tized and Tertullian raised a solitary and ineffectual voice crying a return to the older purity in the third. Did that decline of a prevalent usage prove it to be a wrong usage? By what logic can the decline in the second century be made an evidence in favor of the earlier usage, and that of the nineteenth an evidence against it?

(f) We must pass on, however, to the final string of arguments, which would fain point out the evil effects of infant baptism. First it forestalls the act of the child and so prevents it from ever obeying Christ's command to be baptized-which is simply begging the question. We say it obeys Christ's command by giving the child early baptism and so marking him as the Lord's. Secondly, it is said to induce superstitious confidence in an outward rite, as if it possessed regenerating efficacy; and we are pointed to frantic mothers seeking baptism for their dying children. Undoubtedly the evil does occur and needs careful guarding against. But it is an evil not confined to this rite, but apt to attach itself to all rites-which need not, therefore, be all abolished. We may remark, in passing, on the unfairness of bringing together here illustrative instances from French Catholic peasants and High Church. Episcopalians, as if these were of the same order with Protestants. Thirdly, it is said to tend to corrupt Christian truth as to the sufficiency of Scripture, the connection of the ordinances, and the inconsistency of an impenitent life with church membership, as if infant baptism necessarily argued sacramentarianism, or as if the churches of other Protestant bodies were as a matter of fact more full of "impenitent members" than those of the Baptists. This last remark is in place also, in reply to the fourth point made, wherein it is charged that the practice of infant baptism destroys the Church as a spiritual body by merging it in the nation and in the world. It is yet to be shown that the Baptist churches are purer than the Pædobaptist. Dr. Strong seems to think that infant baptism is re

sponsible for the Unitarian defection in

New England.

I am afraid the cause lay much deeper. Nor is it a valid argument against infant baptism, that the churches do not always fulfil their duty to their baptized members. This, and not the practice of infant baptism, is the fertile cause of incongruities and evils innumerable.

Lastly, it is urged that infant baptism "puts into the place of Christ's command a commandment of men, and so admits the essential principle of all heresy, schism, and false religion"-a good, round, railing charge to bring against one's brethren: but as an argument against infant baptism, drawn from its effects, somewhat of a petitio principii. If true, it is serious enough. But Dr. Strong has omitted to give the chapter and verse where Christ's command not to baptize infants is to be found. One or the other of us is wrong, no doubt; but do we not break an undoubted command of Christ when we speak thus harshly of our brethren, his children, whom we should love? Were it not better to judge, each the other mistaken, and recognize, each the other's desire to please Christ and follow his commandments? Certainly I believe that our Baptist brethren omit to fulfil an ordinance of Christ's house, sufficienly plainly revealed as his will, when they exclude the infant children of believers from baptism. But I know they do this unwittingly in ignorance; and I cannot refuse them the right hand of fellowship on that account.

But now, having run through these various arguments, to what conclusion do we come? Are they sufficient to set aside our reasoned conviction, derived from some such argument as Dr. Hodge's, that infants are to be baptized? A thousand times no. So long as it remains true that Paul represents the Church of the Living God to be one, founded on one covenant (which the law could not set aside) from Abraham to to-day, so long it remains true that the promise is to us and our children and that the members of the visible Church consist of believers and their chil

dren—all of whom have a right to all the ordinances of the visible Church, each in its appointed season. The argu

ment in a nutshell is simply this: God established his Church in the days of Abraham and put children into it. They must remain there until he puts them out. He has nowhere put them out. They are still then members of his Church and as such entitled to its ordinances. Among these ordinances is baptism, which standing in similar place in the New Dispensation to circumcision in the Old, is like it to be given to children.

Princeton.

BENJAMIN B. WARFIELD.

NOTES.

I. IS THE STANDARD DECLINING?

Progress may be judged from either of two different points of view, and the estimate be very diverse accordingly. It depends very much upon whether you measure from the starting point or from the goal; judged from the goal the progress may appear inappreciable, judged from the starting point it may be vast.

When one hears the devoted temperance orator marshalling statistics and portraying the desolation wrought by the rum-devil, the whole nation seems rapidly being drowned in drink and the effect is depressing well nigh to the verge of hopelessness; on the other hand, when our oldest people tell us that in their youth whiskey was a part of the regular stock of all "general merchandise" stores, sold as uniformly as coffee and sugar, with no license, restriction or supervision; that prominent Presbyterian elders regularly manufactured it, and hauled it to town for sale as they now do bacon and flour; that it was much in evidence on the sideboard and table; that pious pastors in their visits had it offered without apology and were accustomed to drink it without scruple and sometimes without waterwhen we hear such things they seem to us incredible, almost. This fact is one measure of the advance of temperance sentiment within the compass of a single lifetime.

There has been a good deal said of late about the decline of scholarship in the Presbyterian ministry; some very strong statements have been made, and some rather severe indictments have been brought.

It is one thing to assert a low standard, and another to assert a decline of standard; moreover, a standard may be low absolutely which is not low relatively; a man, tried by an absolute standard, may be a very poor scholar, whereas

comparatively or relatively his scholarship may be highly creditable.

Once more; as to the matter of a decline, the measure is still different, even a comparatively low standard is not necessarily a declining standard.

I have been connected with two Presbyteries only, and my term of ministerial service is not a very long one, but during the whole of it in both Presbyteries I have been concerned in the examination of candidates, and my department has been that of the ancient languages, the Greek, the Latin and the Hebrew, just the field singled out by critics and by them stigmatized as most farcical.

Now, I do not undertake to speak for the whole church, but I do most solemnly affirm that constant and close observation, based upon numerous examinations in this very department, warrants the confident assertion that, so far from there having been a decline of scholarship, there has, on the contrary, been a decided elevation of the standard.

I can recall very distinctly the examination given me; at that time the first two verses of Genesis seemed to be universally the passage selected for the Hebrew, and for Greek the corresponding verses in John's gospel. I wish to say that for four years or more I have not in a single instance assigned a candidate a passage for examination in either Greek or Hebrew without being first assured that he had never before read the passage.

As a matter of interest I append here the latest examinations I have given. The publication of the papers is an afterthought; there was no idea of the sort in my mind at the time they were assigned, but I have been advised by several friends to publish them as a contribution to the discussion. Let the reader understand that the candidate had never before read either passage in the original and that he had the help of no lexicon, grammar or translation and signed the same pledge that colleges require appended to such papers: