precept, for it does not stand our test; it can be performed without mention of Christ's name in the ceremony. When kings, emperors, and popes in a spectacular style observe what Luther calls "hypocritical foot-washing" we think of his advice, "If you wish to wash your neighbor's feet see that your heart is really humble, and help everyone in becoming better."

2. Confirmation by the imposition of the hands of a bishop for communicating the Holy Spirit to a baptized person. In some churches it included the chrism as a symbol of the Spirit. The texts adduced in support of this rite are Acts viii, 14-17; xix, 5, 6; Heb. vi, 1. These texts prove that this impartation of the Spirit was a prerogative of the apostles only. As they had no successors clothed with equal authority it ceased at their decease. It was neither instituted by the command of Christ, the Head of the Church, nor does it answer the demands of our criterion. It is out of harmony with the universal atonement and with the proclamation of the Gospel to every creature to grant to a small class of believers a monopoly of the Holy Ghost promised to all believers who will perseveringly ask for him in the name of Christ. In respect to this crowning gift Faber's lines are true:

There's a wideness in God's mercy,

Like the wideness of the sea.

If men are called upon to curse the man who fills his purse by cornering the bread market (Prov. xi, 26), what are they to think of a God who through "the myth of the apostolic succession" (Phillips Brooks) puts a patent-right upon the author and Supporter of spiritual life? It is as evident as the cloudless sun at midday that the Father of mercies and God of all grace has not limited himself to such a narrow channel in the communication of himself to believers in his Son.

3. Tithing. The required bestowment of a tenth of our income is alleged by some good people to be a part of Christianity. Giving is a moral obligation, but giving a tenth is not a dictate of our moral sense. If it is a duty it must be positive. We look in vain in the New Testament for such an expression of the divine will. It may be said this is found in Matt. xxiii, 23, "But these ye ought to have done." We will show more fully under our next

topic that our great Teacher did not shock the religious feelings of the Jews by a sudden termination of their rites, but that it was his habit to regulate the manner and spirit in which temporary Hebrew ceremonies should be performed. He found the Jews exercising a disproportionate conscientiousness in trifles, which, according to their traditional conception of duty, they ought to care for; while they were utterly neglecting obligations of overwhelming importance. Moreover, as tithing does not keep Christ in the center of his religion it does not answer to the requirements of a positive precept. While it would be a means of grace to all Christians voluntarily to give at least a tenth of their income to promote the kingdom of Christ and to help the poor whom we always have with us, and to fill to overflowing the various treasuries of his Church, it would in the end be a detriment to bring this to pass by proclaiming the tithe as a positive requirement of Christ. It would add to the influence under which too many are drifting into legalism and self-righteousness. The spirituality of those sects which teach that God requires a tenth is, to say the least, not remarkably high; the Irvingites or Catholic Apostolic, the Seventhday Adventists, the Dowieites or Christian Catholic, the Mormons or Latter-day Saints, and the Sanfordites are of this type. The tithe may enrobe their leaders in gorgeous vestments, fill their purses, and sustain a vigorous propaganda, but it certainly does not produce a deep and intelligent piety.

4. Fasting or abstinence from food as a religious exercise. This was not a positive command either in the law or in the Gospel. It is a characteristic of nearly all the paganisms in the world, especially the Asiatic religions with which the Hebrews came in contact. Jehovah appointed a day of atonement for their sins (Lev. xvi, 29-31), a special day in which they should "afflict their souls" by repenting of their sins as a preparation for forgiveness. They found it easier to do as their heathen neighbors did; they fasted from sunset to sunset instead of quitting their evil ways. The prophets at times rebuked this substitution, especially Isaiah, who excoriates the fast which allowed them "to smite with the fist of wickedness." They did not have fasts enough, so during the captivity in Babylon they appointed four more, which Zechariah

