and unfriendliness disappear, and the young Bohemian of the second or third generation is as frank and open as his neighbor with his Anglo-Saxon heritage. I rather pride myself upon my power to detect racial and national marks of even closely related peoples, but in Chicago I was severely tested and failed. In Bethlehem Church I addressed a Bohemian audience to which I could pay this compliment, that it looked and listened like Americans; but what thousands of years have plowed into a people cannot be altogether eradicated, and the Bohemian, with all of us, carries his burden of good and evil buried in his bones. Among all our foreign population he is the most irrelig. ious, more than two-thirds of the 100,000 in Chicago having forsaken the Roman Catholic Church and drifted into the oldfashioned infidelity of Thomas Paine and Robert Ingersoll. Nowhere else have I heard their doctrines so boldly preached or seen their conclusions so readily accepted, and I have it on the authority of Mr. Geringer, the editor of the " Svornost," that there are in Chicago alone three hundred Bohemian societies which teach infidelity, which carry on active propaganda for their unbelief, and also maintain Sunday-schools in which the attendance ranges from thirty to three thousand. One of the most painful and pathetic sights is this attempt to crush God out of the child nature by means of an infidel catechism, the nature of whose teaching is shown by one of the first questions: "What duty do we owe to God?" The answer is, Inasmuch as there is no God, we owe him no duty."

66

Mr. Geringer is one of the leaders in this movement, and his paper, in common with two others, pursues this same course and daily preaches its destructive creed. Calling at the office of the "Svornost," I found Mr. Geringer, a Bohemian of the second generation, frank and open in acknowledging his leadership and the tendency of his paper, although he was less extreme than the statements about him by priests and preachers had led me to suppose. He certainly was much more will ing to talk about his people than were the priests upon whom I had called, and I found that his views have not been without change in the fifteen years since I last read his paper. "We are fighting

Catholicism rather than religion," he said; and I added, “A Catholicism in Austria, with its back toward the throne and its face toward the Austrian eagle;" to which he replied, "You have hit the nail on the head."

In reality, this hatred extends unreasonably to all religion, and among the less educated it amounts to a fanaticism which does not stop short of persecution and personal abuse. Blasphemous expressions and old musty arguments against the Bible are the common topics of conversation among many Bohemian workingmen who hate the sight of a priest, never enter a church, and are thoroughly eaten through by infidelity. They read infidel books about which they argue during the working hour, and the influence of Robert Ingersoll is nowhere more felt than among them. His Mistakes of Moses " has taken the place of the usual newspaper story, and the editorials are charged by hatred toward the Church and toward Christianity as a whole. The unusual number of suicides among the Bohemians is said to be due to the fact that their secret societies encourage suicide. The books published in Chicago are of a rather low type, and among them are many whose sole purpose it is to vilify the Church. This I felt to be true, that an unusually coarse materialism pervades Chicago's Bohemian colony; and Professor Massarik, of the University of Prague, who lectured this summer at the University of Chicago, makes this the chief note of his complaint against them. They have singing and Turner societies after the manner of the Germans, but the ideals they foster are really the causes of their materialism and infidelity. The Roman Catholic Church is fighting that spirit by maintaining strong parochial schools, encouraging the organization of lodges under its protection, and it now publishes a daily paper, the success of which I could not judge, although the reports I have from various sources are not flattering. The Protestants cannot boast of more than one per cent. of members among them, and the three small churches in Chicago are but vaguely felt and are practically no factors in the life of this large population. "We don't know that they are here," said one of the infidel leaders, and the Catholics take no notice of them at all. A little paper,

"Pravda," published by Dr. George T. Adams, the pastor of one of these churches, had to be given up on account of lack of

means.

Chicago is as much a Bohemian center for America as is Prague for the old Bohemia, and the type of thought found there is duplicated in all the Bohemian centers that I visited; everywhere there is a battle between free thought and Catholicism, and many a household is divided between the "Svornost " and the "Catholic," yet I have good reason to believe that this infidelity is only a desire for a more liberal type of religion, only a strong reaction and not a permanent thing, and I found signs of weakening at every point. The little village of New Prague in southwestern Minnesota is a good example. It is the center of a large Bohemian agricultural community, and has the reputation of being a "tough" town and quite a nest of infidelity. I found it a clean and prosperous place of 1,500 inhabitants, outwardly neater and better cared for than the ordinary Western village. It has a clean and wholesome-looking hotel, a little Protestant and a big Catholic church, and the usual variety of stores. I was surprised to find the hotel without the customary bar, and to my question about it the hotel-keeper replied, "I have no use for bars; I ain't no drinking man and I don't want nobody else to drink."

