ures of the two others, and
develop them into a new progressive power. Hence arose the Groningen
School. Its immediate origin was the attempt of Professor Van Heusde to
modernize Platonism and adapt it to the nineteenth century. Hofstede de
Groot, Pareau, and Muurling have been its leaders. Its organ is the
periodical entitled, _Truth in Love_.

The characteristic of this school is, that there is in human nature a
divine element which needs development in order to enable humanity to
reach its destination. This destination is conformity to God. All
religions have aimed and worked at the same problem, but Christianity
has solved it in the highest and purest manner. Still, there is only a
difference in degree between that and other religions. This is the germ
of what the Groningens call the "Evangelical Catholic Theology."
Conformity to God, they say, has been reached in Jesus Christ; but
Plato, Zoroaster, and Confucius strove to attain to it. They failed
because their task was too great for the means at command. God has
fulfilled the desire of man, whom he had prepared for salvation by
sending perfection embodied in Christ. We may not attach ourselves to
any system or effort as absolutely true or good, nor condemn any as
utterly false. All knowledge and arts are related to religion. They
refine man and aid him in his emancipation from whatever is sinful and
sensual.

The correspondence of ideas between Hofstede de Groot and Pareau was so
intimate that they published a joint work on dogmatic theology, which
contains a complete exposition of the principles of the Groningen
School. Jesus Christ constitutes the centre of religion. In him we see
what is God, what is man, the relations of one to the other, and how we
can be so delivered from sin and its power as to become God's children
by faith and love. In Christ's death we find love even for sinners, and
learn that suffering is not an evil. In his glorification we perceive
the aims and results of suffering. In him is the Theanthropos, not God
_and_ man, but God _in_ man. There is but one nature in Christ, the
divine-human. Jesus being the focal point of the interests of man, we
must know, _first_, what he is outside of us, objectively; _second_, how
he appears within us, subjectively. To know Christ we need the
exegetical study of that preparation of man for Christ, which is
furnished by the Old Testament. The New Testament is the fulfillment.
The latter contains the sayin