within the limits of the present Cincinnati 1804. Book Concern removed from Philadelphia to 1827. Sunday School Union formed April 2d. Protracted meetings originated in Maine. 1828. Bishop George died August 28th. General Conference met at Pittsburg. Preachers, 1,642; members, 421,156. 1830. First number of the Methodist Quarterly published. 1832. General Conference met at Philadelphia. Preachers, 2,200; members, 548,593. James Osgood Andrew and John Emory elected Bishops. Mission in Liberia founded-Melville B. Cox first missionary. 1833. Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and Alleghany College, at Meadville, transferred to the Methodist Episcopal Church. 1834. Oregon mission established-Jason and Daniel September 14th, Bishop Asbury presiding. station. 1808. Fifth General Conference held at Baltimore, May 6th. Preachers, 540; members, 151,995. Wil- 1809. Cincinnati circuit first begun in the Western 1812. First delegated General Conference, New York. Preachers, 688; members, 195,357. Western Conference divided, and Ohio and Tennessee 1814. Bishop Coke died May 3d, on the Indian Ocean, nessee, March 5th, aged seventy-seven years. 1836. General Conference at Cincinnati. Preachers, aged sixty-seven years. He was at the time 1837. Dr. Martin Ruter commences his missionary la- on a missionary tour to the East. 1816. Bishop Asbury died March 13th, at Spottsylvania, Va., aged seventy-one years. General Conference at Baltimore. Preachers, 695; members, 214,235. Enoch George and Robert Richford Roberts consecrated Bishops. John Steward, a colored man, commences his labors among the Wyandott Indians in Ohio. About 1,000 colored members in Philadelphia withdrew from the Church under the leadership of Richard Allen, a colored local elder, and organized themselves into an independent body under the title of "African Methodist Episcopal Church.” 1817. Tract Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church instituted. 1818. The Methodist Magazine-afterward changed to Quarterly Review-begun. 1819. The Missionary Society founded April 5th. 1824. General Conference at Baltimore. Preachers, 1838. Dr. Ruter died May 16th. Extensive revivals of religion in various places; one in Baltimore resulting in the accession of more than 1,200 members to the Church. 1839. General Centenary of Methodism celebrated Oc- 1840. General Conference at Baltimore. Preachers, 3,- 1813. Bishop Roberts died at his home in Lawrence principles. It is the enthronement of human reasonthe deification of man. It is an effort to eliminate from all departments of human life all Divine and supernatural elements. Here man becomes a self-devel gressive unfolding of ultimate eternal forces; nature is but an aggregation of ever-acting and interacting laws; life is a spontaneous development, and man himself but the highest form of that development yet reached in an endless progression from the monad to what may yet be in the future; history is only the natural and necessary realization in deeds of human thoughts and forces; science finds nothing in the universe but phenomena produced by eertain ultimate forces acting under eternal laws, there is no God, or at best nature itself is God; the Bible is only of human origin; there is no miracle, no prophecy, no inspiration; Christ was a most excellent man, but grossly misunderstood and misrepresented by his disciples and followers; Christian history is only one branch of the stream of human history, and that a very turbid one. These are the ultimate tendencies of every form of Rationalism. In some of its phases of course it has advanced but a short distance along this path of universal skepticism; in others it has reached the end and rests in absolute negation of all that is divine and sacred. MR. HURST has done excellent service in giving to the American public this able and popular epitome of Rationalism. It is just such a work as we need inoping, thinking machine; creation is but a long-prothis country; just the book that every young theologian should carefully read as an introduction to the more minute study of the great controversies of the present day; an admirable exhibition of the various phases and developments of modern skepticism which every intelligent Christian should understand. It is popular in style, easily read and easily understood. It is what it purports to be-a history; it attempts no argument, no refutation of the erroneous theories with which it deals; it aims at presenting these skeptical theories as they are, their chronological origin, their historical development, and in many instances their decay and death from their own weakness. The author very wisely conceives that one of the best methods of refuting this form of error is to tell us what it is, and what it has done. This he has accomplished in a very able manner; it is easy to see the immense amount of research he has given to this task; candor, fairness, and fullness mark every statement; the author evidently aims at giving an accurate and impartial history, and has given to its investigation years of patient study, both here and in Europe. Nothing is to be gained by misrepresenting an enemy, either by exaggerating or undervaluing his strength. Therefore he gives us the