SECTION X. CONSIDERATIONS ON THE PROBABLE TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY, SUBMITTED TO THOSE WHO MISUSE THE TERM ENTHUSIASM.

To waive the exercise of discrimination, can, under no imaginable circumstances, be advantageous to any man; nor is it ever otherwise than absurd to persist in an error which might be corrected by a moment's attention to obvious facts. But assuredly some such suspension of good sense has taken place with those who accustom themselves to designate, in a mass, as Enthusiasts, the many thousands of their countrymen, of all communions, who, at the present time, make profession of the doctrines of the Reformation.

All who are not wilfully ignorant must know, that what is vulgarly called "the religious world," now includes, not only myriads of the lower, and middle, and imperfectly educated classes, in relation to whom self-complacent arrogance may easily find pretexts of scorn; and not only many of the opulent and the noble; but a fair proportion also of all the talent, and learning, and brilliancy of mind, that adorns the professional circles, and that vivifies the literature of the country. What appropriateness, then, is there left to language, if a phrase of supercilious import is to be attached to the names of men of vigorous understanding, and energetic character, and eminent acquirement;—of men successful in their several courses, and accomplished in whatever gives grace to human nature? When those who in no assignable good quality can be deemed inferior to their competitors on the arena of life, are, on account of their religious opinions and practices, called Enthusiasts, it is evident that nothing is actually effected but the annulling of the contumelious power of the term so misused. We may indeed, in this manner, neutralize the significance of a word; or we may draw upon ourselves, the imputation of malignant prejudice; but we cannot reduce from their rank those who stand firmly on the high stages of literary or philosophical eminence.

But if arrogance and malignity itself be ashamed of so flagrant an abuse of the word enthusiast, then neither ought that epithet (unless where special proof can be adduced) to be assigned to the multitude, holding the very same opinions: for the eminent few, seeing that they profess these tenets, and adhere to these practices deliberately, and explicitly, must be allowed the privilege of redeeming their belief and usages from contempt, by whomsoever maintained.

An opinion gravely professed by a man of sense and education, demands always, respectful consideration—demands, and actually receives it from those whose own sense and education give them a correlative right: and whoever offends against this sort of courtesy may fairly be deemed to have forfeited the privileges it secures. But retaliation is declined by those who might use it, and it is declined on the ground, not only of Christian meekness, but of commiseration towards such violators of candor and good manners, whom they hold to be acting under the influence of an infatuation, at once deplorable and fatal.

That this infatuation should, in any great number of instances, be dispelled by the mere showing of reasons, is what the religionists, the "Enthusiasts," by no means expect: they too well understand the nature of the malady, and too well know its inveteracy, to imagine that it may be dissipated by force of argument, even though the cause were in the hands of a college of dialecticians. Nevertheless, they entertain an expectation (and have evidence to show in support of it) which, if it be realized, will supersede many difficult controversies, and rob impiety forever of its only effectual prop, the suffrage of the many. This expectation is nothing less than that Christianity—or, for the sake of distinctness, let it be said the religion of the Reformation—the religion of Wycliffe, and Latimer, and Cranmer, and Jewel, and Hooker, and Owen, and Howe, and Baxter—will gain, ere long, an unquestioned ascendency, and will bear down infidelity and false doctrine, and absorb schism, and possess itself of the substance of power, which is moral power, and will thus rule the family of man.

In support of a belief like this, many reasons might be urged, some of which can be expected to have weight only with the religious; while others may well claim attention from all (whatever may be their opinion of Christianity) who are at once competent and accustomed to anticipate the probable course of human affairs.

There are three distinct methods in which an inquiry of this sort might be conducted: of these, the first is the method of philosophical calculation, on the known principles of human nature, and which, without either denying or assuming the truth of Christianity, forecasts, from past events and present appearances, the probable futurity. To pursue such calculations efficiently, prepossessions of all kinds, both sceptical and religious, should be held in abeyance, while the mere facts that belong to the problem are contemplated as from the remoteness of a neutral position.

The reader and writer of this page may each have formed his estimate of the intrinsic force and validity of certain opinions; but this private estimate may happen to be much above, or much below the level which reason would approve; and, be it what it may, it can avail nothing for our present purpose. If we are to calculate the probable extension or extinction of those opinions, we must consult the evidence of facts on a large scale; and especially must observe what manifestations of intrinsic power they have given on certain peculiar and critical occasions. This is the only course that can be deemed satisfactory, or that is conformed to the procedures of modern science. We do not now wish to ask a seraph if such or such a dogma is held to be true in heaven; but what we have to do is to learn, from the suffrage of the millions of mankind, whether it has a permanent power to command and to regain ascendency over the human mind. This question must be asked of history; and we must take care to open the book at those pages where the great eras of religious revolution are described. Having glanced at the past, our next business will be to look at the present: this kind of divination is the only one known to the principles of philosophical inquiry.

The early triumph of the Gospel over the fascinating idolatries and the astute atheism of Greece and Rome has been often insisted upon, (and conclusively) as evidence of its truth. But with that argument we have nothing now to do; yet if the subject were not a very hackneyed one, it might well be brought forward, in all its details, in proof of a different point—namely, the innate power of the religion of the Bible to vanquish the hearts of men. An opponent may here choose his alternative; either let him grant that Christianity triumphed because it was true and divine; or let him deny that it had any aid from heaven. In the former case we shall be entitled to infer that the religion of God must at length universally prevail; or in the latter we may strongly argue, that this doctrine possesses little less than an omnipotence of intrinsic force, by which it obtained success under circumstances of opposition such as made its triumph seem, even to its enemies, miraculous; and on this ground the expectation of its future prevalence cannot be thought unreasonable.

But if there were room to imagine that the first spread of Christianity was owing rather to an accidental conjuncture of favoring circumstances than to its real power over the human mind, or if it might be thought that any such peculiar virtue was all spent and exhausted in its first expansive effort, then it is natural to look to the next occasion on which the opinions of mankind were put in fermentation, and to watch in what manner the system of the Bible then rode over the high billows of political, religious, and intellectual commotion. It was a fair trial for Christianity, and a trial essentially different from its first, when, in the fifteenth century, after having been corrupted in every part to a state of loathsome ulceration, it had to contend for existence, and to work its own renovation, at the moment of the most extraordinary expansion of the human intellect that has ever happened. At that moment, when the splendid literature of the ancient world started from its tomb, and kindled a blaze of universal admiration; at that moment, when the first beams of sound philosophy broke over the nations; and when the revival of the useful arts gave at once elasticity to the minds of the million, and a check of practical influence to the minds of the few; at the moment when the necromancy of the press came into play to expose and explode necromancy of every other kind; and when the discovery of new continents, and of a new path to the old, tended to supplant a taste of whatever is visionary, by imparting a vivid taste for what is substantial; at such a time, which seemed to leave no chance of continued existence to aught that was not in its nature vigorous, might it not confidently have been said—This must be the crisis of Christianity? if it be not inwardly sound, if it have not a true hold of human nature, if it be a thing of feebleness and dotage, fit only for cells, and cowls, and the precincts of spiritual despotism; if it be not adapted to the world of action, if it have no sympathy with the feelings of men—of freemen; nothing can save it: no power of princes, no devices of priests, will avail to rear it anew, and to replace it in the veneration of the people; at least not in any country where has been felt the refreshing gale of intellectual life. The result of this crisis need not be narrated.

It may even be doubted, had not Christianity been fraught with power, if all the influence of kings, or craft of priests, could have upheld it in any part of Europe, after the revival of learning; and certainly not in those countries which received, at one and the same time, the invigoration of political liberty, of science, and of commerce.