The editor of the New Prague "Times" had been pointed out to me as the chief infidel, yet I found him an interested reader of The Outlook, and a rather fine type of the liberal Christian. While, of course, the Chicago "Svornost " and its kind find a great many readers, the infidels are all those who have refused to go to confession and who wanted a public school, and who are now erecting a fine structure. From the banker, the physician, the druggist, and the photographer, I received additional proof that my conjecture was correct, and the only one who had little to say in praise of these people and much to blame was the village priest, a true type of the Austrian Catholic who would rule with an iron hand if he could, and who misses the strong support of government. Typical of him was the answer to my question as to his touch with the people in comparison with that

of the Austrian priest at home. "You know in Austria the State pays us, and we don't need to come in close touch with the people, but here it is different; here the people pay, and that alone brings us in closer touch."

My impression of New Prague is that it is neither "tough" nor infidel; it is true that it has saloons and too many of them, that the Continental Sabbath is the type of its rest-day, but in outward decency and in the degree of intelligence among its professional and business men it rivals any other town of its size with which I am acquainted. It is surrounded by Irish and American settlements, the first of which it surpasses in order and decency, and is not far from the other in enterprise and an unexpressed desire to bring the kingdom of God upon the earth.

Among these people who offer such a promising field the efforts of Protestants have been successful, though they are entirely inadequate when one considers that fully seventy-five per cent. are alienated from the Mother Church, are in a condition of semi-infidelity, and are in reality waiting for a faith more in keeping with their ideas of religion. The most successful work among them is that carried on by the Congregational Home Missionary Society, under the supervision of the Rev. H. A. Schauffler, who was a foreign missionary in Bohemia, and who brought with him to this country a thorough knowledge of their language and an insight into their character which have been of great help to him. Oberlin Theological Seminary maintains a Slavic Department in which men are trained for this work. In the same atmosphere of this community, in close touch with the best that college life affords, they are trained for Christian leadership, and they bring with them an intellectual hunger which is almost unappeasable, and they draw in the new life through every fiber of their beings. Most of them must first learn to speak their own language correctly; then they have to wrestle with English, and finally they must struggle through rudimentary subjects to theology. Professor Miskowszky, the Dean of this department, and a graduate of Columbia University, has the difficult task of preparing these men for their life-work, and one who has seen them together in the class-room realizes

what a difficult task it is for both teacher and students, and wonders at the marvelous results.

In Cleveland a Bible Readers' School prepares young women for the difficult task of visiting the homes and teaching and exemplifying the Gospel. This work has its stories of marvelous conversions among men and women of mature years, and my acquaintance of over thirteen years with its preachers and leaders, as well as my visits among its churches and mission stations, leads me to believe that its work is genuine and destined to be a great factor in the evangelization of these Slavic people. One of its little churches at Silver Lake, Minn., leads the churches of the State in its gifts to benevolent objects, and the whole. town is a model of intelligence, sobriety, and true piety; but in the cities its work is too circumscribed, and to be felt at all it must at least tenfold its activities.

The saloon holds an abnormally large place in the social life of the Bohemians, and beer works its havoc among them socially and politically. The lodges, of which there are legion, are above or beneath saloons, and all societies down to the building and loan associations are in close touch with them. It is the pride of Bohemian Chicago that two of its greatest breweries are in the hands of its countrymen, and brewers and saloonkeepers control much of the Bohemian vote. I asked one of the politicians whether that element was active in politics, and he replied, "Oh, yes; we have five aldermen and the city clerk." The fact is that they have given Chicago a poor class of officials and have placed their worst infidels in the City Council and on the School Board. There is not a little avowed Anarchy among them, and a great deal more of Marxian Socialism, one of the daily papers advocating the latter political faith. Just as there is much dangerous half-knowledge of religious subjects, so there is much of it about politics, and the worst and yet the most eloquent arguments on Socialism I have heard from these agitators, of whom there are many.

Though the Bohemian is very pugnacious, he is easily led, or rather easily influenced, and in times of political excitement I should say that he would need a great deal of watching. He is much more tenacious of his language and customs

than the German, and I have found children of the third generation who spoke English like foreigners. An appeal to his history, to the achievements of his people, awakens in him a great deal of pride, which he easily implants into the hearts of his children. This does not make him a worse American, and in the Bohemian heart George Washington soon has his place by the side of John Huss, and ere long is "first in the hearts of his countrymen."

