Dudleian Lecture.

Rev. L. J. McPherson of Chicago delivered the annual Dudleian lecture last evening in Appleton Chapel. His subject was "Revealed Religion," and the substance of his lecture was as follows:

Our religion is largely personal and depends not on institutions like the church, or on the Bible, but on Christ as He is there described. At the same time even today in spite of His revelation to the world, He is the mystery of our religion. Although in the present age we are inclined to look as much as possible to exact science, we are forced to admit that we can not understand the world or even our own lives. In the same way much of religion is a mystery, and this indeed gives it much of its strength. Upon it depend faith, hope, modesty and docility, and without it our belief would be commonplace.

Our interest in the Bible lies not in its literary qualities, but in the wonderful character that it describes. We must have obtained this conception of Christ in one of three ways. Either the evangelists were true historians, or else falsifiers, or had evolved this ideal from the stories of the great men of former history. If the disciples were false, how could they have invented a story so wonderful and at the same time so consistent? If the Gospel is true, it must be regarded as integral, and the resurrection as a necessary part of it. The facts can not be accounted for except by the theory of Christ's divinity. Although often tempted, He remained unconscious of sin, and was finally made perfect through His sufferings. Thus He is the incarnation of revealed religion.