as instruments for moving man.10 It is unfortunate, more- over, that the form of Christianity which is professed by the leaders of the Emmanuel Movement, and the inculca- tion of which they rely upon to soothe troubled minds and to inspire to effort, is rather that taught by Renan and Harnack and Theodor Keim (the collocation of names is not our own11), than that taught by John and Paul and Jesus; so that a rationalistic veil hangs over all their re- ligious prescriptions. Nevertheless, although Christianity is emphatically an " other- world " religion, and a merely "this-world" religion is just no Christianity at all, it is not to be denied that there is a "this-world" side to Chris- tianity. Undoubtedly, it has the promise of the life that now is as well as of that which is to come, and they who seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness may rightly expect all these things to be added unto them. It is as little to be doubted that there are valuable reflex effects which may be confidently counted upon from the exercise, say, of faith and prayer, as it is undeniable that these re- flex effects are of infinitely less importance than their direct working. And of course it is unquestionable that it be- longs to the Christian calling to relieve so far as it is within our power to do so, by the use of all legitimate means, every distress under which we find our fellow men to be suffering. We would not lag behind the Emmanuel Move- ment in zeal for service ; and if we find it moved at this or that point by extravagances of pretension, and limited here and there by defective spiritual insight or outlook, surely, in avoiding what is bad in it, we may not refuse to imitate what is good, and our chief concern should be to fashion our own conduct more, not less, completely after the higher Christian ideal.
The particular psychological assumptions upon which the Emmanuel Movement is at present conducted may seem to us little assured. No doubt, we are told that the work "does not depend upon any theory, whether psycho-
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logical or physiological, of the subconscious." 12 We are simply to act on the empirical fact that even broken men are accessible to spiritual influences, and through these spiritual influences may be brought to a better adjustment with life. To that extent we may all be believers in psycho- therapy. What Christian pastor, what Christian person, has not acted on that assumption since Christianity began ? But there is the organization? Well, what has the Em- manuel Movement to offer here which was not offered in the old Faith-Houses — say, Zeller's House in Mannedorf— except a very much thinner religion and a more advanced medical science? There remains the question of method. We ourselves prefer the older method of, say, the establish- ment of hospitals like the Presbyterian Hospitals in New York and Philadelphia, in which Christian charity provides the best medical service for human ills. We feel grave doubts as to the desirability of the minister himself becom- ing officially a medical practitioner, even by the method of suggestion; perhaps we would better say especially by the method of suggestion — even though that be spiritual sug- gestion. When Sir Clifford Allbutt declares that "notions of the priest as medicine-man" are "essentially pagan," he speaks no doubt unnecessarily harshly, but, we must admit it, essentially justly. When Doctor Charles Buttar ad- vises the clergymen to be "content for the present to leave the untrained practice of methods of suggestion to quacks," we cannot deny that he has had some provocation for his counsel. When Stephen Paget in his gracious way re- marks that "they who desire, extravagantly, to put 'spiri- tual healing' among the methods of the Christian minis- try, seem to me to be losing sight of the fact that common sense is an essential trait of the Christian life," we cannot help feeling that he has said the right word in the right place.13 Is it not plain common sense for each organ of the body to be content with its own functions, the eye with its seeing, the ear with its hearing? And is there not a pro-
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found warning in Paul's remark, especially to us who have a work of our own to do, that all cannot be the ear — else where were the seeing?14