are born, dying as we die, and both in life and death in the keeping of that same Divine Power, that heavenly Fatherhood, which delivers us from the womb and carries us down to the grave. When we come to know Jesus in His historical relations, we see that miracle is not a help, it is a hindrance, to an intelligent comprehension of His person, His character and His mission. We are not alarmed, we are relieved when scientific history proves to us that the fact of His miraculous birth was unknown to Himself, unknown to His mother, and unknown to the whole Christian community of the first generation."

After each of these lectures, Mrs. Crapsey was kind enough to prepare for me a supper to which she invited various men who were interested in this line of talk. Among the guests on the night of the delivery of this twelfth lecture in the course, were Warrant Castleman, Howard Mosher and Judge Sutherland of the Supreme Court. In the course of the conversation, Judge Sutherland said, "We have just been listening to a very wonderful discourse. If any trouble comes to Dr. Crapsey because of its delivery, we must all stand behind him." This was the first intimation that had come to me that trouble could arise from this utterance. It was so much a part of my mental and spiritual equipment that I supposed it to be equally the possession of all thinking minds, but I had, without knowing it, taken a decided step in advance of the general Christian thought of the time. Highly educated men and women, presidents of colleges, and the like, were still under the spell of the Christmas legend. They had long since applied the principles of the Higher Criticism to the Old Testament; had discarded the stories of Creation; had refused to listen to Balaam's ass, nor would they credit the power of Joshua to stay the course of the sun, but these men had not applied this scientific principle to the first chapters of the Gospels of St.

Matthew and St. Luke. I was the very first man in the English-speaking world so to apply in public the Higher Criticism, and I suffered the consequences of the pioneer.

The Rochester papers had given large space to these sermon lectures and on the morning following its delivery the Democrat and Chronicle published this in full. As may be well believed, it caused a sensation. It was reproduced in whole or in part by nearly every paper in the United States, with editorial comment. It was telegraphed almost in full to England and reproduced in the leading journals of Great Britain. As an evidence of the tremendous power of the spoken word, an echo of it came to me within a few months from the Qadian District, Gurdaspur, India, in a letter dated July 4, 1905, which runs as follows:

"I have just read an extract from your lecture in which you have dealt upon the subject of inerrancy of the Bible and the manhood of Jesus, the son of Joseph, 'born as we are born, dying as we die.' I am glad to know that the churchmen in Europe and America do now come forward to speak their hearts with such a liberty. Have you got any lectures of yours published? If so, I shall be obliged to you if you can send me a copy of it by post. Under a separate cover, I send you an interesting literature and shall be glad to send you more on hearing from you.

"I am,

"Yours very truly,

"MAHAMMAD SADIG."

The consequence of this explosion on my part was a great disturbance of the theological atmosphere; it was followed by a terrific storm, and the storm was not long in coming. It began to cover the skies on the following day: Tuesday, the twentieth of February, 1905, dates the beginning of a contention that occupied the attention of the world for nearly two years.

T

CHAPTER XLV

NO CAUSE FOR ACTION

HE morning papers of Tuesday, February 21st, 1905, carried from two to three columns of comments by the various ministers of the city on my sermon lecture of the nineteenth. Many of these comments were commendatory, especially that of Dr. Nelson Millard, a retired Presbyterian minister, and a man of high intelligence and well esteemed by the community. The clergy in charge of churches were naturally very cautious, except those who came out in unqualified condemnation of my position. The one who most severely censured me was the Reverend Andrew J. Graham, of Christ Church, who was sustained by the Reverend Louis Washburn, of St. Paul's Church. The bishop made an immediate demand upon me that I should either repudiate what had been published as my utterance in the daily papers, or I should make a formal retraction. As the bishop had no right whatever to make such a demand, and as compliance would stultify me, I naturally refused to accede to his request. He called a meeting of the clergy of the city and discussed the matter with them in secret. Nothing came of this, as there was a very decided division among the clergy as to whether any action should be taken in the matter at all. In due season, a number of the clergy signed a paper accusing me of teaching false doctrines.

In accordance with the law of the Church, the bishop appointed a committee of five to investigate and report as to whether there was any cause for action on the part of the authorities of the diocese. This committee in due

time invited me to meet with them and discuss the matter in hand. This invitation I declined and the committee called upon me at my house. I had with me as my assessor the Reverend Amos Skeele, rector of the Church of the Epiphany, of Rochester. Mr. Philip Mosher, the chairman of the committee, said to me, "Dr. Crapsey, we know that different persons put different interpretations upon various texts of Holy Scriptures; one man will give to a passage this meaning, and another man that. Now taking this fact of various interpretations into consideration, do you believe that the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God?" I answered, "Certainly if I may, as I must, apply this principle of interpretation, I hold and preach that in the Bible is to be found divine revelation." Mr. Mosher then said, "Applying this same principle of interpretation to the Creed, do you hold that the Apostles' Creed is the true Creed of the Church and contains the essentials of salvation?" To this I again responded, "Certainly, if we may, as we must, interpret the Apostles' Creed in the light of history, I hold and teach that it declares the true faith, and I so preach."

When these questions and answers had duly passed between us, Mr. Mosher and the other members of the committee declared themselves satisfied with my orthodoxy. We then ceased to be a court and a defendant, and became at once simply friends again. We spent an hour or two in converse. If I remember correctly, Mrs. Crapsey served refreshments and the committee went their way; and Dr. Skeele said to me with great satisfaction, "There will be no trial." In a very few days I had a letter from Mr. Mosher telling me that the committee was entirely satisfied with my statement and wished to embody it in their report to the bishop, asking my permission to do so. I answered that I would grant that permission if the questions and answers were given as we had stated them to

each other in our conference. Mr. Mosher consented to this and invited me to come up to Niagara Falls that we might properly prepare the paper. I accepted his invitation and we together prepared a document for submission to the bishop which, if it had been submitted as prepared, would not only have made impossible my trial, but any trial for heresy in the future. What we did was by a series of questions and answers to grant the principle of interpretation, both in relation to the Creed and the Holy Scriptures. If this had been submitted to the bishop and at the same time published to the world, it would have been impossible for the bishop to have rejected it, because the whole world would at once have approved of this solution of the difficulty and both the clergy and the laity Iwould have been released from slavish obedience to the letter of both Creed and Scripture.

But it was not so submitted. The bishop interfered with the free action of the committee; the majority of the committee refused to present me for trial, but instead of giving that clear-cut reason for it, they fumbled the whole matter, tried and condemned me themselves, not for being a heretic, but for being a fool. They claimed that I did not know what I was talking about and, therefore, was not to be held responsible. They said, among other things, that I preached eloquently that which for the time being I believed to be true, but they declared that there was not sufficient evidence in either my sermons or other writings to warrant a presentation. Three of the committee signed the majority report, and two the minority report, which affirmed that there was sufficient cause for my trial to be found in my utterances. This ought to have settled the matter and, in the judgment of the world, it did put an end to any legal action, so that I was still a minister in good standing in my Church. But while legally this brought to a close the controversy, that contro