Whether the religion for which the reformers suffered, "was from heaven or of men," is not our question; but whether it is not a religion of robust constitution, framed to endure, and to spread, and to vanquish the hearts of men? With the history of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in view, it is asked if Christianity be a system that must always lean upon ignorance, and craft, and despotism, and which, when those rotten stays are removed, must fail and be seen no more?

Yet another species of trial was in store to give proof of the indestructibility and victorious power of Christianity. It remained to be seen whether, when the agitations, political and moral, that were consequent upon the great schism which had taken place in Europe had subsided, and when the season of slumber and exhaustion came on, and when human reason, strengthened and refined by physical science, and elegant literature, should awake fully to the consciousness of its powers; whether then the religion of the Bible could retain its hold of the nations; or at least of those of them that enjoyed, without limit, the happy influences of political liberty, and intellectual light. This was a sort of probation which Christianity had never before passed through.

And what were the omens under which it entered upon the new trial of its strength? Were the friends of Christianity at that moment of portentous conflict awake, and vigilant, and stout-hearted, and thoroughly armed to repel assaults? The very reverse was the fact; for at the instant when the atheistical conspiracy made its long-concerted, well-advised and consentaneous attack, there was scarcely a pulse of life left in the Christian body, in any one of the Protestant states. The old superstitions had crawled back into many of their ancient corners. In other quarters the spirit of protestation against those superstitions had breathed itself away in trivial wranglings, or had given place to infidelity—infidelity aggravated by stalled hypocrisy. The Church of England, the chief prop of modern Christianity, was then, to a great extent, torpid, and fainting under the incubus, either of false doctrine, or of a secular spirit; at least it seemed incapable of the effort which the peril of the time demanded: few indeed of her sons were panoplied, and sound-hearted, as champions in such a cause should be. Within a part only of a small body of Dissenters, (for a part was smitten with the plague of heresy) and that part in great measure disqualified from free and energetic action by rigidities, and scruples, and divisions, was contained almost all the religious life and fervor anywhere to be found in Christendom.

Meanwhile the infidel machinators had chosen their ground at leisure, and were wrought to the highest pitch of energy by a confident, and, as it might seem, a well-founded hope of success. They were backed by the secret wishes, or the undissembled cheerings of almost the entire body of educated men throughout Europe. They used the only language then common to the civilized world, and a language which might be imagined to have been framed and finished designedly to accomplish the demolition of whatever was grave and venerated; a language, beyond any other, of raillery, of insinuation, and of sophistry; a language of polished missiles, whose temper could penetrate not only the cloak of imposture, but the shield of truth.

At the same portentous moment the shocks and upheavings of political commotion opened a thousand fissures in the ancient structure of moral and religious sentiment; and the enemies of Christianity, surprised by unexpected success, rushed forward to achieve, as they thought, an easy triumph. The firmest and the wisest friends of old opinions desponded, and many believed that a few years would see Atheism the universal doctrine of the western nations, as well as military despotism the only form of government.

It is difficult to imagine a single advantage that was lacking to the promoters of infidelity, or a single circumstance of peril and ill-omen that was not present to deepen the gloom of the friends of religion. The actual issue of that signal crisis is before our eyes in the freshness of a recent event. Christianity—we ask not whether for the benefit or the injury of the world—has triumphed; the mere fact is all that concerns our argument. But shall it be said, or if said, believed, that the late resurrection of the religion of the Bible has been managed in the cabinets of monarchs? Have kings and emperors given this turn to public opinion, which now compels infidelity to hide its shame behind the very mask of hypocrisy that it had so lately torn from the face of the priest? To come home to facts with which all must be familiar: Has there not been heard, within the last few years, from the most enlightened, the most sober-minded, and the freest people of Europe, a firm, articulate, spontaneous, and cordial expression of preference, and of enhanced veneration towards Christianity? Again, then, we ask—not if this religion be true, but if it have not, even beneath our own observation, given proof of indestructible vigor?

The spread of the English stock, and language, and literature, over the North American continent, has afforded a distinct and very significant indication of the power of Christianity to retain its hold of the human mind, and of its aptness to run hand-in-hand with civilization, even when unaided by those secular succors to which its enemies in malice, and some of its friends in over-caution, are prone to attribute too much importance. The tendency of republicanism, which obviously has some strong affinity with infidelity, and the connection of the colonies, at the moment of their revolt, with France, and the prevalence of a peculiarly eager and uncorrected commercial temper, and the absence of every sort and semblance of restraint upon opinion, were concurrent circumstances, belonging to the infancy of the American Union, of a kind which put to the severest test the instrinsic power of Christianity, in retaining its hold of the human mind. Could infidel experimenters have wished for conditions more equitable, under which to try the respective forces of the opposing systems?

And what has been the issue? It is true that infidelity holds still its ground in the United States, as in Europe; and there, as in Europe, keeps company with whatever is debauched, sordid, oppressive, reckless, ruffian-like. But at the same time Christianity, has gained rather than lost ground, and shows itself there in a style of as much fervor and zeal as in England; and perhaps, even it has the advantage in these respects. Wherever, on that continent, good order and intelligence are spreading, there also the religion of the Bible spreads. And if it be probable that the English race, and language, and institutions, will, in a century, pervade its deserts, all appearances favor the belief that the edifices of Christian worship will bless every landscape of the present wilderness that shall then "blossom as the rose."

Before, in pursuing this method of frigid calculation, the Christian doctrine be weighed against the several systems with which it must contend ere it wins its universal triumph, it is proper to inquire—what is the probability that a collision will actually take place. To estimate fairly this probability, those who are but slenderly acquainted with the religious world, in the British Islands, in America, and in the Protestant states of the continent, must understand, much better than generally they do, the precise nature of the remarkable revolution that has, within the last thirty years, been effected in the sentiments of Christians on the subject of the diffusion of their religion. Such slenderly-informed persons may very naturally imagine that the prodigious efforts that have of late been made to diffuse Christianity through the world have sprung simply from a heat and excitement, in its nature transient, and which, therefore, must be expected soon to subside. But this supposition will be found to be incomplete and erroneous. A stir and kindling of feeling has no doubt happened; but this feeling, and the activities which followed from it, have given occasion to the resurrection, so to speak, of a capital article of Christian morals, which, after lying almost latent for centuries, stands forth in undisputed and prominent authority in the modern code of religious duty. This recovered principle is now constantly recognized and enforced; and it is seen to exert its influence, not merely within the circles of central movement, but even in the remotest orbits of religious feeling, where warmth and energy are manifestly not excessive.

The founder of Christianity left with his disciples the unlimited injunction to go forth into all the world, and to preach the Gospel to every creature. This command, corroborated by others of equivalent import, and enforced by the very nature of the Christian doctrine, and by the spirit of Christian charity, is now understood and acknowledged, in a manner new to the church, to be of universal obligation, so that no Christian, how obscure soever may be his station, or small his talents, or limited his means, can be held to stand altogether excused from the duty of fulfilling, in some way, the last mandate of his Lord. Thus understood, this command makes every believer a preacher and a missionary; or at least obliges him to see to it, so far as his ability extends, that the labors of diffusive evangelization are actually performed by a substitute.

Before the commencement of the recent missionary efforts, there had been missions to the heathen. But these, if carried on with anything more than a perfunctory assiduity, were anomalous to the general feeling of Christians, and sprung from the exemplary zeal of individuals. But the modern missions are maintained neither by the zeal of the few, nor by the mere zeal of the many; but rather by the deep-seated impulsive power of a grave conviction, pressing on the conscience even of the inert and the selfish—and much more on the hearts of the fervent and devoted—that a Christian has no more liberty to withhold his aid and service from these evangelizing associations than he has to abandon the duties of common life; and that, for a man to profess hope in Christ, and to deny what he might spare to promote the diffusion of the Gospel, is the most egregious of all practical solecisms.

