was employed, and made effectual for | a sphere, no less than a savor of its its aim, by the hand of the almighty own. It dwelt of old with the prophand allwise designer. Here is the genuine undenominationalism; now let us turn to the spurious. ets, the priests, and the congregation; it now dwells with the Christian people, rulers and ruled; and this strictly in their character as Christian people, as subjects of God the Holy Ghost en From every page of the Gospel we find that the great message to be con-gaged with them in the holy warfare, veyed to the world, in order to its re- which began with the entrance of sin covery from sin, was to be transmitted into the world, and which can never through a special organization. I do end but with its expulsion. Foul fall not enter on any of the questions con- the day, when the persons of this world troverted among believers as to the shall, on whatever pretext, take into nature of this organization, whether it their uncommissioned hands the manipwas the popedom, or the episcopate, ulation of the religion of our Lord and or the presbyterate, or the Christian Saviour. The State, laboring in its flock at large consecrated and severed own domain, is a great, nay a vener-, from the world by baptism. The point able, object; so is the family. These on which alone I now dwell is that are the organic units, constitutive of there was a society, that this society was spiritual, that it lay outside the natural and the civil order. These had their own places, purposes, and instruments; they were qualified to earn a blessing in the legitimate use of those instruments within their own sphere, or might degrade and destroy them, by ambitiously and profanely employing them for purposes for which they were not intended by the Most High. human societies. Let the family transgress and usurp the functions of the State; its aberrations will be short, and a power it cannot resist will soon reduce its action within proper limits. But the State is, in this world, the master of all coercive means; and its usurpations, should they occur, cannot be checked by any specific instruments included among standing social provisions. If the State should think proper to frame new creeds by cutting the old ones into pieces and throwing them into the caldron to be reboiled, we have no remedy, except such as may lie hidden among the resources of the providence of God. It is fair to add that the State is in this matter beset by severe temptations; the vehicle through which these temptations work will probably, in this country at least, be supplied by popular education. Nowhere, so far as my knowledge goes, is this essential difference between the temporal and the spiritual kingdoms laid down with a bolder and firmer hand, than in the confessional documents of the Scottish Presbyterian system. It may be due to that Christian courage, that Scottish Presbyterianism has been found strong enough to exhibit in this nineteenth century of ours, examples of self-sacrifice and faith, which have drawn forth tributes The Church, disabled and discredited of admiration from the Christian world by her divisions, has found it impractiat large. Conversely, of all the coun- cable to assert herself as the universal terfeits of religion there is, in my view, guide. Among the fragments of the none so base as that which passes cur- body, a certain number have special rent under the name of Erastianism, affinities, and in particular regions or and of which it has been my privilege conjunctures of circumstances it would to witness, during the course of the be very easy to frame an undenominapresent century, the gradual decline tional religion much to their liking, and almost extinction, especially among divested of many salient points needful the luminaries of the political world. in the view of historic Christendom This is not a question between a clergy and a laity; but between the Church and the world. Divine revelation has for a complete Christianity. Such a scheme the State might be tempted to authorize by law in public elementary pensation; and whether the spirit of faction which prevails so lamentably in religious divisions, has not been made to minister to the very purpose over which it had seemed to exercise so fatal an agency. teaching, nay, to arm it with exclusive set out. But let us see, if this be an and prohibitory powers as against other evil, whether it is not one for which in and more developed methods which another portion of the field that has the human conscience, sole legitimate been opened, we have an ample comarbiter in these matters, together with the spirit of God, may have devised for itself in the more or less successful effort to obtain this guidance. It is in this direction that we have recently been moving, and the motion is towards a point where a danger signal When two powers or parties are very is already lifted. Such an undenomi- sharply divided in controversy, and national religion as this could have no when the force of the old Adam seems promise of permanence. None from to enthrone this hostility as the ruling authority, for the assumed right to give motive of their conduct, it is apt to it is the negation of all authority. follow that great additional emphasis None from piety, for it involves at the and efficacy is given to their testimony very outset the surrender of the work on the points where it is accordant. of the divine kingdom into the hands Take, for example, the case of the of the civil ruler. None from policy, lately discovered Samaritan Pentabecause any and every change that teuch. The enmity which subsisted may take place in the sense of the cou- between Samaritans and Jews was an stituent bodies, or any among them, overpowering enmity, which reached will supply for each successive change the point of social excommunication; precisely the same warrant as was the for the Jews had "no dealings with groundwork of the original proceeding. the Samaritans.' Under these circumWhatever happens, let Christianity stances, if either party could have keep its own acts to its own agents, detected the other as implicated in and not make them over to hands the offence of altering or corrupting which would justly be deemed profane and sacrilegious when they came to trespass on the province of the sanctuary. Let us now turn to another aspect of possible account. When the capacity this interesting examination. the great traditionary treasure of the Torah, it is quite certain that the accusation would have