him it was a political duty. Had he been a citizen of Old Athens during the Peloponnesian War, every morning, when his term of service came around, the sun would have found him on the Pynx, actively opposing Cleon, Alcibiades, and the other demagogue crew. But, no; not "every morning" sun; for the demagogues would have resorted to the shells; he would have been ostracised, and would have spent most of those years in exile.

In Demosthenes' time he would have been unsparing in denouncing Philip and in stirring up the Athenians against Macedonian encroachments. At Rome he would have attended every great election, or popular assembly, in the Campus Martius despite the threats and daggers of Catiline and his band of traitors. Jacob Cooper's religion, politics, social, moral, and domestic standards of duty were fixed ideas "-years ago determined, stereotyped, and no longer subject to revision, alteration, or amendment. From the duty side his temperament was militant; but it was only the outcome of deep conviction. From the other side, his deep sympathies, highlytensioned, nervous temperament made him the tenderest of men. Never were two seemingly antagonistic natures more thoroughly combined in one human organism. He would have been a model soldier of Cromwell's Ironsides, ready first to fervently pray; then, with psalm and pike, to go through the ranks of the Cavaliers with the breath of the tornado for God and the Parliament.

On the other hand such was his reverence for all God's creation that he could not bear to see even the lower animals suffer willful injury. Of this sentiment the writer recalls an instance from one of his visits to Dr. Cooper's home in New Brunswick. Dr. C. and he were passing through a little copse, or thicket, near the former's house. Dr. C. had purchased this little waste some years before and for a good, round sum, --when he called attention to a rabbit squatting beside our path. The little animal hopped a few feet out of our way, then stopped, evidently with no apprehension of harm to itself. Then Dr. Cooper pointed out several other hares near by in the thicket, ruminating much at their ease and with a sense of security. He said he never suffered the little creatures to be disturbed in this retreat, and so well had they learned of the safety assured them there that often when chased by hunters near the city they would fly into this copse-their city of refuge-near their protector. Verily we have hope that lion and lamb will feed one day together in peace.

Before leaving Kentucky, Dr. Cooper was married, July 20, 1865, to Miss Mary Lane, of Cincinnati, who survives him. Three sons of this second marriage are still living: the eldest is a civil engineer; the second, a lawyer; and the third, in the faculty of Cornell University. The early death of his little son, Theodore Woolsey, plunged him into the deepest grief. Long afterward he wrote sadly to the writer that he could not yet understand God's sore dealing with him. He became reconciled at last; but the torn heartstrings were never attuned again. No heart could suffer more acutely from the loss of those it loved. His loves and his antipathies were poles apart; there was no debatable ground between. Dr. Cooper's learning was of the highest. In his specialties he had no superior on our continent; while in general, "all-round," scholarship he had few equals.

His scholarship was recognized by high authority, as evidenced by his degrees: S.T.D. was conferred in 1874 by Columbia; D.C.L. by Jena in 1873; and LL.D. by Tulane in 1895.

His writings treated chiefly of patriotic, philosophic, or theological subjects-themes broad enough to touch upon the thought, feeling, and motive forces of our race. He doubtless felt that along these lines the springs of action of intelligent conscience were to be directed. He never indulged in that cheap line of authorship, the compilation of college textbooks; for which he might force a small market at least in his own class-room. He did not add another to the thousands of grammars forever set afloat upon, or sinking in, the literary gulf. He published no editions of Greek plays; nor a new issue of Homer, or Xenophon, collated and compiled from a few German authorities, plus no original investigation of his own, and with nothing new save the name on the titlepage. He knew that such authorship is ephemeral, and he never felt impelled by the lack of a text suitable for students as the sole reason for undertaking such a task." He did not care to winnow straw that had already been threshed a thousand times. But in the old days when the nation's life was the wager; or when Renan's skepticism was shaking the faith of many Christians; when the supernatural of the Christian system was at stake,-then Dr. Cooper was forward in defense of the faith once given to the saints. This scribe has no catalog of Dr. Cooper's manifold writings; but readers of the BIBLIOTHECA SACRA who have studied his articles delving into the deep problems of thought, faith, and life, can bear wit

ness to his learning, and patient search after the things of the spirit.