The Bohemian is intelligent enough to know what he escaped in Austria, and values his opportunities in America, although too often he confuses liberty with license; in this, however, he is not a sinner above others. His greatest sin is his materialism, and he stunts every part of his finer nature to own a house and to have a bank account. Children are robbed of their youth and of the opportunity to obtain a higher education by this parental hunger after money, and parental authority among the Bohemians has all the rigor of the Austrian absolutism which they have transplanted, but which they cannot maintain very long, for young Bohemia is quickly infected by young America, and a small-sized revolution is soon started in every household; it is then that the first generation thinks its bitterest thonghts about this country and its baleful influence upon the young. In fact, the second generation is rather profligate in" sowing its wild oats," which are reaped in the police courts in the shape of fines for drunkenness, disorderly conduct, and assault and battery.

The Bohemian is among the best of our immigrants, and yet may easily be the worst, for when I have watched him in political riots in Prague and Pilsen or during strikes in our own country I have found him easily inflamed, bitter and relentless in his hate, and destructive in his wild passion. He has lacked sane leaders in his own country, as he lacks wellbalanced leaders in this. The settlement and missionary workers in Chicago find him rather poor material to work with, for he is unapproachable, not easily handled, and repels them by his suspicious nature and outward unloveliness, although he is better than he seems and not quite so good as he thinks himself to be, for humility is not one of his virtues. He develops best where he has the best

example, and upon the farms of Minnesota and Nebraska he is second only to the German, whose close neighbor he is and with whom he lives in peace, strange as it may seem. The Bohemian is here to stay, and scarcely any of those who come will ever stand again upon St. Charles bridge and watch their native Moldava as it winds itself along the ancient battlements of "Golden Prague," as they love to call their capital. America is their home, "for better or for worse;" they love it passionately; and yet one who knows their history, every page of it aflame from war, need not wonder that they turn often to their past and dwell on it, lingering there with fond regret.

Last year, while I was in Prague, Antonin Dvořák, the composer, celebrated his sixtieth birthday, and the National Opera House was the scene of a gala performance and a great demonstration in his honor. They gave his National Dances in the form of a grand ballet, and to the notes of those wild and melancholy strains of the Mazurka, the Kolo, and the Krakoviak, came all the Slavic tribes in their picturesque garb, and all were greeted by thunderous applause as they planted their national banners; at last came a stranger from across the sea, and in his

hand was a flag, the Stars and Stripes, while to greet him came Bohemia, with Bohemia's colors waving in her hands; and these two received the greatest applause of that memorable evening. These two are in the heart of this stranger; he is faithful to the old, and will ever be loyal to the new. How to be loyal to this flag in times of peace, at the ballot-box, on the streets of Cleveland during a strike, as a citizen and alderman in Chicago, is the great lesson which he needs to learn, and we need to learn it with him. He will remain a Bohemian longest in the agricultural districts of Minnesota and Nebraska, where he holds tenaciously to the speech of his forefathers; but, in spite of that, I consider him a better American than his brother in the city. He needs to find here a Christianity which wil satisfy his spiritual nature and which will become the law of his life, a religion which binds him and yet will make him truly free; and that we all need to find. Above all, he has to resist the temptation to make bread out of stone, to use all his powers to make a living and none of them to make a life; and that is a temptation which we must all learn to resist, for neither men nor nations can "live by bread alone."

W

THAT is Christianity? The centuries have been seeking an answer to this question; not because Christianity is indefinite, but because it is larger than the mind of man has been able fully to grasp. Dr. Brown's book is an attempt to trace the movement

The Essence of Christianity: A Study in Definition. By William Adams Brown, Ph.D., D.D. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.

An Introduction to Protestant Dogmatics. By Dr. P. Lobstein, Professor of Theology in the University of Strassburg. Authorized Translation from the Original French Edition by Arthur Maxson Smith, Ph.D. Pub lished by the Translator. Printed at the University of Chicago Press.

Theology and the Social Consciousness: A Study of the Relations of Social Consciousness to Theology. By Henry Churchill King. The Macmillan Company, New York.

Reason and Revelation: An Essay in Christian Apology. By J. R. Illingworth, D.D. The Macmillan Company, New York.

The Spiritual Outlook: A Survey of the Religious Life of Our Time as Related to Progress. By Willard Chamberlain Selleck. Little, Brown & Co., Boston.