Those who are ignorant of this remarkable revolution of sentiment, or who may be sceptical concerning it, would do well to take up, at hazard, any dozen of the discourses, and reports, and tracts, that are yearly, and monthly, and weekly, flowing from the religious press, and among which they will hardly find one that does not assume this as an admitted principle, and as the ultimate motive of every hortatory appeal. And if, among these ephemera, there are any, and such are not seldom to be found, that bear the stamp of superior intelligence, it will be seen almost invariably, that the reasoner summons all the force of his mind, not so much to prove that every Christian is bound to promote the diffusion of scriptural knowledge, as by some new ingenuity of illustration to place the acknowledged duty in a stronger light, or to show in what manner it bears upon the specific object for which he pleads. And it is to be noted that these popular addresses exhibit, for the most part, much more of the gravity and calmness which naturally belong to the style of those who feel that they are standing upon undisputed ground, than of the solicitude, or the inflammatory verbosity and turgidness of writers who are laboring to fan a decaying blaze of indefensible enthusiasm.

Or again: it may well be inferred that the modern missionary zeal springs from motives of a substantial and permanent kind, since they affect, without exception, every body of Christians (holding the doctrines of the Reformation) and are felt in the same manner by the Christians of every Protestant community of Europe. And moreover the feeling has not declined, but has sensibly increased since the first years of its activity; and it has endured the trial, in some instances, of severe and long-continued discomfitures, or of partial success. These are indications of a spring of action far more sedate and enduring than any feverish excitement can ever supply.

But if the extent, and the power, and the promise of the existing missionary zeal are to be duly estimated, the inquirer should visit the homes of our religious folks; or enter the schools in which their children are trained, and there learn what is the doctrine inculcated upon those who are rising up to take their place on the arena of life: or let him listen to the hymns they lisp, and examine the tracts they read, and he will meet the same great principle in a thousand manners enforced, namely—That it is the duty of every Christian, young or old, rich or poor, to take part in sending the Gospel to all nations. Or let the observer notice the Missionary Box, in the school-room, in the nursery, in the shop-parlor, in the farm-house kitchen, in the cottage, of the religious; and let him mark the multiform contrivances for swelling the amount of the revenues of Christian charity, devised, and zealously persisted in, by youths and by little ones, whose parents, at the same age, thought of nothing but of cakes and sports.

And does all this steady movement, this wide-spreading and closely-compacted system of united effort, this mechanism in which infancy as well as maturity takes its part, indicate nothing for futurity? Shall it all have passed away and be forgotten with the present generation? If indeed it were confined to a sect, or to a province, or to a country, it might, though that were unlikely; but not if it be the common style of Christian feeling in every part of the world where spiritual Christianity exists at all. Particular associations may be dissolved, and particular schemes may be broken up; and standard-bearers in the sacred cause may faint; and the zeal of certain communities may fade; or political disasters may here and there bring ruin upon pious labors; but unless devastation universal sweeps over the face of the civilized world, the doctrine of missionary zeal, which has been broad-cast over Christendom, in the present day, will not fail of coming to its harvest. And now, if there are any who wish ill to Christianity, let them hasten to prevent the measures of its friends, let them teach their babes to hate the Gospel; for those who love it are taking such means to insure its future triumph as can hardly fail of success, and such as, on common grounds of calculation, make it likely that even the sons and the daughters of the present race of infidels may be involved in the approaching conquests of the Son of David; and that they shall actually join in the loud hosanna, announcing his accession to the throne of universal empire.

It is then more than barely probable—it is almost certain—that the attempt to offer Christianity to all nations, will not soon be abandoned. The next question is this—whether, on grounds of frigid calculation, such attempts are recommended by any fair promise of success.

When the term calculation is used in reference to the diffusion of Christianity, a use of the word which perhaps may offend the ear of piety, an important distinction must be kept in view between that cordial admission of the Gospel which renovates the hearts of men individually, and that change of opinion and profession which may be brought about among a people by means that fall short of possessing efficiency to produce repentance and faith. And while the former must everywhere, at home or abroad, be the great object aimed at and desired by the Christian ministry, the latter is both in itself, even if nothing more were done, and as a preliminary, and a probable means conducing to the production of genuine piety, a most desirable and happy revolution. It is moreover a revolution which may be reckoned to lie within the range of human agency, when judiciously and perseveringly applied. For Christianity is a species of knowledge, in its nature communicable; and, as a system of opinions, or as a code of morals, it possesses a manifest superiority, if fairly brought into comparison with any existing religious system. And if it may reasonably be asked concerning any people—how shall they believe without a preacher? the converse question might, with little less confidence be put—how shall they not believe with one?

Pagan and Mohammedan nations ought to be thought of by a Christian people just as the master of a numerous household, if he be wise and benevolent, thinks of the untutored members of his family; for although no actual subjection is owned on the one side, or can be exercised on the other, there exists, virtually, the relationship and the responsibilities of that domination which is ever possessed by knowledge, intelligence, and virtue, over ignorance and degradation. Now, as the master of a family may, to a greater or less extent, infallibly succeed by zeal, affection, skill, and patience, in dispelling the superstitions and the ignorance which have happened to come under his roof; so, with zeal, affection, skill, and patience, proportioned to the greatness of the work, may the Christian nations at length effect a cleansing of the earth from the cruelties and impurities of polytheism.

Nothing inconsistent with the humblest and most devout dependence upon the divine agency is implied in this supposition, any more than in the belief that our children and servants may be trained in the knowledge of God, and in the decencies of Christian worship. Is there not reason to think that an inattention to this plain principle has prevented, in some measure, the adoption of those vigorous and extended operations which common sense prescribes as the proper and probable means of diffusing at once civilization and religion through the world?

The probability of a change of religion on the part of an entire people may, it is true, be argued on the adverse, as well as on the favorable side, and with great appearance of reason. The obstinacy of the human mind in adhering to the worse, even when the better is presented to its choice, seems not seldom to possess the invincibility of a physical law; and it has been found as impracticable to reform an absurd usage, as to remodel the national physiognomy. How often have both reason and despotism been baffled in their endeavors to effect even a trivial alteration in ancient usages or costumes; and there has been room to suppose, that the tenacity of life belonging to customs or opinions, bears direct proportion always to their absurdity and their mischievous consequence. The high antiquity, and the still unbroken force of the Asiatic idolatries, in themselves so hideous, so burdensome, and so sanguinary, stand forth as appalling confirmations of the truth, that whatever has once gained for itself the sanction of time, may boldly defy the assaults of reason. And then, when religious opinions and practices are to question, we have not merely to break through the iron law of immemorial usage, but to encounter the living opposition of the priesthood, already firmly seated in the cloud-girt throne of supposed supernatural power, and interested as deeply as men can be who have at stake their civil existence, and their credit, and their means of luxurious idleness. Again, in most instances, ancient religious opinions have sent down their roots through the solid structure of the civil institutions of the people:—the old superstition is an oak that was sown by the builder of the state, and has actually pervaded the entire foundations, and forms now the living bond-timber, to remove which would be to bring to the ground the whole tottering masonry of the social system.

When this side of the question has been long and exclusively contemplated, the schemes of missionary zeal may seem to be utterly chimerical; or if not chimerical—dangerous. But the friends of mankind do not forget that the very same objects may be viewed in another light. Even before particular facts are appealed to, an hypothesis of an opposite kind may plausibly be advanced. It may be alleged that Opinion—the invisible power that rules the world—is a name without substance, which, though omnipotent so long as it is thought to be so, vanishes quicker than a mist, when once suspected to be impotent. It might also with great appearance of reason be affirmed as a universal law of the moral world, that the better, when fairly brought into collision with the worse, possesses an infallible certainty of ultimate prevalence.

