused the request of the American missionaries to stop the trouble while it was yet incipient, but is reported to have actually opened the Government magazines and distributed Mauser rifles and ammunition to the Kurds and other Moham

medan tribes.

In view of the above facts, the liberal Mohammedans, as well as Christians, could hardly have been surprised at reading the

text of the Sheik-ul-Islâm's fetva, or decree, proclaiming Abdul's deposition :

What becomes of an Imam [the title of the Sultan of Turkey as the head of the orthodox faith] who has destroyed certain holy writings and who has seized property in contracommitted cruelties and ordered the assassivention of the Sheri [sacred law]; who has nation or imprisonment of exiles without justification by the Sheri; who has squandered the public money; who, having sworn to govern according to the Sheriat, has violated his oath; who by gifts of money has provoked internecine bloodshed and civil war, and who is no longer recognized in the provinces? Answer of the Sheik-ul-Islam: "He must abdicate or be deposed."

For these reasons Abdul-Hamid might have been deposed in almost any year since he began to reign. There is another reason, however, of special application this year. The Sultan tried to destroy the Constitution. In 1876 he was compelled to grant a Constitution to the Turkish nation; in 1877, acting on a flimsy pretext, he withdrew it. It was never renewed until forced upon him last July. On April 13 a military revolution, inspired by his agents and himself, attempted to eject the Young Turk Ministry. Though nothing was said about the Constitution, every one knew that its existence was endangered.

By the irony of fate, the deposed Sultan has been taken to Salonika, a city known beyond any other in Turkey for its liberal views. It was there that the constitutional movement had its inception; it is there that the Constitution's greatest foe has been taken. Had he been taken to Asia instead, his presence might have excited reaction among the ignorant Mohaminedan hordes. But the people of Salonika are wide awake. It is a great commercial port and an emporium of nearly two hundred thousand people. The Sultan will there be judged by the most intelligent of his former subjects. Whatever his personal fate, his political fate has now been sealed. The most shameful chapter in Turkish history has at last come to an end. It probably marks the beginning of the end of Oriental absolutism in Turkey and the beginning of Occidental constitutional democracy in that country.

THE APOSTOLIC PRACTICE Canon Hensley Henson, whom many Americans have heard with delight in the pulpit of St. Margaret's, Westminster, and who is about to visit this country, was recently announced to preach at an institute in St. Gabriel's Parish, Birmingham, England. The incumbent, or Church of England clergyman in charge of the parish, formally protested against Canon Henson's preaching, and Bishop Gore, believing the protesting clergyman to be within his canonical rights in making the protest, felt it to be his " disagreeable duty" to support him, and wrote to Canon Henson formally inhibiting him from preaching in another man's parish against his expressed protest. In a public letter the Bishop of Birmingham declares that he does not raise the question of the right of a clergyman of the Church of England to preach at Nonconformist gatherings, nor the right of clergymen to speak like other men at public meetings in halls or institutes, but he stands for the principle that a clergyman of the Church of England must not preach publicly in any kind of building in another clergyman's parish, against his protest. He declares that he himself has addressed meetings under Nonconformist auspices and invited Nonconformists to address meetings of Churchmen, that he has spoken with Nonconformists on common platforms and expects to do so again; but that such occasions should be contemplated by clergymen of the Church of England only when they can be carried out with regard to the office and authority of the other clergy.

The Bishop of Birmingham, who, as Canon Gore, was not only one of the leaders of the English Church, but one of the leaders of the advanced party, goes still further, and in a recent address on "The Freedom of Prophecy" declares that the denunciations by Christ of the scribes, Pharisees, and lawyers formed a very important element in his teaching, especially as they were aimed at a body of men who were held in the highest respect by the religious community of Israel; that Christ was brought into antagonism to these religious teachers of the Chosen People because they had come to love their own

authority, their own traditions, and could not bear the new light. Christ appeared to them as a mere untaught layman, claiming to teach them-the professors and doctors of religion-the true faith. Pursuing their own righteousness, they refused to submit themselves to the righteousness of God, with that sort of hypocrisy which goes with the claims of exaggerated authority," that which went with the authority of the Church before the Reformation and with the authority of our own Church at the time of the Wesleyan revival." Christ, Bishop Gore declared, did not denounce the principle of religious authority; on the contrary, he reconstituted it, but that authority was to serve the purpose of spiritual knowledge and enlightenment.

