+Conventional view both true and false.+--To say that these statements are wholly untrue is impossible, for they everyone contain a truth of considerable value, but as popularly stated they are misleading. This view of the Atonement is unethical, and, in my judgment and that of many others, has wrought a good deal of mischief in the past and bewilderment in the present. Some readers of these pages will no doubt find fault with me for stating it so baldly, and will maintain that no front-rank theologian or preacher would enunciate it in these terms to-day. Once again I can only repeat that they use language which implies it, and it seems impossible to resist the conclusion that they are driven to use the vaguer language because of their own feeling that the balder statement, which their predecessors made without hesitation, is intellectually and morally impossible, and yet they do not know what to put in its place. They are reluctant to give up the belief that in some way or other the death of Jesus on Calvary actually effected something in the unseen by making God propitious toward us and removing the barrier which prevented Him from freely forgiving human sin. Of course they add other and valuable elements in their discussion of the theme, but this is their central idea and they seldom get away from it. The typical theologian never seems to think of looking at the death of Jesus from the purely human point of view, and yet surely this is the only legitimate thing to do when trying to get at the heart of the subject. It is what we should do in any other case of a like kind; we should never dream of doing anything else. We have no business to begin speculating upon transcendental questions until we have examined the purely human causes of such an event as the crucifixion of Jesus. When an adherent of the so-called orthodox view of the doctrine of the Atonement is pressed to say just what he supposes the death of Jesus to have effected in the mind of God so as to free humanity from its curse, he usually takes refuge in phrases about the "mystery of the cross," and so on. He does not say in plain language exactly what he means, for the truth is he does not know; he only believes what he has been told, and has persuaded himself that it is of the utmost value to Christian experience, which it is not and never was. The doctrine as popularly held is not only not true but it ought not to be true; it is a serious hindrance to spiritual religion. Why in the world should God require such a sacrifice before feeling Himself free to forgive His erring children? And why should it be regarded as in any real sense a substitute for what is due from us or any equivalent for what we should otherwise have to bear? Once more, perhaps, the dogmatic theologian will pull me up sharply and say that I am misrepresenting him, but I think I am on fairly safe ground in declaring that this is what the