On this same principle, it is common to affirm that the improved mechanical processes of a scientific people will at length necessarily supplant the operose, and wasteful, and inefficient methods practised by half-civilized nations. And thus probably will the ruinous and depopulating usages of despotism give way before the wealth-giving maxims of legal government. And thus also may it be hoped that a pure theology, and a pure morality, shall, if zealously diffused, prevail till they have removed all superstitions, with all their corruptions. Even on the lowest principles of natural theology, some such meditative power may be presumed to have been imparted to the human system, as a provision against the progress of utter moral dissolution.

But while an argument of this sort is at issue, the simple method of appealing to such facts as may seem to bear conclusively upon the question, will assuredly not be neglected; and it will be asked, whether there are on record any instances which give a peremptory negative to the assertion that a national change of religion ought to be thought of as an event in the last degree improbable. And why should not the spread and triumph of Christianity in the first ages of its promulgation be accepted as an instance absolutely conclusive, and in the fullest sense analogous to the problem that is to be solved. To whatever causes that first prevalence of the religion of the Bible may be attributed, it is still an unquestioned fact that entire nations—not one or two, but many, and in every stage of advancement on the course of civilization—were actually brought to abandon their ancient superstitions, and to profess the Gospel.

These amazing revolutions took place under almost every imaginable variety of circumstances, and they occupied a period of not more than three centuries, and the change had been wrought, to a great extent, before the aid of political succor came in; and even in the front of political opposition. People after people fell away from their idolatries, and assumed (with how much or how little of cordial feeling matters not) the Christian name and code.

Here once more the objector must be urged to select his alternative.—If it be granted that Christianity won this wide success by aid from heaven, then who will profess to believe that a religion, so supported, shall not in the end vanquish mankind? Or if not, then manifestly, the fact of the spread of Christianity in the east, and in the west, in the north, and in the south, destroys altogether the supposed improbability of its again supplanting idolatry. It has been proved that nothing inseparable from human nature, nothing invincible, stands in the way of the diffusion of our faith among either polished or barbarous polytheists; for already has it been victorious in both kinds. Let it be affirmed that the religious infatuations of mankind are firm as adamant; still it is a fact that a hammer harder than adamant once shattered the rock to atoms. And now, when it is proposed again to smite the same substance with the same instrument, are those to be deemed irrational who anticipate the same success? In such an anticipation neither the superior purity and excellence of Christianity need be assumed, nor its truth: nothing is peremptorily affirmed but its well-attested efficiency to subvert and supplant other religious systems. A myriad of philosophists may clamorously affirm the missionary project to be insane. Nevertheless Christians, listening rather to the history of their religion than to the harangues of its modern oppugners, will go on to preach in every land, "That men should turn from dumb idols to serve the living God."

That during a period of more than a thousand years Christianity should hardly have gained a foot of ground from polytheism, and should, in some quarters, have been driven in from its ancient frontiers, is only natural, seeing that, in the whole course of that time, no extended endeavors, or none guided and impelled by the genuine principles of the Gospel, were made to diffuse it. Angels have no commission to become evangelists; and if men neglect their duty in this instance, no means remain for supplying their lack of service. The modern missionary enterprises (exclusive of some very limited attempts) do not yet date fifty years; and while the fact that this spirit of Christian zeal has maintained itself so long, attests its solidity, and gives a promise of its perpetuity, its recentness (recent compared with the work to be achieved) may justly be alleged in reply to those who ask—from whatever motive—Why are not the nations converted? Within this short space of time the religious public has had to be formed to a right feeling on the new subject; and all the practical wisdom that belongs to an enterprise so immense and so difficult has had to be acquired; and the agents of the work at home and abroad, to be trained; and the initiatory obstacle—that occasioned by diversity of language—to be removed. The preparatives have now been passed through, and successes obtained, large and complete enough to quash all objection, and more than enough to recompense what they have cost. And these successes, moreover, warrant the belief that the universal prevalence of Christianity (considered simply as an exterior profession) is suspended upon the continuance of the missionary zeal among the Christians of Europe and America.

Instead of allowing speculation to flit vaguely and ineptly over all the desolate places of the earth's surface, it will be better, if we would make our calculation definite, to fix upon a single region; and while we assume it as probable that the existing spirit of missionary vigilance and assiduity and self-devotion will continue in vigor during the ensuing half-century, endeavor roughly to estimate the chances (if the word may be used) of the entrance and spread of Christian light in that one region; and let us select the region which may be deemed altogether to occupy the place of an ultimate problem of evangelical enterprise. Thus announced, every one will of course think of China.

Nothing is more difficult than to view, in the nakedness of mere truth, any object remote from personal observation, which has once filled the imagination with images of vastness and mystery. Thus it often happens that benevolent schemes are robbed of their fair chance of success by the fond illusions which are suffered to swell out an empty bulk, so as to hide from view the real difficulties that ought to be deliberately met. And thus it is usual for the timid to amuse their inaction by contemplating spectral forms of danger or obstruction that exist only in the mind. Hindrances and impossibilities may even yield a sort of delight to the imagination, by the aspect of greatness and terror they assume; at least while we resolve to view them only at a distance. And in such cases he must be singularly destitute of poetic feeling, or singularly conscientious and abstinent in the use of language, who, in describing the proposed enterprise, does not impart to the mere facts a form and coloring of unreal greatness and wonder.

This sort of illusiveness and exaggeration unquestionably belongs to the subject of Christian missions to China. Who does not feel that the high numbers of its dense and far-spread population, amounting perhaps to more than a sixth part of the human family, and the yet unpenetrated veil of mystery which hangs over the origin of the people, and over their actual condition, and even over the geography of the country; and then the singularity of the national character, and the anomalous construction of the language, altogether raise a mist of obscurity which rests in the way of the inquirer who asks—Is the attempt to introduce Christianity among these millions of our brethren utterly vain and visionary?

The natural exaggerations which infest this subject have indeed been sensibly reduced within the last few years: twenty years ago cautious and sagacious Protestants would have thought themselves bound, in deference to common sense, to deride the idea of converting China to the faith of Europe. What the De propaganda, with its store of accommodating measures might attempt, none who must adhere to the guileless methods of Christian instruction would undertake: or even if an enterprise of this sort were commenced, it must be allowed a date of five hundred years for achieving any considerable success! But better information, and the actual accomplishment of the initiatory process, must now, by the least sanguine minds, be deemed greatly to have lessened the improbabilities of such an attempt, and to have shortened the date of our Christian hopes. What has been accomplished of late by the assiduity, and the intellectual vigor, and the moral intrepidity of a few individuals, has turned the beam of calculation; and it is now rational to talk of that which, very recently, might not have been named, except among visionaries.

The brazen gate of China, sculptured with inscrutable characters, and bolted and barred, as it seemed, against western ingenuity—the gate of its anomalous language, has actually been set wide open; and although the ribbon of despotic interdiction is still stretched across the highway that leads to the popular mind, access, to some extent, has been obtained; and who shall affirm that this frail barrier insurmountable as it may now seem, shall at all times, during another fifty years, exist, and be respected? Within even a much shorter term, is it not probable, that revolutions of dynasty, or popular commotions, may suspend or divert, for a moment, the vigilance of jealous ignorance? In some such manner it may be supposed that, the means of diffusing religious knowledge being, as they are, accumulated, and headed up above the level of the plains of China, the dam bursting, or falling into decay, the healing flood of Christian truth shall suffuse itself in all directions over the vast surface.

But we are told that the national intellect is spellbound in a condition of irremediable imbecility. The people, it is said, have no ideas but such as are fixed under the petrifactions of their ancient usages; or even if they had a mind in which ideas might float, they have no medium of communication, or none which can take up even an atom of knowledge or of sentiment that is of foreign growth. How then shall such a people be converted to Christianity? Were it not as well to attempt to inform and persuade the sculptures of Elephanta, or the glazed images of their own pottery? To all this show of impossibility, a full and sufficient reply is contained in a single affirmation of Scripture, not less philosophically just than it is beautiful and sublime—"The Lord looketh from heaven, he beholdeth all the sons of men: from the place of his habitation he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth: he fashioneth their hearts alike."

