"gun-man" or a "yeg-man." In England they simply call him "the accused who is a grocer's assistant in Houndsditch." This designation would knock any decent murder story to pieces.' Alas, the English paper dare say nothing else, on pain of being admonished for contempt of court. But we forget the chapter entitled, 'Is Prohibition coming in England?' a subject investigated by Mr. Leacock with minute and loving care. 'I found that, classified altogether, there are seventeen reasons advanced in Scotland for taking whiskey. They run as follows: Reason one, because it is raining; two, because it is not raining; three, because you are just going out into the weather; four, because you have just come in from the weather; five, no, I forget the ones that come after that. But I remember that reason number seventeen is "because it canna do ye any harm." On the whole, reason seventeen is the best.' 'Put in other words this means that the Scotch make use of whiskey with dignity and without shame: and they never call it alcohol.' You can enjoy Mr. Leacock's book at railway speed. For the sauntering whimsical style of humour you must go elsewhere. Well, we cannot have too many varieties of humourists. But is this connected with his frank dislike of the pun, wearisome enough at any level but the best, and his criticism of the 'pedantry' of English insistence upon correct quotation and pronunciation, especially of the classics? This may degenerate into verbalism; but one great strand of English humour, from Lamb to Lucas and Max Beerbohm, has grown out of a reverence for the language and a perception of the delicate humours inherent in it. And if we laugh at the man who flounders in attempting to soar, that is a guard against the defacers of our most valuable coinage. May Mr. Leacock make many more journeys, 'in the ducal suite of the Aquitania', to investigate the progress of prohibition in England, and tell us the result. F. THE CANADIAN FORUM was TO-DAY it is common knowledge that the recovery. TWO YEARS AGO THE CANADIAN FORUM was TO-DAY those who thought otherwise have TWO DOLLARS will bring you the magazine for the Subscribe or send for sample copy. SUBSCRIPTION BLANK TO THE CANADIAN FORUM, 152 St. George St., Toronto. Please find enclosed $2.00 for my subscription to THE CANADIAN FORUM for one year beginning with the....... issue. Name...... VOL. XXX October, November, December, 1922 No. 2 THE BOOK OF ACTS ONCE MORE The Beginnings of Christianity. Part I. The Acts of the Apostles. Edited by F. J. Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake. Vol. II. Prolegomena, ii. Criticism. In spite of all the clever depreciation of the Victorian Age which is fashionable to-day, it was in reality a revolutionary period in human thought. The scientific spirit was coming into its own, and that too with much searching of heart. The awakened intellect had grown distressingly inquisitive. What had been accepted hitherto in philosophy, theology, or political and social theory was subjected to a flame of criticism that sprang out of long smouldering conceptions now fanned into activity by the breath of the new spirit. It was not such a smug and complacent era as has been assumed. There was far too much anxiety as to the deepest issues of life to permit a brushing aside of the prophets of the new scientific temper. The Church was in a peculiarly difficult position, for at that stage criticism was growing powerful and destructive. No longer, after the middle of the century, was Protestantism so confident, as against Newman, in the 'Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture', from which a thoroughly compacted doctrinal system had been drawn setting forth the way of Salvation. The mind that could rest in it was satisfied, but many doubted. Newman himself long craved the certitude that such a system could give; but when he realized that the new liberalism was undermining the props upon which the structure of his creed rested, he betook himself to Rome, in which he thought he had discovered infallible authority in the quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus. His Grammar of Assent remains even to-day a classic treatise on Certitude in religion. Now it is not Newman but the Protestant who is in anxiety, as indeed he will always by the very nature of his position be subject to clouds of doubt being on occasion swept across his sky. The educated Christian asks himself how the Protestant claim can be maintained that the Bible is the only infallible Rule of faith and manners. Of course this question is disturbing mainly to those who, having begun to philosophize upon their beliefs, are under the necessity of formulating to themselves a creed. The vast multitude of Protestants read their Bible for edification, and as Coleridge said 'It finds them'. The majesty of its conception of God and His handiwork, its marvellous penetration into the depths of the human heart, the variety and sincerity of its depiction of human character, the poignancy with which it expresses man's yearning for relief from sin, its hopeful cry for fuller life, the reign of righteousness promised by the prophets, the serene altitude of Jesus lifting His followers into communion with the Father, bestowing on them forgiveness of sins and pointing them with assurance to the Kingdom of God—in all this there is an inexhaustible and sufficiently intelligible source of supply to more than meet the religious needs of the Christian. But the theologian or the educated Christian, possessing the same faith rooted in the same soil, has the additional task of getting also a theoretic basis on which he can justify his faith to his reason. His mind must be in harmony with his heart. For such an one the question asked above as to the Bible is less disturbing to-day than it was a generation ago. He sees that the scientific spirit, with its devotion to truth rather than to certitude, has cut away, often it is true with no little pain, the local and the secular, so that the universal truth is gradually coming into fuller view. In almost every department of life there is a longing for reconstruction, but we have been disappointed so far. We are still standing among materials lying about, and have not laid the foundations of any stately edifice in which we may hope to find a home or even an abiding-place for a season in the progress of the human spirit. Is the same to be said about religion? Probably. There has been an abundance of criticism. Also the terrible experience of the last few years has driven men out of the shelter of the trite and the conventional. Authority has lost prestige, at least in the English-speaking |