Jesus Way: An Appreciation of the Teaching in the Synoptic Gospels. By William De Witt Hyde, President of Bowdoin College. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Boston,

toward an adequate answer, and it shows. a wide knowledge of the field, a clear, discriminating mind, and an experienced hand in the art of writing. It is an attempt to trace, as he says, "the rise and progress of the effort to conceive Christianity scientifically." In the first chapter, which is admirable for its terse, clear, easy style, he states the problem. This he shows to be ultimately dependent upon the conception of the Absolute. When the Absolute is conceived of as that which is in contrast with the finite, then arises a theology, be it that of the Vatican or that of dogmatic Protestantism, which makes the essence of Christianity consist in what is extraordinary and miraculous. When the Absolute is conceived of as that which is beyond the boundary of knowledge, then arises a philosophy, it cannot be called a theology, which denies the possibility of an absolute religion or

that there is anything essential and therefore permanent in Christianity. When the Absolute is conceived of as that which is the ultimate reality of all life-neither contrasted with the finite nor separated from it-then arises a theology which finds God in his world and makes the essence of Christianity-so far as it is an absolute religion to consist in its meeting the universal religious needs, because it is "valid for man as man." While contrasting these three conceptions, Dr. Brown takes occasion to point out the fact that the first, which makes faith dependent upon some external sanction, be it church, creed, or book, is, in spite of common opinion to the contrary, vague and ambiguous. It is the last of these conceptions, the one which he terms the psychological, which he accepts as prerequisite to any reasonable attempt to discover the elements of absoluteness in Christianity.

To the question, What is Christianity? Dr. Brown finds in the very beginnings of the Church two contradictory answers. One, in part given by Paul, in part by the Epistle to the Hebrews, is that Christianity consists in a new principle, partly in contrast to Judaism, partly in develop ment out of it. The other answer, given by the Epistle of Barnabas, is that Christianity is primarily law-precisely the same law as that revealed in the Old Testament, but disobeyed, and therefore misunderstood, by the Jews. It is this second answer which is found to be overwhelmingly prevalent throughout the ancient and mediæval Church, and but little modified in the leaders of the Reformation. It is not until the philosophy of Kant and the rise of the historical spirit began to upset the complacent certainties of Catholic and Protestant theologians alike, that the way was opened for Schleiermacher, Hegel, and Ritschl to develop the answer first given by Paul and the Epistle to the Hebrews. In a final chapter," Retrospect and Prospect," Dr. Brown reaches his definition of Christianity, which centers about Jesus Christ, as one who not only reveals truth but imparts life.

With all its compactness and its scholarship, this book has a distinct literary quality. It not only gives valuable information, but it also stimulates thought. Those who wish to have at hand a wide

survey of the great historical currents of the philosophy of Christianity and the present trend of theological thought will find it in this volume.

One cause of the slow progress of the world, which sometimes seems slowest of all in the Church, is the tendency of men, even of the more thoughtful character, to read mainly books which confirm their previous impressions. Comparatively few men are open-minded enough to read, with appreciation and assimilation, books which present a point of view to which they are unaccustomed ; or, if they do not absolutely taboo such books as dangerous, they read them only to criticise or condemn.

We wish that Dr. Lobstein's book might be read by two classes of thinkers of our time, both of whom might, by perusing it, be enabled better to comprehend the theological transition through which some certainly are passing. These two classes, the egoistical rationalist and the traditional dogmatist, confirm each the other by reason of the polemical temper, which always. assumes generally erroneously — that whatever is the opposite of an error is the truth. The egoistical rationalist will not look for sources of religious truth beyond his own ideas and ideals, and so measures all affirmations by the way they strike his reason or perhaps his fancy. Of this type James Martineau is probably the most notable and noble illustration among English writers. The traditional dogmatician, beginning with the assumption that the Bible is the only infallible rule of faith and practice, and going on to affirm that the creeds are the only authoritative interpreters of the Bible, should-though he does not always or even generally-go on still further, into the Church of Rome; for an infallible book, if it is to be an infallible guide, requires an infallible church to be its infallible interpreter. Professor Lobstein accepts neither the postulate of the egoist nor of the traditionalist. He insists that dogma is necessary. We must think out our faith in rational forms for our own sake, else it remains a mere vague and formless sentiment. We must think it out for the sake of others, else in communicating it we communicate simply an evanescent imagination or a still more evanescent emotion. But the material for a scientific statement of religious truth