The old doctrine that there are certain generic and invincible inferiorities of intellect which must forever bar the advancement of some branches of the human family, has of late received so signal a refutation in the instance of the African race—long and pertinaciously consigned by interested philosophers to perpetual degradation—that it now hardly needs to be argued against. And assuredly, if the negro cranium is found, spite of phrenologists, to admit of mathematical abstraction, fine taste, and fine feeling, it will not be affirmed that the skull of the Tartar or Chinese must necessarily exclude similar excellences. To assert, either that nature has conferred no physical superiorities, favorable to the development of mind, on particular races, or to maintain that the comparative disadvantages of some nations are so great and unalterable as to constitute impassable barriers in the way of civilization, is equally a quackery which history and existing facts condemn, and which nothing but the love of theory or simplification could ever recommend to an intelligent observer of mankind. With the uniform evidence of history before us, it may well be assumed as probable that certain races will always retain the intellectual pre-eminence they have acquired; nor is it at all less reasonable to suppose that every tribe, even the most degraded, is intrinsically capable of whatever is essential to a state of social order and moral dignity.

If the lowest degree of proficiency in the mechanical arts is justly held to give proof of the existence of those powers of abstraction whence, with proper culture, the sciences may take their rise, so, with equal certainty, may we infer a susceptibility of the religious emotions from even the feeblest indications of the moral sense. When a people diffused over so extensive a surface, and so thickly covering that surface, is seen to submit itself intelligently to the patriarchal form of government, which implies the constant and powerful influence of a moral abstraction, and a vivid sense of unseen power, no doubt can remain of its capacity to admit the motives of Christian faith.

The Chinese are what they are, more from the natural consequence of having sustained, during many successive generations, what may be termed national imprisonment, than from the operation of any physical disabilities. So complete and successful an interdiction of intercourse with strangers has not been known to take place in any other country; and a closer fitting of the restraints of custom and etiquette upon the manners than has elsewhere been effected, has not failed to impart to the national character that peculiar gait—if the phrase maybe used—which must distinguish one who had been released from his swaddling-bands only to be encumbered with a chain, and had worn that chain through life. Of the Chinese people it may truly be said that "the iron hath entered into their soul."

But even without resting upon the probability of the subversion of the existing despotism, the defeat of its jealous precautions may be anticipated as what must at length result from the present course of events. That portion of the Chinese population which may be termed the extra-mural, and which, in numbers, exceeds some European nations, may be considered as the depository of the happy destinies of the empire; for these expatriate millions are accessible to instruction; and if once they become, to any considerable extent, alive to religious truth, no prohibitions of paternal despotism will avail to exclude the new principles from the mother country. It is a false feeling that would draw discouragement from the comparative diminutiveness and small actual results of the operations that are carrying on for imparting Christianity to this people. These measures ought, in philosophical justice, to be viewed as the commencements of an accelerative movement, acting incessantly upon an inert mass, which, by the very laws of nature, must at length receive impulse enough to be carried forward in the course of the propelling cause. To be assured of this result, all that we need is to be assured of the continuance of the spring of movement.

If the several spheres of missionary labor are reviewed, none, it is presumed, can be deemed to offer more serious obstacles than the one already referred to; or if there be one such, yet have fact and experiment already given a full reply to all objections. May it be permitted to say that a voice from heaven, full of meaning, is heard in the particular character of the successes, how limited soever they may be, which have crowned the incipient attempts to convert the heathen? The veriest reprobates of civilization and social order have been the first to be brought in to grace the triumphs of the Gospel in its recent attempts at foreign conquest; as if at once to solve all doubts, and to refute all cavils, relating to the practicability and promise of the enterprise. If it had been thought or affirmed that the stupefaction and induration of heart produced upon a race by ages of uncorrected ferocity and sensuality must repel forever the attempts of Christian zeal, it is shown, in the instance of the extremest specimens that could have been selected, that a few years only of beneficent skill and patience are enough to transform the fierce and voluptuous savage into a being of pure, and gentle, and noble sentiments; that within a few years all the domestic virtues, and even the public virtues, graced with the decencies of rising industry, may occupy the very spots that were recking with human blood, and with the filthiness of every abomination which the sun blushes to behold.

If one islet only of the Southern Ocean had cast away its idols and its horrific customs, if one hamlet only of the Negro or Hottentot race had become Christian, there would have been no more place left on which the objector against missions could rest his cavils; for the problem of the conversion of the heathen would have been satisfactorily solved. But in truth, these happy and amazing revolutions have taken place with such frequency, and under so great a diversity of circumstance, and in front of so many obstacles, that instead of asking whether barbarous nations may be persuaded to forsake their cruel delusions, it may with more propriety be asked—if anything can prevent the progress of such reforms universally, where Christian zeal and wisdom perseveringly perform their part.

The relative political and commercial condition of nations at the present moment, affords several special grounds of reasoning, on which the extention of Christianity may be anticipated as a probable event. Among topics of this class may be named that of the diffusion of the English language—the language which beyond comparison with any other is spreading and running through all the earth, and which, by the commerce and enterprise of two independent and powerful states, is colonizing the shores of every sea; this language, now pouring itself over all the waste places of the earth, is the principal medium of Christian truth and feeling, and is rich in every means of Christian instruction, and is fraught with religious sentiment, in all kinds, adapted to the taste of the philosopher, the cottager, and the infant. Almost apart, therefore, from missionary labor, the spread of this language insures the spread of the religion of the Bible. The doctrine is entwined with the language, and can hardly be disjoined. If the two expansive principles of colonization and commercial enterprise, once diffused the language and religion of Greece completely around every sea known to ancient navigation, it is now much more probable that the same principles of diffusion will carry English institutions, and English opinions, into every climate. But in calculations or speculations of this sort, merely secular as they are, much less is included than truly belongs to the question at issue. Not to assume the truth of Christianity, and not to argue on the ground of its divine excellence, and not to confide in those prospective declarations, the certainty of which has been attested beyond possibility of doubt, is not only to grope in the dark when we might walk in the light of noon, but to exclude from the working of our problem the very facts of most significance in its determination. To estimate fairly the probability of the universal triumph of true religion, a second method must be pursued, in which the existing condition of the Christian church is to be contemplated with a Christian feeling. When thus viewed it will appear that a promise of a new kind is now bursting from the bud; and the inference may confidently be drawn that "summer is nigh."

For the purpose of measuring the progress of religion, attempts have sometimes been made to effect a sort of Christian statistics, or calculation of the actual number of true believers throughout the world. But the propriety of such an application of arithmetic is far from being conspicuous; and seeing that the subject of computation lies confessedly beneath the reach of the human eye, its accuracy may be absolutely denied. Endeavors, again, have been made to judge of the advance or decline of religion by comparing the state of devotional feeling and of morals in the present and in other times. But all such comparisons must be deemed, at the best, extremely vague, and open to immense errors, arising either from the prepossessions of the individual who makes the comparison, or from the want of data sufficiently ample and exact; and probably from both.

No attempts of this delusive kind will here be offered to the reader; but instead of them, certain unquestionable and obvious facts will be assumed as affording reasonable ground of very exhilarating hopes.

If any one were required, without premeditation, to give a reply to the question—What is the most prominent circumstance in the present state of the Christian Church? he would, if sufficiently informed on the subject, almost certainly answer—The honor done to the Scriptures. Such an answer may be supposed as suggested by the conspicuousness of the fact. Now in order to gather our inference safely from this fact, it is necessary to look back for a moment to past times.

