the Gospel is preached less and less as a matter of traditionary dogmatism and speculation, and more and more as Gospel, the message of God's mercy to needy and guilty man, to be received by every hearer as suited to his wants, and to be hailed with faith and joy as life from the dead. Against this general tendency there is, and there will be, occasional, local, and party resistance; the surface may be ruffled from time to time by some wind of doctrine, or speculation, rather, and the current may seem to be setting in the opposite direction. But I am fully persuaded that, on the whole, if not from year to year, at least from one period of change to another, the progress of religious opinion will be found to be toward the simplest and most Scriptural views of the Gospel as God's gracious message, which every man may embrace, and should embrace immediately, and away from those philosophical and traditionary expositions of Christianity which it only embarrasses the preacher to deliver, and the hearer to receive.

The increased attention which the theologians of America are giving to the accurate and learned investigation of the Holy Scriptures, may be regarded as an indication of the tendency of theological science in this country. That the Scriptures are the only authority in matters of faith, is not only universally acknowledged in theory, but more and more practically acted upon. Thus the science and art of interpretation are more and more appreciated. The best theologian must be he who best understands, and who can best explain the Bible. The questions, What did Edwards hold? What did the Puritans hold? What did the Reformers hold? What did Augustine, Jerome, or the earlier fathers hold? though admitted to be important in their places, are regarded as of small importance in comparison with the questions, What saith the Scripture? What did Christ and the Apostles teach? Under this influence, the tendency of theological science, as well as of the popular exposition of Christianity from the pulpit, is toward the primitive simplicity of Christian truth.

The great achievement of American theology is, that it has placed the doctrine of the atonement for sin in the clearest light, by illustrations drawn from the nature of a moral government. Nowhere is the distinction between the work of Christ as the propitiation for the sins of men, and that of the Holy Sprit in renewing and sanctifying the sinner, more clearly drawn-nowhere is the necessity of each to the salvation of the soul more constantly and forcibly exhibited. The tendency of our theology, under the impulse of the Edwardean exposition of the doctrine of the atonement, is to avoid the habit-so common to philosophers and philosophizing theologians—of contemplat

ing God exclusively as the First Cause of all beings and all events, and to fix attention upon Him as a Moral Governor of beings made for responsible action. Here it is that the God of the Bible differs from the God of Philosophy. The latter is simply a first cause-a reason why things are sometimes, if not always, a mere hypothesis to account for the existence of the universe, another name for nature or for fate. The former is a moral governor, that is, a lawgiver, a judge, a dispenser of rewards and penalties. God's law is given to the universe of moral beings for the one great end of promoting the happiness of that vast empire. As a law, it is a true and earnest expression of the will of the lawgiver respecting the actions of His crea

As a law, it must be sanctioned by penalties adequate to express God's estimation of the value of the interests trampled on by disobedience. As the law is not arbitrary, but the necessary means of accomplishing the greatest good, it may not be arbitrarily set aside. Therefore, when man had become apostate, and the whole human race was under condemnation, God sent His Son into the world, in human natnre, "to be made a sin-offering for us ;" and thus, by His voluntary sufferings magnifying the law, "to declare the righteousness of God, that God may be just, and the justifier of him who believeth." Thus it is that God, as a moral governor, is glorified in the forgiveness of sinners; that He calls upon all men to repent, with a true and intense desire for their salvation; that He sends into a world of rebellion the infinite gift of His Spirit, to impart life to those who are dead in sin; that in a world of sinners, who, if left to themselves, would all reject the offered pardon, He saves those whom He has chosen out of the world; that He uses the co-operation of redeemed and renewed men in advancing the work of saving their fellow-men. Men are saved from sin and condemnation, not by mere power, but by means that harmonize with the nature, and conduce to the ends of God's moral government. This method of illustrating the Gospel carries the preacher and the theologian back from the Platonic dreams and dry dogmatizing of the schools, to the Bible. It sets the theologian upon studying, and the preacher upon imitating, the freedom, simplicity, and directness, with which the Apostles addressed the understandings and sensibilities of men. And thus it may be regarded as coinciding with other indications of the tendency of religious opinion in the various evangelical bodies of America.

I would remark, in conclusion, that few things in the history of the Gospel more strikingly prove its inherent life and divinity, than the extent to which it has secured and retains a hold upon the American people. Their Christianity is not the dead formalism of ecclesiastical

institutions-upheld by law, tradition, or the force of fashion.* It is not a body of superstitions, lying with oppressive weight upon the common mind, and giving support to a domineering priesthood. It is not that Rationalism which, retaining little of Christianity but the name, has had a brief ascendency in some parts of Protestant Europe. It is evangelical Christianity—the Christianity of the New Testament. Wherever the stranger sees a place of worship in our cities, or in the country, the presumption is, the probability is, with few exceptions, ten to one that there God is worshipped in the name of the one Mediator, with faith and penitence; that there pardon is offered to the guilty, freely through Christ the Lamb of God; and that there the Holy Spirit is looked for, and is given to renew the heart of the sinner, and to fill the believing soul with joy and peace. The worship may, in many instances, be such as would offend the sensibilities of certain cultivated minds-most unlike the choral pomp of old cathedrals-still, rude as it may be, it is often that only acceptable worship which is offered in spirit and in truth. The Gospel may be preached there ignorantly, and with many imperfections, still it is the Gospel, and often does it become "the wisdom of God, and the power of God unto salvation."