been made, and would have been turned to the best and the disposition to expose negligence or fraud existed on each side and in the highest degree, the absence of any charge, and the absolute concurrence as to the great document, afford us the highest possible assurance of the integrity of the record. The same argument is applicable as between Jews and Christians, and within its proper limits to the integrity of the Hebrew Scriptures. Thus far it may be said we have been constantly extenuating the responsibilities which attach to heresy and schism, and tampering with the securities for the maintenance of the true apostolic doctrine. If it may be said the claims of rival communions to demand adhesion with authority are now thus confused or balanced, it follows that Christianity has been deprived of some portion at least of the favoring evidences on which it had to rely when ushered into the world; and thus a diminution has been effected in schisms, and the Christian faith disthe aggressive force, by means of turbed and defaced by heresies. We which the Gospel had to convert the have before us a very Babel of claimkingdoms of the world, into the king- ants for the honors of orthodoxy and doms of our God and of his Christ. catholicity. Setting out from Western And such without doubt is the first Christendom, we naturally go back to result of the argument as it has been the great convulsion of the sixteenth Now let us ask whether and how far a similar argument applies to the case of the Christian Church rent by century; we perceive the still huge a knot of Churches, which are termed framework of the Latin Church, with heretical on account of difficulties the popedom at its head, standing growing out of the older controversies erect upon a wide field of battle, in of the Church. It seems fair, however, the midst of other separated masses, to remark that these Churches have each of them greatly smaller when not exhibited the changeable and shortreckoned one by one, but in the aggre-lived character which is supposed to be gate forming a total very large, even if among the most marked notes of herwe confine our views to Europe. The esy. They have subsisted through three principal of these severed masses some fifteen hundred years with a sigare the Lutheran, the Calvinistic, and nal persistency, I believe, in doctrine, the Anglican, which at the present government, and usage. The Eastern time may reach sixty or eighty millions | Christians do not probably fall short of in this quarter of the globe. Con- ninety or a hundred million persons all joined with them are a number of told; and although to the Western eye Christian bodies, which derive force they present so many exterior resemand significance partly from magnitude, blances to the Roman Church, they are and partly from the historic incidents in practice divided from it not less of their formation; or from moral, sharply than the Protestants, by differspiritual, or theological particularities, ences partly of doctrine (where their whether in government, discipline, position seems very strong), but still creed, or in the spirit of their policy more of organization and of spirit. and proceedings. Almost all of them. That all these Churches and comare very strongly anti-Roman, and munions, Latin, Eastern, or Reformed, there are probably still many religion-bear a conflicting witness concerning ists among them who regard the Christianity on a multitude of points, Roman scheme, incorporated in the is a fact too plain to require exposition person of the pope, as the man of sin, the anti-Christ, sitting in the temple of God, and boasting or showing himself that he is God. It is impossible to conceive a livelier scene of diversity and antagonism. When we pass beyond the ocean we find large additions to all these Western communions, especially to those which bear the name of Protestant. So that Presbyterians, Methodists, and Independents or Congregationalists, are able to boast of an aggregate following, which amounts apparently in each case to a respectable number of millions, while the smaller segments of the body continue to be almost everywhere represented. But Western religion has had this among its other particularities, that it maintains a wonderful unconsciousness of the existence of an East. But there is an Eastern Christianity, and this, too, is divided among no small number of communions, of which by far the most numerous are aggregated round the ancient See of New Rome, or Constantinople. And here again we find or discussion. Is there, however, anything also on which they generally agree? And what is the relation between that on which they agree, and those things on which they differ? At this point, it is manifest that we touch upon matters of great interest and importance; which, however, it will suffice to mention very briefly. The tenets upon which these dissonant and conflicting bodies are agreed, are the great central tenets of the Holy Trinity and of the Incarnation of our Lord. But these constitute the very kernel of the whole Gospel. Everything besides, that clusters round them, including the doctrines respecting the Church, the ministry, the sacraments, the communion of saints, and the great facts of eschatology, is only developments which have been embodied in the historic Christianity of the past, as auxiliary to the great central purpose of redemption; that original promise which was vouchsafed to sinful man at the outset of his sad experience, and which was duly accomplished when the fulness of time had come. If, then, the Christian Church has | regard to the prerogatives of truth, and sustained heavy loss through its divi- the very same feelings which will lead sions in the weight of its testimonials, a sound mind to welcome a solid union,. and in its aggressive powers as against will also lead it to eschew an immature the world, I would still ask whether and hollow one. she may not, in the good providence of God, have received a suitable, perhaps a preponderating, compensation, in the accordant witness of all Christendom, to the truths that our religion is the religion of the God-man, and that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh? And why, it will be further asked, is this readjustment of ideas to be the work of the present juncture? In answer, I request that we should study to discern the signs of the times. Is creation groaning and travailing together for a great recovery, or is it not? Are It will have appeared, I hope, suffi- the