In the first and best age of the church, the deference paid to the inspired writings, whether of prophets or apostles, was as great as can be imagined to exist: and whatever of beneficial influence belongs to the Sacred Volume, was then actually in operation; or it was so with a single drawback, namely—that arising from the scarcity of the book, and its non-existence in the hands of the Christian commonalty. To estimate duly the greatness of this disadvantage, let it be imagined what would be the effect, among ourselves, of a sudden withdrawment of almost all but the church copies of the Scriptures. This supposition need not be enlarged upon, for every devotional Christian, and every master of a family feels that, in whatever way the loss might be attempted to be supplied, it would still be afflicting and injurious in the extremest degree.

In the next, and the declining period of church history, if the above-named disadvantage was in some small degree remedied by the multiplication of copies, the benefit was much more than overbalanced by the promulgation and general prevalence of a false and very pernicious system of exposition; a system which sheathed the "sword of the Spirit," and scarcely left it its power or penetrating the conscience. The immediate consequence of this abuse of the rule of faith and practice was the rapid growth of a thousand corruptions. Thus, while in lip and in ceremonial the Scriptures held their seat of authority, they were dislodged from the throne of power. A night of a thousand years succeeded, during which the witnesses of God lay in their tomb, literally and virtually hidden, and silenced, and degraded.

The Reformation was, in all senses, a resurrection of the Bible: it was its recovery and restoration as an ancient document; and the recognition of its authority as the word of God; and the discovery of its meaning as a rule of faith, and worship, and life; and its new diffusion through the Christian body. The restoration of the Scriptures to their place of power and honor brought with it a revival of true piety, scarcely, if at all, inferior in extent and fervency to that which attended the preaching of the apostles. There were, however, deductions from the full influence and permanent benefit that might have resulted from this recovery of the sacred canon. Of these deductions, the first was the limited and imperfect diffusion of copies; for though the publication of the Bible by means of the press was actually great, it fell very far short of being complete. The next deduction arose from the infant state of the science of biblical criticism; the next, from the still unbroken influence of scholastic systems and modes of expression, which spread a dense coloring medium over the lucidness of the apostolic style; the next, and the most considerable and pernicious of these drawbacks, arose from the acrimony of controversy, and from that spirit of contumacious scrupulosity which is the parent of schism. These imperfections were great enough to bar the progress of Christianity, and to sully its glory at the time, and to procure the speedy decline of piety in all the Protestant countries.

But when the present aspect of the church is compared with its condition at the era of the Reformation, several circumstances connected with the state of the Scriptures offer themselves to observation, that are decidedly in favor of our times; and such as seem pregnant with hope for the future. Of these, the first is the unexampled multiplication and diffusion of the sacred volume: the second, is the progress that has been made towards bringing the original text to a state of undisputed purity; as well as the advancement of the science of biblical criticism, by which means the verbal meaning of the inspired writers is now ascertained more satisfactorily than at any time since the apostolic age: and the third, is the incipient adoption of an improved method of exposition; attended by an increasing disposition to bow to the Bible, as the only arbiter in matters of religion. It remains, then, briefly to point out in what manner these auspicious circumstances support the hope of an approaching revival of genuine religion.

For the first of them, namely, the multiplication and diffusion of the sacred volume:

Whenever the true and the false in matters of religion are brought into conflict, two things are necessary to secure the triumph of the better side, namely, in the first place, that the sound opinion should be set forth in a perspicuous and convincing manner; and then, that it should be borne forwards over the resistances of antiquated prejudice, and worldly interest, and secular power, by the momentum of public feeling. It is not the single preaching even of an archangel, that could effect the renovation of the church when it really needs to be brought back to purity and health. All the logic of heaven would die unheeded on the ear, unless it were re-echoed from the multitude. Now if it may for a moment be assumed that a general rectification of doctrine and practice, and a revival of primitive piety is actually about to take place, what is that preliminary measure which might be anticipated as the necessary means of giving irresistible force, and universal spread to such a reformation? What but the placing of the sacred canon, the arbiter of all dispute, and the fountain of all motives, previously in the hands of the people of every country? If, in the coming era, the teachers of religion are to insist upon its doctrines and duties with new force and clearness, their success must be expected to bear proportion to the existence of scriptural knowledge, or to the means of acquiring it, among those whom they address.

An extraordinary excitement of religious feeling, arising previously to the general circulation of the Scriptures, can hardly be imagined to take so prosperous and safe a course, as it would, if it followed that circulation. So far as a conjecture on the methods of divine procedure may be hazarded; it must be believed that the extensive dissemination of the Scriptures, which has of late been carrying on, and which is still in active progress, in all those parts of the world that are accessible to Christian zeal, is a precursive measure, soon to be followed by that happy revolution of which it gives so intelligible an augury.

Let it be said, and perhaps it may be said with some truth, that the actual religious impression hitherto produced by the copious issuing of Bibles among the common people in our own and other countries, is less remarkable than might have been anticipated; then, with so much the more confidence may the belief be entertained that this extraordinary publication of the will of God to man is, on the part of him who overrules all events for the furtherance of his gracious designs, altogether a prospective measure; and that the special intention of these many translations, and of these countless reprints of the Bible is yet to be developed.

Is there much of gratuitous assumption, or of unwarrantable speculation in picturing the present position of mankind in some such manner as the following?—During a long course of ages a controversy, managed with various success, has been carried on here and there in the world, on the great questions of immortality, and of the liability of man to future punishment, as the transgressor of the divine law; and concerning the terms of reconciliation. Hitherto, there has stood, on the affirmative, or religious side of this controversy, only a small and scattered party; while on the other side, there has remained, with more or less of active hostility, the great majority of mankind, who have chosen to pursue the interests of the present life, as if no doctrine of immortality had been credibly announced; and who have dared the future displeasure of the Most High; and have ventured the loss of endless happiness; and have spurned the conditions of pardon. But it is imagined that now, events of a new order are to bring this momentous controversy to a final crisis. Yet before the moment of awful decision comes on, and while all minds remain in the listlessness of the ancient apathy, and while the winds of high commotion lie hushed in the caverns of divine restraint—in this season of portentous tranquillity, those writings, upon the authority of which the issue is to turn, are put into every hand; and although the hands that receive them, seem now to hold the book with a careless grasp, ere long an alarm shall be sounded through all nations; and all shall be roused from their spiritual sleep, and shall awake to feel that the interests of an endless life are in suspense: then shall it appear for what purpose the Bible has first been delivered to every people!

These views, it is granted, are in part conjectural, and yet, who that entertains a belief of the providential guidance of the Christian church, can suppose that the most remarkable course of events that has hitherto ever marked the history of the Scriptures, is not charged with the accomplishment of some unusual revolution? and what revolution less than the installment of the inspired volume in the throne of universal authority, can be thought of, as the probable result of the work that is now carrying forwards? If the prejudices of the sceptical spirit, which, in some degree, blind even the most devout, were removed, every eye, accustomed to penetrate futurity, would see, in the recent diffusion of the Sacred Writings, an indubitable sign of their approaching triumph over all forms of impiety and false religion.

The friends of Bible Societies might, on this ground, find a motive for activity that would be proof against all discouragement. When missionary efforts meet disappointment, and when accomplished teachers are removed in quick succession by death, and when stations where much toil has been expended are abandoned, and when converts fall away from their profession, the whole fruit of zeal perishes: but it is otherwise in the work of translating and of multiplying the Scriptures; for although these endeavors should at first be rejected by those for whose benefit they are designed; still, what has been done is not lost; the seed sown may spring up, even after a century of winter. Even if the existing Bible Societies, at home and abroad, should do nothing more than accomplish the initiative labors of translation, and should spend their revenues in filling their warehouses with an undemanded stock of Bibles, they would almost insure the universal diffusion of true religion in the ensuing age. Immediate success is doubtless to be coveted; but though this should be withheld, the work of translation and of printing is pregnant with an infallible promise.