various phases of Rationalism nearly in the words of their authors. As a fair, accurate, and, for an introductory work, sufficiently full history of modern Rationalism, we heartily accept this work. It is by no means an exhaustive presentation of the subject, but leaves much to be said yet and written on the controversies of which it gives the history; especially do we still need for the American reader an able and thorough work, that would grapple with the false principles, philosophical, theological, and exegetical, that lie at the foundation of all these phases of modern skepticism. There is abundance of material for such a work. Anti-Rationalistic literature is even more abundant than works positively advocating its errors, but it is scattered and diffused, in a multitude of replies and monographs. It needs concentration into the form of one thorough investigation and refu tation of the spirit, principles, and theories of this many-formed error. Rationalism is multiform in its manifestations, yet it is one in spirit. Its various phases, like the growth of the hydra, are but buddings from one parent stem. It manifests itself in theology, in exegesis, in philoso phy, in history, in science; but in all these manifestations it is the same in spirit; it develops from the same *History of Rationalism; Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology. By Rev. John F. Hurst, A. M. New York: Carlton & Porter, and Charles Scribner & Co. The controversy is evidently with every thing that is supernatural; and what is meant by the supernatural is, every thing that can not be comprehended by human reason. The ultimate question is, can any thing be true and a subject of obligatory belief that is beyond the power of our reason to apprehend? This question it carries into every department of investigation. The term Rationalism in its controversial and restricted sense, refers only to the application of this spirit and these principles in the domain of theology and Biblical exegesis. In this application it is of comparatively-recent origin; in its broader usage it represents a spirit and tendency as old as the world. In the restricted use of the term, that which confines it to theological controversy, there are those who would again divide between Naturalism, represented in the old deistic writers who denied the Bible altogether as a Divine revelation, and Rationalism proper, represented by those who, within the bosom of the Church and professing in some sense to receive the Bible as the Word of God, apply to its interpretation Rationalistic principles, and either explain away its supernatural elements or deny them. This last is the Rationalism, the history of which is given in this work. It is preeminently the modern phase of infidelity, originating chiefly in Germany and extending thence to France, Holland, Great Britain, and beginning seriously to manifest itself in the United States. In this form it is "that law or rule of thinking, intimately united with the cultivation of talent and mind, by which we think that as well in examining and judging of all things presented to us in life and the range of universal learning, as in those matters of grave im portance which relate to religion and morals, we must follow strenuously the norm of reason rightly applied, as of the highest faculty of the mind." And to show that this rule does not simply apply to subjects that may be supposed to be contrary to reason, but that it makes reason the supreme judge in all matters pertaining to "religion and morals," the same writer-Wegsheideradds: "As to that which is said to be above reason, the truth of which can by no means be understood, there is no possible way open to the human mind to demonstrate or affirm it; wherefore to acknowledge or affirm that which is thought to be above reason is rightly said to be against reason and contrary to it." The application of "this law or rule of thinking" in the history of Rationalism, involves every degree of destructiveness from that which finds in Christianity "a divine, benevolent, and positive appointment for the good of mankind, and in Jesus a messenger of divine Providence, and in the Holy Scripture the true Word of God," but denies therein all supernatural and miraculous working of God, down to that bald infidelity which reduces Christianity and the Bible to the level of other mere human things, and the religion and morals which they teach as only one system in the many which men have originated for themselves. The most subtile, dangerous, and recent phase of Rationalism is that of which Mr. Lecky gives the following definition in the work which we noticed a month ago: "Its central conception is the elevation of conscience into a position of supreme authority as the religious organ, a verifying faculty discriminating between truth and error. It regards Christianity as designed to preside over the moral development of mankind, as a conception that was to become more and more sublimated and spiritualized as the human mind passed into new phases, and was able to bear the splendor of more unclouded light. Religion it believes to be no exception to the general law of progress, but rather the highest form of its manifestation, and its earlier systems