persons adverse to that recovery, ciently from the foregoing pages, that banded together with an enhanced and what they contemplate and seek to rec- overweening confidence? They loudly ommend is a readjustment of ideas, boast of their improved means of acand not a surrender, in any quarter, of tion; and are fond especially of relyconsidered and conscientious convic-ing on the increase of knowledge. tions, or of established laws and practices. Knowledge, forsooth! God prosper it. But knowledge is like liberty; great The Christian Church, no longer en- offences are committed in her name, titled to speak with an undivided and and great errors covered with her manuniversal authority, and thus to take tle. The increase of knowledge can her place among the paramount facts only lead us to an increased acquaintof life, is not thereby invaded in her ance with him who is its source and inner citadel. That citadel is, and spring. Let the champions of religion ever was, the private conscience within now know and understand, that it is this sacred precinct, that matured the more than ever their duty to equip forces which by a long incubation grew themselves with knowledge, and to use to such a volume of strength, as legit-it as an effective weapon, such as it has imately to obtain the mastery of the proved, and is proving itself to be, in world. It would be a fatal error to allow the voice of that conscience to be put down by another voice, which proceeds, not from within, but from without, the sanctuary. The private conscience is indeed for man, as Cardinal Newman has well said, the vicegerent of God. It is part of the office with which the private conscience is charged, to measure carefully its powers of harmonious co-operation with Christians of all sorts. This duty should be performed in the manner, and on the basis, so admirably described by Dante : Le frondi onde s'infronda tutto l' orto It will be governed by large regard to 1 Paradiso, canto xxvi. 64. regard to the ancient history of our planet and of man. It is the extension of wealth, the multiplication of luxuries, the increase of wants following therefrom; of wants, every one of which is as one of the threads which would, separately, break, but which in their aggregate, bound Gulliver to the earth. This is the subtle process which more and more, from day to day, is weighting the scale charged with the things seen, as against the scale whose ethereal burden lies in the things unseen. And while the adverse host is thus continually in receipt of new reinforcements, it is time for those who believe to bestir themselves; and to prepare for all eventual issues by well examining their common interests, and by keeping firm hold upon that chain which we are permitted to grasp at its earthward extremity, while at its other end it lies" about the feet of God." some twenty-two years of age, with a tall, slight figure and a smile that lighted up her whole face. I think it was her smile that decided me to engage her, even more than the tattered little testimonials that she produced with pride, all vouching for her excel SHE was my baby's nurse, but I had not known her for many days before I realized that she was also a most remarkable young woman, taking her color and surroundings into due consid-lent character. eration. No one could resist Margaret's smile. It was, indeed, her chief stock in trade. The warnings and experience of my friends had prepared me to find in her the typical West-Indian servant — lazy, She had also nice bright eyes, round idle, and generally untrustworthy, with- and brown as coffee-berries, and careout morals or conscience, and only fully smoothed and plaited hair, on redeemed by a certain amount of ill-which she bestowed a vast amount of judged devotion to her little "missus" attention and castor-oil. Its natural from being hopelessly bad and in- frizziness asserted itself round her efficient. forehead, but that was not her fault. The days passed by, and I waited for signs of depravity, but they came not, and to my delighted amazement I slowly realized that except perhaps for a tendency to worship the white "Buckra" baby that was her peculiar charge, in Margaret I possessed the proverbial "treasure.' Of course she was not altogether faultless, but what defects she had were her own, and were often so droll and original that I would hardly have had them absent. Clad in a vivid red plaid calico dress, and with her frizzly black hair surmounted by a neat sailor hat, she produced indeed a very favorable impression on my mind from the first moment I saw her. Many other young ladies - yellow, brown, and black- had already been to see me when they heard I wanted a nurse, but she was unlike them all. A nurse is the one servant that is easy to procure in the West Indies. It is the fashionable and popular form of service, and such a place with an "English missus" is eagerly coveted. Not that Margaret called it a place or even a "situation." That is not at all the "genteel" way of expressing it. She described herself as 'being in search of employment," which is the correct phrase among the Creole black and colored people, and words make as much difference here as at home. She was a very fair mulatto girl, If her nose and mouth fell short of any classical standard, they were at all events quite passably European, and she moved, spoke, and walked with the peculiar gentleness that is the rule among her class and race. This gentleness, although delightful in itself, gives rise to many misunderstandings with new-comers from England, for if the negro women were rough and rude less would be expected from them. As matters now are one feels taken in and disappointed, when a girl, who is apparently quietness and modesty itself, is found grievously wanting in all essentials according to European views of propriety. Margaret, however, proved to be a good girl in every way. She was an excellent nurse, quiet and careful, and from the first moment that she took the "little missus" in her arms, the baby seemed to know that in her new attendant she had found her best friend. The baby did not mind, if Margaret when excited invariably exclaimed in her soft Creole drawl: "Great Scott! what is dis dat I see," an expression that, although I banished it, as in duty bound, from the nursery, invariably made me shake with suppressed laughter. The contrast between the soft, slow voice and the words making it sound even more piquant, for Margaret had picked up the phrase from some former American |