In the early Church, Bishop Gore declared, freedom of teaching was very widely diffused and recognized in the fullest way. The Apostles did not stand alone at the center of the Church; there was a great company of prophets whom St. Paul placed side by side with the Apostles as among the foundation stones of the Church. There were teachers and evangelists. The Bishop asked how much the Church had sinned by stifling or refusing to recognize the wealth of individual gifts; the call to teach and evangelize heard by men who had no opportunity of entering the official ministry. He declared that, in his judgment, it could not be doubted from the first that all prophetic gifts had been brought within the cognizance of the Church; the one question was whether the Church looked with generosity or with severity upon these manifold gifts. Emphasizing the fact that the Franciscan movement was a lay movement in its origin, Bishop Gore spoke of "The First Lay Preachers of the Methodists" as a book which had had great fascination for him. He asked why these men were not within the Church. It was partly their fault, for they were doubtless hard to discipline; but in the main it was the fault of the Church. They were precisely the men the Church needed to reawaken her out of her dead sleep. "We must recognize our clergy, bishops, and presbyters, but we must give the fullest, freest recognition to freedom of teaching, both by literature and by the gifts of

teachers, that we may not fall under condemnation of making the word of God of none effect by our traditions." And he closed by asking whether, looking over the divided Christianity of England, the separations of Nonconformists need ever have taken place or been maintained if the Church had been true to Christ's great warning and had given free and legitimate scope to the liberty of prophecy.

These are brave, strong words from an English Bishop of piety and learning who has been a leader of what is known as the High Church party in the Church of England. In reaffirming the distinction between the priest and the prophet and the full liberty given to prophets, teachers, and evangelists who were not in priestly orders, Bishop Gore speaks with authority. The American Episcopal Church, like the Church of England, has lost immensely by departing from the earliest practice and from the practice in medieval times, and the so-called nineteenth canon is only a qualified and timid return to the historical practice of the apostolic Church.

There are two distinct, indeed mutually contradictory, ideals of the minister of religion. According to the one, he is a man separate from the world of men, a stranger, an alien; he is to have no concern for the conditions of this present life; he is not even an ambassador from another world, for an ambassador is supposed to be friendly toward the country to which he is accredited; he is rather the agent of an exiled sovereign' who has been defrauded of his rights; he therefore has no interest in the welfare of the people as a whole; he has but the single aim of gathering as many individuals about him as he can, and inducing them to live contentedly until they may join their sovereign in exile. According to the other ideal, the minister belongs to the world of men; he is a citizen of the world, a fellow-countryman of all men; he is more concerned than any one else for the conditions of this present life; he is not an ambassador, because he has no foreign allegiance; he is the agent of a sovereign, it is true, but of

a sovereign that has never been exiled; he has a dominating interest in the welfare of all the people, for it is part of his business to see that his sovereign's laws are obeyed and his sovereign's subjects live according to his sovereign's will; and in gathering individuals about him he has the object, not of making them content and passive, but of leading them in the arduous work of carrying on their sovereign's government in their sovereign's spirit, with the expectation that in the future they may be fitted for the performance of more difficult and more extensive services.

Between these two ideals there can be, obviously, no compromise. We have no intention of arguing for one or the other. We state them simply for the purpose of making it clear that according as one ideal or the other prevails there will be found suitable, as preparation for the ministry, one or another mode of training.

Once the first ideal of the minister prevailed. Now, though it has by no means disappeared, it is no longer dominant. As a whole, among the Protestant churches of America it has been replaced by the second ideal. At the same time, the process of education which was designed to educate ministers according to the first ideal has survived with little alteration. How slight the alteration has been is indicated by the articles by Mr. Stelzle and Mr. Jones, and the summary of information from theological seminaries, which appear elsewhere in this issue. In other words, the seminaries have been preparing men for one kind of profession and the demand has been for men expert in another kind of profession. As a consequence, men who have been fitted to act as agents for an exiled king have suddenly found, as they entered upon their work, that the king has been on his throne and that they must do the work of loyal subordinates. They have learned how to gather together bands of passive resistants against a usurper; and then they discover that their task is to lead the activities of loyal subjects in making firm and extending an established kingdom. It is not surprising that the minds of men are confused; that the ministry has lost prestige; that young men are seeking other avenues of service than the ministry; and

that the seminaries, as compared with other professional schools, are depleted. Nor is it surprising that the churches have little influence with whole classes of men. How serious the situation is may be learned from such a book, for example, as that lately reviewed in The Outlook, on "The Social Application of Religion," published by Jennings & Graham. It may be learned from such a book as that entitled "The Churches and the WageEarners," by C. Bertrand Thompson,' in which the author describes the alienation of the wage-earners from the churches and the still more deplorable alienation of the churches from the wage-earners. Mr. Thompson shows with some detail that the working people of America feel that the churches have no sympathy with them because they have no understanding of their struggles, their difficulties, their obstacles, their ideals. He shows, too, not without effectiveness, that the churches are not really acquainted either with the wage-earners' environment or the wageearners thoughts. Mr. Thompson also Mr. Thompson also shows how Socialism is beginning to supply the place which religion, because of the failure of the churches, has not occupied.

The responsibility for this state of affairs rests ultimately upon the churches, but immediately upon the theological seminaries. To a consciousness of this fact many leaders in our theological seminaries have been awake, but not the controlling authorities in more than a very few.