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His warm personal relations with Mr. Gladstone are well known. He had persuaded the great Englishman to undertake the edition of Butler's " Analogy"; for he believed none other so competent to make lucid Butler's great thought, though somewhat turgid style. Last summer the writer read in Dr. Cooper's library a number of Mr. Gladstone's manuscript letters to him. Through these was indicated the high esteem in which he was held by the great Premier. Indeed, Dr. Cooper was fondly known among his pupils as Rutgers' "Grand Old Man."

In 1883 he was elected Professor of Ethics and Metaphysics in the University of Michigan, and this chair long remained open for his acceptance. Some time after finally declining it, he wrote to the writer that he felt he had made a mistake in declining the place, as thereby he might have been saved from some losses from which he had since suffered.

In 1893 he was transferred, at his own request, to the Chair of Metaphysics in Rutgers, and retained this position till his death. His pupils, his family, his fellow-citizens, will testify to the fidelity with which he discharged all the duties devolved upon him. All bear witness to his truth, loyalty, tender-almost feminine-sympathy, purity of life, his learning, his ability as a teacher, preacher, and writer. Over all his many things he was faithful, and in his death the world has lost one of its noblest characters.

Harriman, Tenn.

H. A. SCOMP.

THE

BIBLIOTHECA SACRA

ARTICLE I.

THE BIBLICAL CRITICISM OF THE PRESENT DAY.1

BY THE REVEREND ABRAHAM KUYPER, D.D., LL.D.

IN keeping with an ancient custom, it will be a rule at our University that the exchange of the rectorate shall be accompanied by an oration; and it is preferred that each rector shall take a theme from his own department. I also desire to observe this rule, and therefore the Annale Academici and the inaugural of the new rector are preceded by this address on Present-day Biblical Criticism, viewed from the point of its dangerous tendency to the church of the living God. I am deeply sensible of the importance of the task imposed on me by this choice of subject; I feel what modesty is demanded of me when I undertake to differ from celebrated and talented colleagues, who are for the most part my superiors; I know my need of greater courage than my own heart prompts, when I raise my hand and voice boldly against current opinions;— but may I refrain when the dangers that threaten the church compel me to speak? And, I add, do you expect anything else, when for several months past a reply has been invited from our side about this cardinal point in the conflict of spirits? It is indeed our conviction which, with an appeal to your 1 Translated from the Dutch by J. Hendrik de Vries, D. D., Princeton, New Jersey.

Vol. LXI. No. 243. 1

considerate judgment but without the least uncertainty, we express, that the biblical criticism of the present day is destructive of the best interests of the church of the living God, for the reason that it revokes her theology, robs her of the Bible, and destroys her liberty in Christ. Give me your attention as, in the development of these three propositions, I shall show that biblical criticism as it is prosecuted in our times at almost every Protestant university on the continent of Europe, must result in the utter destruction of theology; that it cannot continue without robbing the church of the Holy Scriptures; and that it must end in surrendering her, utterly defenseless, into the arms of the most unbearable, because intellectual, clericalism. And may He, before whose glory I reverently bow and for the welfare of whose church I plead, be in this the inspirer of my word and the judge of my thoughts; while in this sacred task, also, our help is in the name of the Lord Jehovah, the Rock of our strength, and the Strength of our life.

I.

Biblical criticism of the present day tears the parts of theology out of their relation, violates its character, and substitutes for it something which is no theology. Such is the threefold complaint in which I treat the first part of the subject in hand, as I undertake to prove the proposition that present-day biblical criticism must end in the destruction of theology.

Theology is a science which, if it is analogous to philosophy and psychology, is distinguished from all other sciences by this fundamental point, that it does not occupy itself with the knowledge of the creature, but of the Creator; hence of a God who, as creator, cannot be included in the range of the creaturely. The object of theology, therefore, is God. Not God and something besides which is coördinated with him;