* Much has been said in Europe about the tyranny of public opinion in the United States, but I confess I never have been able to comprehend what this expression means. M. de Tocqueville employs it, but without giving any clear idea upon the subject, as has been well remarked by the Hon John C. Spencer, in his Notes to the American edition of M. de T.'s work. If public opinion be strong and decided in America, it is because the character of the people makes it so. When they form an opinion, more especially on any matter in which the judgment or the conscience is concerned (and what subject of a practical kind does not involve one or other of these?), they are not willing to change it but for good reasons. And in all matters of religion, and morals especially, the Protestant Faith, which has so much influence with a large proportion of the population, concurs with the earnestness and steadiness of the Anglo-Saxon character, to make public opinion, not only strong, but right, on all points upon which it has been sufficiently informed. Mr. Laing, in his excellent work on Sweden, has some judicious remarks on this subject, proving that he takes a philosophic view of it.

BOOK VIII.

EFFORTS OF THE AMERICAN CHURCHES FOR THE CONVERSION OF THE WORLD.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

WE can not well close our view of the religious condition of the United States without a brief notice of what the Churches here are doing for the propagation of the Gospel in other lands. This forms a natural sequel to what has been said of their endeavors to plant and to sustain its institutions on their own soil.

Some readers, indeed, may be surprised to learn that our Churches are doing any thing at all for the spiritual welfare of other countries, while they have so much to do in their own. When they hear that our population is increasing at the rate of seven or eight hundred thousand souls annually, so that nothing short of the most gigantic efforts can effect a proportionate increase of ministers and congregations; when they read of several hundred thousand immigrants* arriving every year from Europe, the greater number of whom are ignorant of the true Gospel, and many of them uneducated, poor, and vicious: they may be astonished that the American churches, unaided by the government in any way, receiving no tithes, taxes, or

* From 1844 to 1855, a period of ten years, three million one hundred and seventyfour thousand three hundred and ninety-five persons arrived from foreign lands. In 1854 alone, four hundred and sixty thousand four hundred and seventy-four arrived. But in 1855, the number of immigrants was only two hundred thousand four hundred and seventy-five (deducting natives of the United States), owing to "better times" in the Old World, especially in Ireland, and partially, also, to the influence of the "American" movement, as it has been called. Of the two hundred thousand four hundred and seventy-five persons who arrived in 1855, nearly, if not quite one half, were from the British realm; the remainder were mainly from the Continent of Europe. Not less than seventy thousand were from Germany, including Prussia. More than three thousand five hundred were from China, and came to California.

public pecuniary grants of any kind, even for the support of religion at home, do nevertheless raise large sums for sending the Gospel to the heathen. Such, however, is not the feeling of enlightened and zealous Christians in America itself. They feel that, while called upon to do their utmost for religion at home, it is at once a duty and a privilege to assist in promoting it abroad. They feel assured that he that watereth shall himself be refreshed, and that, in complying so far as they can with their Saviour's command to "preach the Gospel to every creature," they are most likely to secure the blessing of that Saviour upon their country. And facts abundantly prove that they judge rightly.

Moreover, our Churches have a special reason for the interest they take in foreign missions. No Churches owe so much to the spirit of missions as they do. Much of the country was colonized by men who came to it not only as a refuge for their faith when persecuted elsewhere, but as a field of missionary enterprise; and their descendants would be most unfaithful to the high trust that has been bequeathed to them, did they not strenuously endeavor to carry out the principles of their forefathers. Alas! we have to mourn that we have not, after all, done far more to impart the glorious Gospel, to which our country owes so much, to nations still ignorant of it! Still, we have done something, and the candid reader will perhaps admit that we have not been greatly behind the Churches of most other countries in this enterprise.

CHAPTER II.

EARLIER EFFORTS TO CONVERT THE ABORIGINES.

NOTWITHSTANDING the common mistake at the present day, of those who conceive that religious liberty, and to some extent, also, the enjoyment of political rights, were the sole inducements that led to the original colonization of the United States, we have seen that the plantations of both Virginia and New England were designed to conduce to the spread of Christianity by the conversion of the Aborigines, as is proved both by the royal charters establishing those early colonies, and by the expressed sentiments of the Massachusetts settlers.

The royal charter granted to the Plymouth Company, having referred to the depopulation of the country by pestilence and war, and its lying unclaimed by any other Christian power, goes on to say,

"In