Such men as Dr. Graham Taylor, of the Chicago Theological Seminary; Dr. Shailer Mathews, of the Divinity School of Chicago University; Dr. Peabody, of Harvard, Dr. Henry Churchill King, of Oberlin; Dr. Thomas C. Hall, of Union Theological Seminary; Dr. George H. Hodges, of the Episcopal Theological Seminary at Cambridge (the names are selected at random), are all authorities on the social aspects of religion, and they are all intimately connected with theological seminaries. Nevertheless, it remains true that the seminaries as seminaries, and the instruments of theological education, are not designed to fit students to make religious the industrial life of men to-day, and to liberate religious forces for 'Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.

Professor Hoyt,

1

the remedy of social ills. of Auburn Theological Seminary, has stated this emphatically. In his excellent book on "The Preacher," 1 recently published, he writes: "The great theologians and the men who have written our commentaries have been men of the study, men of an intellectual and religious class, who have not lived in conditions of killing toil and social peril, and so have not been driven to find a social remedy in the Gospel. . . . That is the only charitable way to account for the individualistic conception so dominant in theology and the Church."

The first duty of the seminaries is to secure as teachers in all departments men who understand the social character of religion, and, specifically, the social application of Christianity, and who know at first hand the conditions under which men and women and children in their day live and work. Their second duty is to recognize that their object is not primarily to educate men to be theological scholars for the purpose of educating other men to be theological scholars for the purpose of educating still other men to be theological scholars, but to train men to be efficient ministers. The Conference to be held by Union Seminary from May 31 to June 2 on the subject of an Efficient Ministry indicates the temper in which all seminaries should attack their task year in and year out. To this end they ought to throw overboard a large part of the traditional required curriculum and substitute such courses as are referred to in the articles already mentioned. If three years do not allow sufficient time, then a fourth year should be added, as it has been added to the medical course in the leading medical schools. In the third place-—and this is most important of allthey should put their students through as systematic practical training as the medical schools put their students by means of laboratories and clinics. It should be as much of an anachronism for a theological seminary to be without its affiliated settlements and churches and philanthropies and the like as it is for a medical school to be without affiliated hospitals and dispensaries. Here, for instance, is the National Vacation

The Preacher: His Person, Message, and Method. By Arthur S. Hoyt. The Macmillan Company, New York.

Bible School Committee pleading with the seminaries to send them students as teachers. It ought to be in the position of turning students away. Here are scores of settlements, here is the Institute for Social Service; here is the National Civic Federation, the Associated Charities, the Young Men's Christian Association, the National Municipal League, the newly formed Commission on the Church and

Social Service of the Federal Council of

Churches—all of these, and many others, ought to be embarrassed by applicants sent by the seminaries that they may get experience through a freely offered

service.

TIMELY

President Taylor, of Vassar College, has sent to his alumnæ, in a leaflet, a report of an address delivered by him last winter. It is a needed protest against the attempt of certain would-be reformers to convert the colleges into recruiting grounds. Their ambition is natural. There is no audience more eager to hear the latest thing, not to say the latest fad, than a college audience. There is none more eager to know which way lies social, politi

cal, moral progress, or more eager to enter on the road. There is no community in which it is easier to arouse enthusiasm and get converts. Every cause comes, therefore, knocking at the door of colleges, especially women's colleges, in order to beat up for recruits. Dr. Taylor echoes the opinion, probably, of every college president in his graphic account of the conditions, and we hope he echoes also the judgment of every college president in his judgment respecting them:

Now it is suffrage and now anti-suffrage, now it is the Socialists, now it is the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, now some missionary cause like the special claim of the women students of Tokyo, now the Student Volunteer movement, now some highly commended evangelist, now the agnostic who wishes to enlighten the superstitious mind. In short, every one that has a cause wishes naturally to get at our young people, and in turn if one resists and holds to a belief in a steady development and training to fit one to examine every cause, to "prove all things, and to hold fast that which is good," then one must expect to meet in turn the accusations of a lack of interest and breadth, now in political reform, now in

social reform, and now, alas, also in religion. These people are for the most part not teachers but agitators, not expounders but advocates.

The sneer at the academic atmosphere is not uncommon; but the academic atmosphere is the proper atmosphere for the academy, as the judicial atmosphere is for the court-room and the forensic at

mosphere for the halls of legislation. Congress is organized to do things; it therefore needs to listen to political and party debates to determine what to do. The court is organized to determine questions; it therefore needs to listen to a presentation of both sides by eager advo

cates of each, in order that it may decide justly. But a college is organized to inform, educate, and train the young, and for this not the party agitators of a Congress nor the professional advocates of a court, but the calm and unimpassioned instruction of a philosopher is needed. Before the Vassar collegian is prepared to judge between prohibition, license, and local option, she needs to study the nature of government and the limits of both law and liberty; before she is able to decide between suffrage and anti-suffrage she needs to study the nature of suffrage and the part it plays in the social order, and

the nature of society and her true relation to it and duty in it. The party agitator is as out of place in the academic community as he would be on the judge's bench, or as would be the professor's calm, instructive, but dispassionate dis

cussion of the economic values of the

tariff in a debate in Congress over free hides and free lumber. A place for everything and everything in its place the professor for the lecture-room, the agitator for the hustings. Either is out of place in the place of the other.