sed and propogated, as is this as well as other forms of error, by men of consummate tact and energy, and of high literary reputation and power, the guardians of a scriptural and experimental Christianity will be found to possess not a tithe too much of holy dexterity and sanctified learning. Neither Christian ministers, nor the conductors of the Christian press, are at all in advance of the responsibility that attaches to their high office. It will be well if they shall he found equal to the demands of the crisis; if, rich in the resources of heavenly wisdom, and unabating vigour, they are found competent to check in their incipient stages, or to combat in their matured developments, the manifold phases of sceptical philosophy and intellectual pride that constitute the staple of much of our modern literature. Our hope in this matter is, under God, in the undeveloped power both of the pulpit and the press. Let that power be well and wisely wielded, and it shall put forth an invincible antagonism, shall rear a massive breastwork of argument, before which the most refined and plausible speculations of the age must inevitably retire. It is not required that in this work of counter-action every Christian preacher shall become an angry polemic, making every discourse the medium of severe fulminations or metaphysical criticism. If men are needed whose capabilities specially qualify them for the arena of controversy, as Divine Providence has left no period of religious history without them, neither has he so left the present. An illustrious band of men adorn the churches, as well of America and the continent of Europe as of Britain itself, under whose unslumbering and able guardianship the doctrines of Christianity will lose nothing of their authority and glory. Blending with opulence of intellectual treasure a profound acquaintance with the subtleties and sophistries of sceptical thinkers; and to these resources, superadding the energies of a manly piety and a highsouled courage, they sustain an attitude of moral majesty and strength,

in whose presence no form of scepticism can permanently luxuriate or exist. In the counteraction, however, of this particular influence of the times, the ministry as a body have an important duty to discharge, demanding all the intelligence and earnestness that mental and spiritual discipline can supply. No new Gospel principles are they called upon to teach, neither are they required to clothe their teaching of the Gospel as it is in the garb of a pedantic and popular mysticism, but to make the pulpit, what the pulpit was designed to be, the vehicle to the world of well-digested and earnest exposition of the truth as it is in Jesus.

Doctrinal fallacies, however, are neither the most potent nor the most pernicious of the influences at work upon the religious life of the age. The temple of religion has been polluted by the footprints of an invader that has carried away richer sacrilegious spoils. A worldliness of spirit and policy has crept into the churches, inconsistent with the high and holy name of Christianity; and this is the other, and the more powerful of the two elements previously mentioned, as acting upon and deteriorating the piety of Christendom. The moral likeness of religion has been disfigured by the admixture, with its own inimitable lineaments, of features essentially unnatural and repulsive. On evidence but too conclusive and criminating, it is chargeable, upon no inconsiderable number of professedly Christian men, that they have failed to maintain inviolate and intact their vows of Christian fidelity. Forgetting or setting aside the conditions of their discipleship, they have virtually fraternized with a world which in no one single element of its character justifies such an alliance. The church and the world are totally distinct communities or kingdoms. Each has a character of its own. Each has its own class of affinities, its own standard of morality, its own principles of action. The New Testament asserts their separateness in language of no doubtful interpretation. An unerring hand has drawn

a line of demarcation too clearly indicated to be mistaken, as it is too authoritative to be safely set at nought. Now, it is the infraction of this law of separation with which the church, in the main body of her communicants, is too clearly chargeable. A religious latitudinarianism is in the ascendancy, overstepping the Divinely prescribed limits of Christian rectitude. From that matchless portraiture of the world, drawn by the pencil of inspiration, its great attributes appear to be, "the lust of the flesh," or luxurious habits of living; "the lust of the eye," or covetousness; "the pride of life," or ostentatious display, conformity to fashion, ambition for renown, &c. The second of these attributes, which is covetousness, may be regarded as the representative, in their procuring cause at least, of the other two forms of worldliness; since men are covetous, not always as the result of a disposition to hoard the wealth they acquire, but as often to supply the means of luxurious indulgences, or the costly appendages of social rank, real or assumed. Covetousness, whatever its particular source or development, is manifestly the master power of all the forces that now sway the popular mind. No monarch ever held the reins of a more absolute supremacy than does this lordly lust over the empire of human interest. A vaster crowd of devotees follow in the triumphal march of mammon, than swell the train of science, literature, and religion. The leading passion of the people is that which ruled the mind of the fabled king, a desire for some subtle element which, possessing the power of transmutation, shall turn everything it touches into gold.

Now, to come to our immediate purpose, can it be truthfully affirmed that in respect of this popular propensity, the church of our times has not sinfully approached the worl? Can it be said thet, strong in the deeply ûxed principles of incorruptible religious virtue, she has never descended from her appointed elevation, and with the idolatrous

multitude obsequiously bowed her knee to Baal? An accumulated mass of evidence supplies the verdict; but alas! it is an adverse one. The church has bowed her knee to Baal, has caught the spirit of the world in this its leading attribute, and no very minute inquiry is needed to detect the prohibited proximity. The foul sinblot of an inordinate devotion to riches, is found upon the skirts of her garments; and ill does it comport with the spirituality of her principles. The unclean thing has violated the sanctity of the holy places. An unfaltering earnestness in pursuit of the things that are earthly, is found among the people who have avowedly laid up their treasures in the skies. This charge presses home with grave force upon vast numbers of our professedly Christian tradesmen and merchants. We live in times of great commercial competition, and it demands vastly more than the sagacity of other days to maintain in the public eye even an ordinary commercial credit. How much more, however, of devotion to pecuniary interests, than of fervency in Jehovah's service, may be often found behind the commanded religious virtue of a diligent attention to business. Overtrading is not exclusively the sin of men of purely secular and worldly minds. Christian men there are who, from mere love of pecuniary accumulation, are far too frequently found supplementing or totally setting aside their legitimate calling, by systematic commercial speculation. Those whose heavenward aspirations were intended to be an eloquent rebuke of the world's idolatry, those who were set apart to impress the multitudes around them, by their treasures of intelligence and grace, with the glory of the wealth that Christianity bestows, are themselves found entering the lists as competitors in an inglorious race for worldly gain. And no marvel, if amazed by the moral inconsistency of the scene, thoughtful and devout lookers-on have sometimes involun

tarily exclaimed, "The greatest honour those men could do to Christianity were totally to disclaim it."

Now, as might have been anticipated, the aspects of the church of Christ in this matter, are perfectly in keeping with the axiomatic principle, that whatever is strongly distinctive of men in their individual character, will, in some degree, give cast to whatever they are or do in their associated condition. No special mental acumen is needed, much less of a morbid censoriousness, which delights in seeking out only that it may magnify the evil, to trace in the various churches of this and other countries the prevalence of a false estimate and an idolatrous deference in relation to mere wealth. It were idle, of course, to deny to wealth an important place among the subsidiary agencies of Christianity. Consecrated from pure considerations to the service of religion, it undoubtedly confers unfading honours on the giver, and forms in the hands of the church an instrument of immense moral good. Our modern churches, however, have not only accorded to wealth the consideration to which it is legitimately entitled, but obviously much more than belongs to it. Its claims have been estimated far beyond their just value. Distinctions have been lavished upon it with a strange obliviousness of the claims of other and higher agencies. Its patronage has been invoked with an obsequious importunity unworthy of a cause of which Heaven is the patron and the friend. As a test of power and progress, wealth has occupied the place which ought to have been assigned to prayer and principle, to piety, intelligence, and zeal.

