Such was the object of our conferences; such, we trust, may have been the fruit of them; and we hope that this recital of our inquiries may encourage both employers and employees to respect one another's rights; to bear one another's burdens; to share one another's prosperity, and so to fulfil in their daily life the law of Christ our Lord. That is the only solution of the labor question. WASHINGTON GLADDEN, ARTICLE III. PROGRESS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. BY THE REV. JAMES H. FAIRCHILD, D. D., EX-PRESIDENT OF OBERLIN COLLEGE. GROWTH is the law of life. Growth in knowledge is the law of human life. Especially it is the law of the Christian life. The Christian is one who honestly and faithfully employs his faculties, and improves his opportunities. It is inevitable that he should become wiser in experience, in the knowledge of the world, of himself, and of God. To the honest soul, even apart from illumination from above, there must come increase of religious knowledge; that is, of the knowledge of God, and of duty, and of himself as related to God. But such a faithful soul is God's chosen dwelling-place, and the heavenly fellowship brings exaltation of thought and character and life; thus it comes that the path of the just is a shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. The Christian community, composed of such docile and progressive souls, must present an aggregate of advancement in religious knowledge which is beyond the attainment of the individual believer. Each member of such a community contributes somewhat to the common possession, and the result is surer and more satisfactory than any personal thought or experience. Personal opinion is sure to be more or less distorted and colored by the limitations and idiosyncracies of the individual, while in the common result these tend to balance and correct each other. No man can perfectly trust his own experience or thought, until he has had opportunity to compare his own with his neighbor's. Thus any company of believers, in the aggregate of its religious thought and opinion, is wiser than its wisest member; and an adequate statement of that thought in the form of a creed or confession comes nearer to the ultimate truth than any expression of individual belief. We are not to suppose that every such expression prepared for any church or Christian body is an adequate embodiment of the general belief. In general such statements are elaborated by a single mind, and obtain acceptance from his influence or authority. His opinions have doubtless in every case been more or less modified by the opinions of others, his predecessors and contemporaries, but the result will always exhibit, to a greater or less extent, what astronomers call the personal equation. On such statements of Christian truth theological systems, bearing the names of the strong thinkers who have impressed their thought upon them, have been built up, and upon special tenets or opinions embodied in these systems, Christian denominations have been founded. Such a statement when once framed and accepted, especially when it becomes the organizing principle of a church or denomination, will hold its place, and for a time direct, and sometimes limit, the progress of thought. Every new idea must submit to the test of the old statement, with the result either of failing in the presence of the accepted standard of opinion, or of securing a more or less extended acceptance. In the course of time the old statement may fall before it, and thus a new standard become established. The same conditions essentially obtain whether this statement of opinion be a written document, formally adopted and widely published, or merely traditional and oral, controlling the general expression of thought and experience. The creeds of the churches whether written or unwritten, hold their place with about equal persistency. A change in the unwritten creed may probably take place with a less distinct recognition of the fact on the part of its adherents. On the other hand the written creed, in the very fact of its distinctness and definiteness, arouses uneasiness on the part of those who find themselves differing from it, and thus concentrates the forces which at length compel a modification. We sometimes meet with the idea that the truths of revealed religion, being contained in divinely inspired Scriptures, afford a basis for statements of faith which should be regarded as unchangeable, but the idea is not sustained by the experience of men. The church has always based its faith upon these divine records, but its pathway in history is strewn with outgrown creeds and obsolete decrees of councils. The reason is natural and obvious. The Scriptures present God in his works and ways to the apprehension of men, and the principles of human life and action as these have been developed in God's dealing with men. They are vital and glowing with these truths in living and practical form, but the Bible is not a treatise on systematic theology. It contains no summary of Christian doctrine-not a creed as long as the so-called Apostles' Creed, from the beginning to the end. Yet men take naturally and inevitably to dogmatic thinking, and systematic theology meets a real and universal human need. Men are theologians by the same necessity by which they are philosophers. And their theology contains not simply the vital and practical truths pertaining to God and to man in his relation to God, but these truths in their relations, and with their underlying principles. The Bible contains theology somewhat as the starry heavens present astronomy, or the crust of the earth geology. In our natural, earthly life we find materials which the geologic ages have wrought out, available to us without any study of the processes which have produced them. We build our houses of the material scattered abundantly around us, we sow our seed upon the soil which the forces of nature have spread over the earth's surface, we lay our railroad tracks, and launch our steamers and traverse the earth for business or pleasure, with little knowledge of the structure or the history of land or sea, or of their accumulated stores upon which we draw so freely. Yet under our very feet there is a record which fairly interpreted makes a science which broadens our thought, and enriches human life. So the Scriptures studied with an honest mind, bring within reach of the simplest soul the great principles of righteousness and salvation. Taking these as the light to his feet, and the lamp to his path, he makes his way to heaven as safely and surely as if an angel had been sent to lead him at every step. So much at least we may claim, without dispute, as involved in the infallibility of the Scriptures. They are a sure guide to salvation for every honest soul. But besides these great facts essential to life and godliness, the Scriptures cover a vast body of truth pertaining to God and to man, which carefully studied and systematized, becomes profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto every good work. This is the science of religion, the science of theology, a study worthy the attention of every soul that God has made. Such study as this is the privilege of every man according to his opportunity. It is not the study of a lifetime merely, it is the study of the ages; and each age makes its contribution to the stores received from preceding ages. The work does not belong to this world. alone, but we are told that it is the divine purpose "that unto principalities and powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God." We can never reach the limit in this study until we are able to apprehend, "with all the saints, what is the length and breadth and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge." We know not whether God may have other communications and revelations to make to his creatures; but what we have in hand, in the book of |