The restoration of the Sacred Text to a state of almost undisputed purity, the accumulation of the resources of biblical criticism, and the great advances that have been made in the business of ascertaining the grammatical sense of the inspired writers, are circumstances in a very high degree conducive to the expected prevalence of genuine religion. Both infidelity and heresy have, till of late, found harborage in the supposed, or pretended, corruption, or uncertainty of the canon. And the whole of those small successes, which have served, from time to time, to keep alive the flickering hopes of heterodoxy, have been drawn from the detection of petty faults in the received text. There was a season when some, even of the champions of orthodoxy, became infected with unwarrantable fears and suspicions on this ground. But the utmost depth of the ????? has been probed. The most sanguine sceptic can henceforward hardly hope to derive any new or important advantages from this source. The text of the Scriptures is now in a state more satisfactory than that of any other ancient writings; and though ignorance may go on to prate as it is wont, no theologian, who would not forfeit his reputation as a scholar, dares to insist upon objections which some years ago were thought to be of the most formidable kind.

It is remarkable that this work of purgation and restoration, which, like that of the translation and diffusion of the Scriptures, is manifestly of a preliminary kind, should have been completed at this precise moment. Had these doubts and suspicions remained unexamined and unsettled, they might greatly have checked the progress of a future religious revival: they might have given birth to new heresies, vigorous from the enhanced tone of general feeling; they might have shaken the minds of the faithful, and have distracted the attention of the ministers of religion. But this preparatory work is done; and so fully have the holds of sceptical doctrine been searched into, and so thoroughly has the invalidity of its pleas been exposed, that nothing is now wanted but an energetic movement of the public mind to shake off forever all its withering sophisms.

It is not as if even the most faulty translation of the Scriptures; or one made from the most defective text, would not abundantly convey all necessary religious truth; or, as if Christian doctrine and practice were, to any great extent, dependent upon philological exactitude of any kind. But in removing occasions for the cavils and insinuations of captious or timid spirits, the literary restoration of the Bible, and the abundant means of ascertaining the grammatical sense of its phrases, is highly important. And in looking towards the future, it must be regarded as a circumstance of peculiar significance that the documents of our faith have just passed through the severest possible ordeal of hostile criticism at the very moment when they are in course of delivery to all nations.

The recent progress made towards the adoption of an improved method of exposition demands to be named amongst the most auspicious indications of the present times. Insensibly, and undesignedly, and from the operation of various causes, all well-intentioned theologians have of late been fast advancing towards that simple and rational method of inferring the doctrine of Scripture which corresponds with the inductive method of inquiry, practiced in the pursuit of physical science. Just as, in the ancient schools of philosophy, each pretended expounder of the mysteries of nature, first framed his theory, and then imposed upon all phenomena such an interpretation as would best accord with his hypothesis; so have biblical expositors, in long succession, from the ancient Jewish doctors, to the Christian divines of the last century, with very few, if any exceptions, followed the method of interpreting each separate portion of Scripture by the aid of a previously formed theological hypothesis. And although these theories of divinity may have been, perhaps, fairly founded upon scriptural evidence, partially obtained, they have often exerted an influence scarcely less pernicious than as if they had been altogether erroneous. This system once admitted to constitute a synopsis of truth, has been suffered to exercise the most arrogant domination over every part of Scripture in detail. Certain dogmas, awfully clothed in the clouds of metaphysical phraseology, have bid defiance to the most explicit evidence of an opposite meaning; and no text has been permitted to utter its testimony, until it had been placed on the rack.

But the folly and impiety of this style of interpretation have become conspicuous; and though not yet quite abandoned, it is left to those whose minds have been too long habituated to trammels to move at all without them. The rule of the new mode of exposition is founded on a principle precisely analogous to that which forms the basis of the inductive method of inquiry in physical science. In these sciences it is now universally admitted, that, at the best, and after all possible diligence and sagacity have been employed, we can scarcely penetrate beyond the exterior movements of the material system; while the interior mechanism of nature still defies human scrutiny. Nothing then could be more preposterous than to commence the study of nature by laying down, theoretically, the plan of those hidden and central contrivances, as if they were open to observation; and then to work outwards from that centre, and to explain all facts that come under observation in conformity with principles so ignorantly assumed. This is indeed to take a lie in our right hand, as the key of knowledge: yet such was the philosophy which ruled the world for ages!

The method of hypothetical interpretation is, if possible, more absurd in theology than in natural science. Every mind not infatuated by intellectual vanity, must admit, that it is only some few necessary points of knowledge, relating to the constitution and movements of the infinite and spiritual world, that can be made the matter of revelation to mankind; and these must be offered in detached portions, apart from their symmetry. Meanwhile the vast interior, the immeasurable whole, is not merely concealed, but is in itself strictly incomprehensible by human faculties. Metaphysical projections of the moral system, how neat soever, and entire, and plausible they may seem, can have no place in what deserves to be called a rational theology. We not only do not know, but we could not learn, the very things which the framer of a "scientific divinity" professes to spread forth in all their due proportions on his chart of the upper world.

The mode in which the necessarily incomplete revelation of that upper world is conveyed in the Scriptures, is in harmony with that in which the phenomena of nature offer themselves to our notice. The sum or amount of divine knowledge really intended to be conveyed to us, has been broken up and scattered over a various surface: it has been half-hidden, and half-displayed; it has been couched beneath hasty and incidental allusions; it has been doled out in morsels and in atoms. There are no logical synopses in the Bible; there are no scientific presentations of the body of divinity; no comprehensive digests; for such would have been not only unsuited to popular taste and comprehension, but actually impracticable; since they must have contained that which neither the mind of man can receive, nor his language embody. Better far might a seraph attempt to convey the largeness of his celestial ideas to a child, than God impart a systematic revelation to man. On the contrary, it is almost as if the vessel of divine philosophy had been wrecked and broken in a distant storm; and as if the fragments only had come drifting upon our world, which, like an islet in the ocean of eternity, has drawn to itself what might be floating near its shores.

The abrupt and illogical style of oriental composition, and in some instances, the characteristic simplicity of untutored minds, are to be regarded as the appropriate means chosen for imparting to mankind such loose particles of religious truth as it was necessary for them to receive. This inartificial vehicle was, of all others, the one best adapted to the conveyance of a revelation, necessarily imperfect and partial.

Now it is manifest that the mode of exposition must be conformed to the style of the document; and this conformity demands that the inductive method, invariably, should be used for gleaning the sense of Scripture. While employing all the well-known means proper for ascertaining the grammatical sense of ancient writers, each single passage of the Inspired Volume, like a single phenomenon of nature, is to be interrogated for its evidence, without any solicitude for the fate of a preconceived theory, and without asking—How is this evidence to be reconciled with that derived from other quarters?—for it is remembered that the revelation we are studying is a partial discovery of facts, which could not be more than imperfectly made known. Whoever has not yet fully satisfied himself that the Scriptures, throughout, were "given by inspiration of God," should lose no time in determining that doubt: but if it be determined, then it is a flagrant inconsistency not to confide in the principle that the Bible is everywhere truly consistent with itself, whether or not we have the means of tracing its agreements. And while this principle is adhered to, no sentiment or fact plainly contained in the words, need be refused or contorted on account of its apparent incongruity with "systematic divinity."

