or mentions his name, or in any way recognises his existence. He in like manner ignores purgatory, auricular confession, transubstantiation, and the invocation of the Virgin. But he teaches clearly the sovereignty of God, the helplessness of man, salvation by faith, the necessity of regeneration, and the doctrine of the Trinity.

As we trace the ecclesiastical history of Ireland, we cannot fail to notice some very curious and instructive contrasts. The Irish church was one of the last in Europe which submitted to the papal yoke, for it maintained its independence down to the twelfth century; and yet, three hundred years after the Reformation, the Emerald Isle contains a large number of the most devoted adherents of the sovereign pontiff. A few years ago, when Pius IX. was deserted by the Italians, troops of enthusiastic but misguided Irishmen hastened over to Italy to fight for the triple tyrant. In the twelfth century, the authority of the Bishop of Rome was established in Ireland by the aid of the British monarch; and now Irish popery is the plague-spot in the body politic of the United Kingdom. Our good Queen has thousands and tens of thousands of subjects on the other side of the Channel ready, at any moment, to forswear her allegiance and overturn her throne. Dr Todd has shewn, in the volume before us, that since the twelfth century ecclesiastical divisions have never ceased in Ireland. For several centuries preceding the Reformation, the Pope supported England in opposition to the disaffected Irish; since the Reformation, he has supported the disaffected Irish in opposition to England.

Ireland, it must be admitted, has suffered grievously from ecclesiastical mismanagement. Dr Todd tells us that "down to the middle of the seventeenth century not only the populace, but even the gentry, were unable to speak the English language," (page 228-9); and yet, a hundred years before, when Protestantism was established in the kingdom, it was arranged that, wherever the people did not understand English, the Liturgy should be read, not in Irish, but in Latin! When the Protestant leaders sanctioned a procedure so ridiculous, no wonder that the system which they represented could not make head against popery. Even a short time before the middle of the seventeenth century, when the pious Bishop Bedell endeavoured to procure a translation of the Scriptures into Irish, he experienced from his brethren little but apathy and discouragement. And the history of Irish Protestantism, during the one hundred and fifty years after the death of Bedell, presents few spots on which the eye of the enlightened Christian can dwell with pleasure. Secularity, selfishness, political jobbery in things sacred, laxity of doctrine, and practical ungodliness in

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almost every form, were fearfully prevalent. We trust that a brighter day is beginning to dawn on that long-distracted country. The spread of education, the decreasing influence of political agitators, the gradual advancement of the lower classes in the way of social comfort, the more catholic feeling created by the desire for emigration, and—we rejoice to addthe improvement in the spirit and character of Irish Protestantism, are all hopeful indications. Notwithstanding the intense bigotry and virulence displayed by such men as Archbishop Cullen, we do not despair of the future of Ireland. In a spiritual point of view, the great famine proved a signal blessing to the country. Ever since, agencies have been at work which have already accomplished much good. And who can tell how soon another St Patrick may be raised up for the evangelisation of the land where his memory is still so honoured! We have long thought that the Romish clergy and Roman Catholic students of theology have been quite too much overlooked by those who are labouring to promote the spiritual instruction of the population; for though, as we are quite aware, such parties are exceedingly difficult of access, we believe that means might be taken to bring the truth before them, so as to disarm prejudice and carry conviction. In every country where the gospel has triumphed over the dominant superstition, it has, to a greater or less extent, secured the support of the religious guides of the community. It is still the power of God to salvation; it can lead captive the most besotted devotees of error; and we confidently expect that, when any extensive spiritual awakening takes place among the Romanists of Ireland, "a great company of the priests" will become "obedient to the faith."

ART. II.-The Christian Church and Social Improvement.

OUR age is certainly not an age of monasticism. No religious

teacher of any mark now teaches, either directly or implicitly, that to serve Christ faithfully, men must literally go out of the world. The current of religious teaching runs rather in the opposite direction. Christians are constantly urged to carry their religion into the world. They are to impregnate all lawful secular pursuits with the spirit of Christ. No formal boundary is to be drawn in practice, at least, between things secular and things sacred. The most secular pursuits are to acquire a tinge of sacredness from the spirit in which they

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are carried on, and the objects to which they are directed. Christianity is to be viewed as the friendly ally of literature, science, the fine arts, and indeed of all legitimate modes of culture and development, as designed to mingle with them, and to stamp them with her image and superscription. Without her impress indeed, they are not to be held as current coin or legitimate wares-they have a contraband character which only her mark can remove.

It is one thing, however, to establish the position that Christianity has a very close relation to secular things, and another thing to shew in what manner the alliance between them is to be practically carried out. The position that the spirit of Christianity ought to rule in all secular affairs, might by some be regarded as justifying the inference that the dominion of the church should be paramount to all other dominion. As every secular question has, or ought to have, a religious element involved in it; as that element ought to have a ruling influence; and as it is the business of the church to look after that element, and to see that it has its proper place assigned to it, the church might have some reason for demanding a universal controlling or superintending function; and so, at a bound, the dreams of Hildebrand would be realised. By this kind of logic, the government of the papal states would become the model for the Christian world; and the problem of the right relation of the secular to the spiritual would be solved by the uncontrolled subjection of the one to the other.