The prevalence among the churches of this inordinate devotion to secular and pecuniary ends, has not failed to yield its appropriate fruits. It were hardly possible to overstate its peruicious action on the religious world. Vain were it to expect in a religion thus strongly impregnated with the worldly element, anything of a vigorous or impulsive power. Here and there, as we have admitted, you may find strong men, whose religious character is built on living principles and braced with moral health; but the mass are meagre and effeminate, marked by all the

feebleness of religious childhood. Luxuriant and refreshing spots of beauty may be found at intervals, but the too general aspect resembles that of a once fruitful field, over which some ungenial winds have swept, leaving sterility and blight behind them. Now, just as the church loses its distinctness from the world, it loses its power for good. Its piety is wanting in that which is uniformly characteristic of a highly spiritual Christianity, a selfpropagating and diffusive element. Possessing in a limited measure only the property of vital heat, it throws out little of the geniai warmth of heaven, little to melt the icy masses of indifference and scepticism that chill the moral atmosphere. This truth is but too obviously illustrated in the present experience and position of the church at large. The mission of the church is that of aggression upon the territories of the great usurper; and her mission will not be accomplished until the last particle of that territory has been added to the dominions of Jesus. The church, however, is not decidedly aggressive in her operations, certainly not in the ratio of her accumulating resources [and the wide-spread activities of evil. With all the massive apparatus she possesses for action, there is a felt want of power. What section of the church in this country, or America, can point to the achievement, within the past few years, of any aggressive deeds at all commensurate with the collossal agencies employed, or the world's multiplying necessities? To enlarge, beautify, and add to the number of Christian sanctuaries; to multiply the capabilities of educational action; to purify and render more efficient systems of ecclesiastical polity; to elevate the tone of religious literature to the growing intelligence of the people, is all so much subsidiary service in the right direction; and this the churches have done or are doing. But here is nothing that can be regarded as necessarily evidential of the presence of spiritual power. The strongest indication of power in the church, is that of which the church knows but too little, the work of con

version-conversion, not as an affair of the understanding only, but of the heart; not from one class of religious dogmas to another; not from Popery to Protestantism, or from churchism to dissent; but spiritual conversion, including penitence, faith, consecration, and entire transformation of character.

It is, indeed, true that, whilst the church by reason of its worldliness has seldom been more unequal to the achievement of any great aggressive service, the world itself has not often been more unsusceptible of religious influence. It is questionable if, during the most luxuriant and powerful days of scepticism, it has presented an aspect really, though not apparently, less predisposed to the reception of vital godliness. This is more particularly true, however, of that great mass of humanity, the toiling millions of the people; though to them the provisions of religion have been specially made over as Heaven's precious and enduring patrimony. Relatively, few of the strictly artizan portion of society, are found identifying themselves with the communion and fellowship of the churches of Christendom. Their tastes, habits, and pursuits are not decidedly infidel, yet they tend not in the direction of Christianity. They see more charms in the resorts of pleasure than in the temples of piety; and are far sooner attracted by lectures on politics than discourses on religion. A species of indifferentism enwraps them in its folds, and it is cherished by them as though the solemn verities of religion were matters with which they had no sort or degree of personal concernment. Have we not, however, in this very tendency of the popular mind, the strongest imaginable proof that the church has lost her moral might, by losing her distinctive tone and character? Prone as is the world to sink into something like obliviousness in relation to all that is sacred, it cannot easily do this whilst the church occupies her just position, breathing richly and vitally the inspirations of her heaven-appointed mission. So fur as Christian men, in their individual and confederate character, have

ceased to do this, they have become morally incapacitated for the task of penetrating the heart of a world-wide rebellion, and subjugating an empire of mind, virtually under the supremacy of Satan, to the dominion of holiness and God. The great desideratum on the part of the present race of religious men, is a profounder study, a broader and more vivid appreciation of the elementary principles of their character and vocation. It is a duty they owe to Christianity, as its avowed and living representatives; and it is pressed upon them with rapidly accumulating force, to seek a richer baptism of the spirit of those Divine statutes that distinguish the kingdom of which they are the subjects from every other community. And here, again, are grave duties devolving upon the public teachers of religion. With them, instrumentally, it mainly rests, to bring up the churches to a right experience and condition. If an intellectual ministry is needed, certainly a ministry is needed not more intellectual than spiritual, not more lucid and argumentative than intensely earnest, heart-searching, and practical. A great work awaits the ambassadors of the Most High, demanding their consecrated and untiring energies. Whilst they have to guard Christianity from the withering breath of a cold rationalism, they have also to achieve its emancipation from the obscurity and bondage to which the worldliness of its disciples have consigned it; whilst they preserve its truths in their unmutilated entireness and essential harmony, they have also to send it forth in the world clothed in its native attributes of spirituality, and heavenliness, and power.