but the necessary steps of an imperfect development." "Rationalism is a system which would unite in one sublime synthesis all the past forms of human belief, which accepts with triumphant alacrity each new development of science, having no stereotyped standard to defend, and which represents the human mind as pursuing on the highest subjects a path of continual progress toward the fullest and most transcendent knowledge of the Deity. . . It revolves around the ideal of Christianity, and represents its spirit without its dogmatic system and its supernatural narratives. From both of these it unhesitatingly recoils, while deriving all its strength and nourishment from Christian ethics." In this form it now chiefly manifests itself even in Germany, the older and more distinctive phases having given way before the revival of orthodoxy, piety, and Christian benevolence which now progresses there. In this form it has chiefly manifested itself in French Protestantism. This is its phase in the Rationalistic movement in the Church of England, and in this form it appears in the Rationalism of the Emerson and Parker school, and in the works of some of our leading men of science in this country. In this subtile and captivating form, so pleasing to our intellectual pride, so liberal in setting aside all authority and in opening up the way to all manner of speculation, so patronizing to Christianity itself, and so generous and eclectic toward all other forms of religion, it is the same destructive system that in its legitimate development leads to the denial of every thing vital and divine in Christianity, and to Materialism and Pantheism in nature and history. The "elevation of conscience into a position of supreme authority" is but another expression for the enthronement of reason as the final judge in matters of faith and duty; for by conscience here is only meant the "faculty by which we discriminate between truth and error." Its attempt "to unite in one sublime synthesis all the past forms of human belief," is of course only an attempt to assign Christianity to a common and equal place in the category of human religions, to place by its side as of equal worth and authority whatever we may judge true and good in Buddhism, Brahminism, or Mohammedanism, and to rank the sacred books of Palestine in the same class as the sacred books of all other lands. It is assigning to man the prerogative of making his own religion by a generous eclecticism from all past beliefs. Its "revolving around the ideal of Christianity, representing its spirit without its dogmatic system and its supernatural narratives," is the grand characteristic of the infidelity of the present. Opposers of Christianity no longer pour out against it low, vulgar, scurrilous anathemas; they revolve around its ideal; they exalt its morality; they accept its benevolent spirit; they assign its Founder to a position of the highest conceivable human excellence; but Christianity teaches no doctrines; it provides no redemption; it imparts no spiritual life; it is sanctioned by no divine attestations; from its doctrines and supernatural narratives they "unhesitatingly recoil." Thus the controversy with Rationalism, whatever form it may assume, is a controversy with that spirit by which man conceives that he is able to know for himself all that it is possible or right that he should know-to determine what is true or false by his own reason, and as a consequence rejects from his belief every thing that he can not know for himself, or apprehend and approve by his reason. As the supernatural is precisely that which lies beyond his power of knowing for himself, he rejects the supernatural. The earnest Christian of to-day is, therefore, called upon to reassert his Bible against Rationalistic exegesis; the dogmas of his faith against Positivism; the personal Deity that he worships against Pantheism; and his faith in the very world in which he lives, as created and governed and upheld by God, against materialistic science. And yet formidable as may seem the battle, it is only a new arrangement of the old forces which have been confronting each other through the centuries of the past. On the one side is human reason intrenching itself in the sphere of Naturalism, and doubting all that lies without that sphere; on the other is Christianity asserting the vast sphere of the supernatural, in which are found the sublime facts of God, creation, revelation, inspiration, prophecy, miracle, redemption, and eternal life; God the Creator of all and greater than his own creation; God the Ruler of all and greater than his own laws; God the Father of all, and able and willing to interpose for the enlightenment, the sanctification, and the salvation of his children. We have no fear for the results of the controversy. There is something higher in man himself even than his reason that will ever be drawing him away from the dark and fathomless abyss of skepticism, and will lead him to recoil from the fatal step that cuts him loose from the things that are unseen but eternal; and in Christianity, the religion of the supernatural, to which "God himself bore witness by signs and wonders and divers gifts of the Holy Ghost," he will find, as the generations of the past have found, satisfaction to wants of his spirit that are higher than reason itself. filor's Tablr. SAD BEREAVEMENT.