It is evident that this question cannot be settled in so summary a way. But leaving abstractions, let us take up the particular case of the relation of the church to social questions. On this subject there is an extreme position held by a very few persons, which it were a work of supererogation to combat. It is that the Christian church has nothing to do with social questions, or with social science in any shape. Christ's kingdom is not of this world; it is a spiritual kingdom, dealing with the souls of men; and any contact with what in its own nature is secular, is foreign to its objects, and hurtful to its spirituality. It is needless to waste powder and shot on a man of straw. If any one were so foolish as to speak thus, the best way of answering him would be to get him to spend a day in visiting some dark "land" or lane, in company with a city missionary or a territorial minister. Before mid-day, we should undertake that he would be beginning to alter his tone. By afternoon, he would be deeply impressed with the desirableness of better houses, better air, better food, better modes of buying and selling, better ways of making provision for sickness and old age, in order to give the word of God "free course" among such a people. Ere his labours for the day closed, we are persuaded

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he would feel that the Christian church dare not act the part of the priest and the Levite, in regard to the social evils that overlay the masses; she not only may but must use her influence in some way to remedy evils so terrible in themselves, and so prejudicial to the progress and prosperity of the gospel

But we are not to rush from one extreme to the opposite. There are persons who, when once they have demolished the position that the Christian church has nothing to do with social questions, conceive that the entire field of social improvement lies before her, and that it is lawful for her, and even incumbent on her, to set to work to reform society at every point. At least, wherever a social question is seen to have a bearing on religious interests and duties, it is conceived that it is the church's duty to address herself to that question. In our humble judgment, the line within which the authorities of the church are entitled, or are bound to act, requires to be drawn with a much more discriminating hand. The authorities of the Christian church require to be careful how they interfere with matters that do not lie strictly within their special domain. The world is jealous of such interference, and is even more jealous in the case of ecclesiastical bodies than of any other. By rashly or hastily intermeddling with such things, the Christian church might come to lose her legitimate influence in regard to them. By going beyond her proper line, or even by acting inexpediently within her own line, she might meet with opposition and even reproach; she might be requested by those in possession of the field to leave them alone to manage their affairs, and told in language more plain than pleasant to mind her own proper business.

For guidance as to the course to be pursued by her in reference to questions bearing on the arrangements of society, the church must, of course, in the first instance, have recourse to the word of God. We propose to commence our article by inquiring what light is thrown on the subject, first, by the Old Testament, and then by the New. We shall find that, at first sight, their instructions seem to run in rather opposite lines; but on more careful consideration, we shall see that in spirit, at all events, they are substantially the same.

Opening the Old Testament, we find the arrangements of society not only occupying a prominent place in the law of Moses, but prescribed with all that exactness and minuteness of detail which is so conspicuous in all departments of the old economy. The social system of the Hebrews was a peculiar one, very specially adapted to the peculiar position the Hebrews had to fill, and the purpose they had to serve. It was pre-eminently a local system, squared to the land of Palestine, and incapable, except in some of its general principles, of being carried out anywhere

else. It was based upon the division of the whole soil of Palestine among eleven of the tribes, a separate maintenance being provided for the Levites. Though properties could be pledged or pawned for a time to others, they never could be alienated, as the jubilee or fiftieth year constantly restored them to the families of the original owners. Any disputes that might arise as to the rights of ownership were promptly settled by means of a system of registration, which shewed at once the name and family of the rightful owner. The laws relating to theft were framed on the basis of this system of all but universally-spread property. The whole social arrangements of the community, indeed, rested on this foundation, and were connected with Jerusalem, as their great centre of influence and regulation. The consequence was, that the social system of the Jews, as a system, was incapable of transplantation. It could not have been set up by the rivers of Babylon, even had the conquercr allowed; it could not have been introduced at Alexandria or at Antioch, notwithstanding the special favour which Alexander the Great and some of his successors had for the Jews. As a system, it was purely local, and therefore essentially temporary. There is no obligation now, therefore, to construct society on the Hebrew basis; and for whatever purpose that system may still be available, it is not as a pattern for close imitation. There is much to be gathered from its general spirit, and there are many hints to be derived from its specific details. Dispersed throughout many lands, the Jews, in proportion as they carried its spirit along with them, reached a corresponding degree of social prosperity, and were commonly esteemed as better citizens and better subjects than the members of any other nationality. Even down to the present day, the Hebrew community shews itself, amid all the disadvantages under which it labours, to be possessed of a wonderful capacity to keep itself free from that terrible social misery that seems everywhere else to dog the advancing steps of wealth and civilisation. Beggars, except in the case of those diseased and maimed, hardly exist in Hebrew communities; and even in such a city as London, the measures taken to find out and relieve the needy, and keep them from sinking into the gulf of mendicancy, are such as to afford lessons of no common value even to the most active and benevolent Christians.*

The truth is, that most of what is of binding obligation, and of universal and perpetual use in the social institutions of Moses, is embodied for us in one of the sacred books, that, strangely enough, was more popular in the age of our fathers

See articles on the Jewish Charities in London in Christian Work for June 1864.