afterward turned into "joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts.” Neither Moses nor Christ ever appointed a day of abstinence from food. They both called the Israelites to repentance. In examining the New Testament to ascertain whether Jesus Christ gave any positive precept requiring periodical fasting we call attention to several spurious texts dating from about the sixth century, when for the first time fasting ceased to be voluntary and was commanded under the penalty in some instances of the extraction of the teeth. These texts, as the Revision shows, are Matt. xviii, 21, the whole verse being omitted; Mark ix, 29, Acts x, 30, and 1 Cor. vii, 5, where fasting is omitted. These glosses were probably not an intentional corruption of the text. Some monk in his cell when the Church was befogged with a cloud of asceticism penciled on the margin of the manuscript the word voreía, where he thought fasting was appropriate. Afterward a copyist, thinking it an omission, innocently copied it into the text. We would also call attention to a mistranslation of "shall" for "will" in Matt. ix, 15, "then will they fast" because of sorrow. The future tense in the third person in Greek does not express obligation. Hence Wesley is careful in his version to change the "shall" to "will" in the sentence, “One of you will betray me." Consistency required the same change in Matt. ix, 15; Mark ii, 20; Luke v, 35. The chief support of the error that periodical fasting is required by Christ is Matt. vi, 16, "Moreover when ye fast, be not as the hypocrites." From its juxtaposition with the verses about prayer, beginning in the same way, "When ye pray," it is alleged that fasting is just as obligatory as praying. The truth is that neither is here commanded. This is conceded by Wesley, a man who, in accordance with the spirit of his generation, was given to rigorous fasting, and in his High Church period fasted twice a week till three o'clock P. M. He says, "Our Lord does not enjoin either fasting, almsdeeds, or prayer; all these being duties which were before fully established in the Church of God." This is a concession that this text is not a positive precept. Here we revert to the idea suggested in reference to tithing, that Christ was in the habit of regulating the spirit and manner of the Jews in their religious customs which he intended his Gospel should supersede, such as

Matt. v, 23, "Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar," etc. This does not eternize the obligation to bring material gifts to a material altar, but it does prescribe the spirit in which the Jews should worship God by offerings while under the Levitical law. Again, Matt. xxiii, 2: "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat: all things therefore whatsoever they bid you, these do and observe." Here is evidently a temporary precept. This must be admitted, or we must all go to the synagogue, listen to the rabbis, and obey all their instructions! The fact is, there is not one direct command to fast. So embarrassed was a certain bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church in an article on "The Duty of Fasting" that he actually invented the following apostolic command, "Give yourselves to fasting and prayer" (1 Cor. vii, 5).* This was done by decapitating a piece of advice to married Christians and erecting the dependent clause of the sentence into a precept. The word "fasting" in this text is pronounced spurious by all the critical editors, because it is lacking in all the uncial manuscripts.

Our most cogent argument against periodical fasting is found in Mark ii, 18-22; Luke v, 33-38, where the question is raised why Jesus and his disciples are supposed to be guilty of the impiety of neglecting this religious exercise so devoutly practiced by John and his followers. His reply was that it was not consonant with the good news which he came to announce to a sad and sinful world. It would be like employing dirge singers at a wedding, while the happy pair are receiving the congratulations of the nuptial guests. It would be like putting a patch of new, stiff, and undressed cloth upon a rent in a garment thin and old. The result would be like the poet Young's baptized infidel, "the worse for mending." He then intimates that when the Bridegroom shall be taken away their sorrow would be so great as naturally to deprive them of an appetite for their daily food. The period of the Bridegroom's absence in the region of the dead was about forty hours. When he returned there was no more any occasion for fasting. "Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord." Nor was there any more occasion after his ascension, for just before he mounted the skies, stepping from the footstool to the throne, the Bridegroom of the

*Methodist Quarterly Review, New York, 1849, p. 208.

Church said to his bride, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." If she really believes this, how can she put on the apparel of a widow and fast with a sad countenance? Not one of the twelve personally trained by Christ said a word about fasting, except Matthew, who wrote as an historian. It is not named by Peter, James, Jude, or John in his gospel, Apocalypse, and three epistles. It does not occur in the Epistle to the Hebrews, of unknown authorship. The only voluntary fasting by the Christian Church in any place in the New Testament is in connection with two ordinations recorded in Acts xiii, 2, 3, when Paul and Barnabas were ordained and sent away, and Acts xiv, 23, where elders were appointed in every church, a solemnity not required by the Head of the Church, but naturally suggested to Jews who had been accustomed to fast on very important occasions, and especially to Paul, who as a Pharisee was accustomed to frequent fasts. There are also two records of Paul's involuntary fastings to which he was driven by poverty (2 Cor. vi, 5, and xi, 27). If they had been voluntary they would not have been named in both instances in a series of hardships, such as stripes, imprisonments, robbers, and shipwrecks. If he practiced stated fasting, in none of his numerous epistles did he require it, recommend it as a means of spiritual discipline, or even name it except among the sufferings just named. In his pastoral epistles to Timothy and Titus, instructing them respecting the characters which those whom they should ordain as deacons and bishops or elders should sustain, there is not the first hint about asceticism, though this, if a necessary qualification, would most certainly have been specified in company with the caveat, "not given to much wine." We hear nothing about the willingness of the candidates to "recommend fasting by precept and example," and to be diligent in gathering the tithes. We infer indeed that neither of them is divinely required.

The treatment of the subject of fasting by all the Wesleyan theologians is not without interest. Richard Watson, although he lived before the interpolations in the New Testament had been discovered, ignores it entirely, as do Raymond and Miley and Sheldon. Pope speaks of it as "brought from the Old Testament by our Lord, who indirectly enjoined it both by his example and