The stream of earnest thought that, with almost magical rapidity, is pouring from the press upon passing events, makes it as unnecessary as it is inexpedient to enlarge upon them. To every devout religious thinker, those events are rich in materials for reflection. They will, undoubtedly, have an important bearing for good or for evil upon the cause of scriptural religion. Whatever variety of view may prevail as

to the attitude proper to be assumed in relation to the present aspect of the Romish church, no doubt can exist that the influence of the Vati

can is on the increase. Popery clearly bids hard and high for popular favour, for spiritual and political supremacy; and, unless time has wrought a wonderful revolution in its spirit, its movements are certainly not to be looked upon but with deep and strong suspicion. Romanism is what it has ever been, the foe alike of all that is pure in faith, and of all that is precious in freedom. The present, then, is a momentous crisis; and it cannot be concealed, that grave possibilities hang upon the issue. The times are peculiarly suggestive, are pregnant with lessons of high and practical import. They speak in tones of severe and merited rebuke to a race of time-servers-men who have no convictions, and whose course is a scene of continued oscillation; and they sternly demand of them, that it shall no longer be unknown to themselves, and no longer unknown to all around them, whether they be of Protestantism or of Popery, of the world or God. It is most devoutly to be wished, that passing events may have the effect of deciding a mass of religious waverers, and thus removing from the path of Christianity a gigantic obstructive. The duty of the true friends of religion is distinctly indicated. No past genera

tion of Christian men have been called to the achievement of a greater work, than that for which the God

ANCIENT JEWISH FABLE. The sword of the warrior had been taken down to brighten, it had long been out of use. The rust was soon rubbed off, but there were spots that would not go: they were of blood It was on the table, near the pen of his secretary. The pen took advantage of the first breath of air to move a little further off. "Thou art right,"

COMMENCING the day with God is like arresting evil at the fountain. Prayer at any other time, without this, is an attempt to arrest it when

fearing men of these times are responsible. Theirs is the sphere, not of abstract speculations, but of embodied holiness and earnest action. Let them be true to their mission and to God, and no system of falsehood and corruption can ultimately prevail. Antagonistic elements will continue to impregnate society, and the truth will continue to be seen amid the alternations of victory and defeat, but every conflict shall add to the breadth and brilliancy of its appointed and onward pathway. If Christianity fears no form of error, much less does she fear the progress of science and education. Let each of them, with ever augmenting vigour, prosecute its crusade against the strongholds of popular ignorance, and flash upon every mental blank a flood of manly intelligence, and at every step shall each be found to give out new and more harmonious responses to revelation and religion. Christianity, to be triumphant, only requires that her disciples shall purify their communions and hearts from the leaven of a worldly conformity, and give to the moral universe a true and living personation of her grace, and purity, and power. "Awake, awake, put on thy strength O Zion, put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city; for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem; loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of

Zion."

said the sword, "I am a bad neighbour." "I fear thee not," replied the pen, “I am more powerful than thou art; but I love not thy society." "I exterminate," said the sword. "And I perpetuate," answered the pen: "where were thy victories, if recorded them not? even where thou thyself shalt one day be-in the lake of oblivion."—Mrs. Ames.

it has swollen to a stream, and rolls on like a torrent. Let the day be begon with God, and the work of piety is easy.