In this manner only is it possible that the whole amount of religious knowledge intended to be imparted by the Scriptures can be gathered from them. It must be granted as not only probable, but certain, that whatever relates to infinity, to the Divine nature, to the ultimate purposes of the Divine government, to the unseen worlds, and to the future state, and even to the mechanism of motives, must offer itself to the human understanding in a form beset with difficulties. That this must actually be the case might be demonstrated with mathematical certainty. If therefore we resolve to receive from the Inspired Writers nothing but what we can reconcile, first to certain abstruse notions, and then to a particular interpretation of other passages, the consequence is inevitable—that we obtain a theology, needlessly limited, if not erroneous.

It may fairly be supposed that there are treasures of divine knowledge yet latent beneath the surface of the Scriptures, which the practice of scholastic exposition, so long adhered to, on all sides, has locked up from the use of the Church; and it may be hoped, that when that method has fallen completely into disuse, and when the simple and humble style of inductive interpretation is better understood, and is more constantly resorted to than at present, and when the necessary imperfection and incoherency of all human knowledge of divine things is fully recognized, and when the vain attempt to fashion a miniature model of the spiritual universe is for ever abandoned, and when whatever the Inspired Writers either explicitly affirm, or obscurely intimate, is embraced in simplicity of heart, that then the boundaries of our prospect of the hidden and the future world may be vastly enlarged. Nor is this all; for in the same manner the occasions of controversy will be almost entirely removed; and though small differences of opinion may remain, it will be seen by all to be flagrantly absurd to assume such inconsiderable diversities as the pretexts of dissention and separation.

No one cordially reverencing the Bible, and believing it to be given by inspiration of God, who is "not the author of confusion, but of order," can imagine it to have been so worded and constructed as to necessitate important diversities of interpretation among those who humbly and diligently labor to obtain its meaning. Nor will any but bigots deny that, with those who differ from themselves, there may be found diligence and sincerity quite equal to their own. What account then is to be given of those contrarieties of opinion which continue to sully the glory of the Christian Church, and to deprive it almost entirely of its expansive energy?

In endeavouring to give a satisfactory reply to this important question, we are, of course, entitled to dismiss from the discussion, first, those errors of doctrine which spring immediately from the prepossessions of proud and unholy minds, and which are not to be refuted until such evil dispositions are rectified. It is not a better exposition of Scripture, merely, that will afford an efficient remedy for such false opinions. In the next place it is proper to put out of the question all those politico-religious divisions which, as they originated in accident, so now rest for their maintenance much less upon reason, than upon the authority of habit, and the pertinacity of party feeling, or perhaps even upon motives of secular interest. All such causes of schism must be scattered to the winds whenever the authoritative force of the divine injunctions to peace and union, and mutual forbearance, is vividly felt. There should moreover be dismissed from the question those differences that have arisen in the Church on some special points of antiquarian obscurity. These having been in a past age absurdly lifted into importance by an exaggerated notion of the right and duty of Christians to stickle upon their individual opinions, even at the cost of the great law of love, are now pretty generally felt by men of right feeling, to be heir-looms of shame and disadvantage to whoever holds them. A very probable return to good sense and piety is all that is needed to get rid for ever of such disputes. If the utmost endeavors of competent and honest men, on both sides, have not availed to put certain questions of ancient usage beyond doubt; then it is manifest that such points do not belong to the fundamentals of faith or practice; and therefore can never afford ground of justifiable separation; nor should the Christian commonalty be encouraged to suppose that the solemnities of conscience are implicated in the decision of questions which, even the most learned cannot in fact decide. What less than a grievous injury to right feelings can ensue from the popular belief that the manifold evils of religious dissension are mischiefs of small moment, compared with the breach of some niceties of ceremonial? Shall Christianity spread in the world, and show itself glorious, while practical absurdities like these are persisted in? assuredly not. But there is reason to believe, even in spite of the fixedness of some unsocial spirits, that the date of schism is nearly expired, and that a better understanding of the great law of Christ will ere long bring all his true followers into the same fold.

When the deductions named above have been made, the remaining differences that exist among the pious are such only as may fairly be attributed to the influence of the old theoretic system of interpretation; and they are such as must presently disappear when the rule of INDUCTIVE EXPOSITION shall be thoroughly understood and generally practised. The hope therefore of an approaching prosperous era in the Church depends, in great measure, upon the probability of a cordial return to the authority of Scripture—of Scripture unshackled by hypothesis. It is this return alone that can remove the misunderstandings which have parted the body of Christ; and it is the reunion of the faithful that must usher in better times.

That a torn church should be eminently prosperous, that it should be favored as the instrument of diffusing the Gospel with triumphant success, and on a large scale, among the nations, cannot be imagined; for doubtless the Head of the church holds the most emphatic of his admonitions in higher esteem than that he should easily brook the breach and contempt of it, and put extraordinary honor upon those who seem to love their particular opinions more than they do "his commandment."

Even without laying any great stress upon that softening of party prejudices which has of late actually taken place, the hope of a near termination of controversy, and of the healing of all permanent differences among true Christians, may still rest on solid ground. An intelligent faith in the divine origination of the Scriptures contains necessarily a belief in their power to bring the catholic church into a state of unity, so that division should no more be thought of. That, during so many ages this has not been the condition of the Christian body, is satisfactorily to be attributed to causes which are by no means of inevitable perpetuity; but, which on the contrary, seem now to be approaching their last stage of feeble existence. Meanwhile the Oracles of God are visibly ascending to the zenith of their rightful power. The necessary preparations for their instalment in the place of undisputed authority are completed; and nothing is waited for but a movement of general feeling, to give them such influence as shall bear down whatever now obstructs the universal communion of the faithful.

An expectation of this sort will, of course, be spurned by those (if there are any such) who, were they deprived of their darling sectarism, and robbed of their sinister preferences, would scarcely care at all for Christianity, and to whom the idea of Catholic Christianity, if they can admit such an idea, is a cold abstraction. And it will be rejected also by those who, though their feelings are Christian, accustom themselves to look at the state of religion always with a secular eye, and are indisposed to admit any suppositions not obtruded upon them by immediate matters of fact. To all such persons the existing obstacles that stand in the way of Church union must seem utterly insurmountable, and the hope of an annihilation of party distinctions, altogether chimerical. But it is not to such minds that the appeal is to be made when futurity is in question; for such are always slaves of the past, and of the present; and they are destined to stand by, and wonder, and cavil, while happy revolutions are in progress; and it is only when resistance to the course of things becomes impracticable, that they are dragged on reluctantly, more like captives than attendants, upon the triumphant march of truth.

This assuredly may be asserted, that, so far as human agency can operate to bring on a better era to the church, he who despairs of it, hinders it, to the extent of his influence; while he who expects it hastens it so far as it may be accelerated. This difference of feeling might even be assumed as furnishing a test of character; and it might be affirmed, that when the question of the probable revival and spread of Christianity is freely agitated, those who embrace the affirmative side, are (with few exceptions) the persons whose temper of mind is the most in harmony with the expected happy revolution, and who would, with the greatest readiness, act their parts in the new and better economy; while on the Contrary, those who contentedly or despondingly give a long date to existing imperfections and corruptions, may fairly be suspected of loving "the things that are" too well.

There is yet another line of argument, wholly independent of the two that have been pursued above, in which the general spread of true religion might be made to appear an event probably not very remote; namely, the argument from prophecy. But besides that the subject is by far too large and serious to be treated hastily, the time is not arrived in which it might be discussed with the calmness it demands. Yet in passing this subject it may be suggested to whose who, notwithstanding that they admit the truth of Christianity, constantly deride genuine piety whenever it comes in their way, that, though the apparent course of events seems to indicate a gradual improvement, such as would give time to oppugners to choose the wiser part, and to range themselves quietly in the train of the conquering religion, the general tenor of scriptural prediction holds out a different prospect, and gives great reason to suppose that the final triumph of the Gospel is to be ushered in by some sudden and vindictive visitation, which shall arrest impiety in its full career, and deny for ever to the then impenitent the option of making a better choice.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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