-Mrs. Addie Travis Wiley, wife of Dr. I. W. Wiley, Editor of the Repository, died in this city March 2, 1866, aged thirty-five years. She was the daughter of Captain J. Travis and Helen Travis, of Brooklyn, New York, and was born June 3, 1831. Her early training was in the German Reformed Church, of which her parents are members; but in 1854 she became connected with the Methodist Episcopal Sunday school as a teacher and the next year with the Methodist Episcopal Church as a member. She was married April 24, 1855, and in 1864 came to Cincinnati with her husband. Her residence here was brief, but no one coming as a stranger into the midst of strangers ever won more upon the affections of her acquaintances. She was a woman of mature judgment and taste combined with the freshness and sweetness of a child. In simplicity of character, in transparency of life, in tenderness of feeling, in depth of religious sentiment and experience she was superior. Few persons outside of her own family can know her real worth, but in her case the words of King Lemuel may be used with touching emphasis: 'Her children arise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her." May the eternal God be their refuge, and underneath them be the everlasting arms! S. W. W. " OUR CENTENARY PLATE AND THE CRITICS.-Our attention has been called to a resolution recently passed by the preachers' meeting of Boston and vicinity with regard to our Centenary plate. To the same effect we have noticed a communication in the Central Christian Advocate. In both instances objections are urged against the picture because of the manner in which the name of Francis Burns is associated with the names of Joshua Soule and James O. Andrew. This is pronounced "an insult to the memory of a faithful missionary bishop," and a condemnation of the action of the General Conference and the bishops that ordained him. That the plate could suggest this interpretation is to us a matter of surprise and regret. When the picture was in contemplation the artist who designed and engraved it consulted with us freely; and, though it was his first impression that the portrait of Bishop Burns should be included with the others, it was deemed inadmissible, for we desired to represent simply the progress of our Church in America by its episcopal history. Bishop Burns was not a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church; his functions of bishop were confined to Africa; he could not preside officially in any Annual Conference except that of Liberia; and, though styled bishop, his full title only correctly rep resents his office-missionary bishop for Africa. If, therefore, his portrait were used at all, it could only be as an appendage to the picture; yet, having borne episcopal honors in the mission work, we thought this fact should in some way be recorded with the other facts of our Church's history. The device of inserting his name on the shield at the bottom along with those of Bishops Soule and Andrew was approved by us; but neither ourselves nor the artist ever had the conception, and it certainly was not our intention, to degrade any one living or insult the memory of any one dead. Nor was the rule work over their names designed, as the correspondent of the Central suggests, to cast any shade over their characters. This was simply an artistic necessity; the harmony of the picture required a dark ground on the tablet. No man can honor the memory of Bishop Burns more than we. Had he been in the line of the bishops we would gladly have engraved his likeness with the rest. We gave the portraits of all who acted as bishops in the Methodist Episcopal Church and retained their connection with it and none other. In this we felt that we were doing what the case called for, but if we have mistaken in judgment we join with our critics in "profound regret." HANFORD'S NURSERY, COLUMBUS-A catalogue of this nursery has been placed upon our table, and we have examined its contents, which we find full of articles interesting to horticulturists. Fruits, ornamental trees and shrubbery, and flowers adapted to this climate are here included, and persons who intend to purchase will find a large variety to select from. ARTICLES ACCEPTED.-The following articles are placed upon file, and will be used as we find a fitting place for them. The mere fact, however, of accepting an article must not be taken as a promise to publish it: Prose-The Christian Calling; The Best Cheer; The Story of Tell; Our Elder, or the Experience of Two Decades; A Mother's Love; The Government of the Imagination. Poetry-The Three Homes; What Shall I Write? I am Waiting; The Wanderer's Return. ARTICLES DECLINED.-The following articles are not quite up to our standard, and we must lay them aside. The writers should not be discouraged at their reception, but try again: Prose-Home, The Social Principle; Religion in the Family; Gleanings from the Past; Individual Importance; Sowing and Reaping; Will is Destiny; Fitness. Poetry-Nonentity; Weary; The Two Builders; Heart Treasures; The Deaf Mute; Part of the Price; The Land of Peace; Loving the Savior. |