atoning sacrifice in the heathen religions, either the early or the later. Still we cannot fail to notice in the various observances of those religions, especially the sacrificial observances, such manifest resemblance to the Hebrew ritual, as suggests at once the hypothesis of a common origin. Whence, indeed, came this so general notion, that the Deity can be propitiated only by the suffering of the innocent and unoffending? Or that pardon can come only by the shedding of blood? It can hardly have been a spontaneous idea of reason. The light of nature, so called, certainly would not have suggested it. And yet in remote ages, and among races widely separated, hardly knowing each other's existence, strikingly similar views have prevailed in regard to sacrifice. And over how large a portion of the earth, and for how long a time did the practice of human sacrifice prevail? A custom alike abhorrent to the feelings and repugnant to the reason, yet all but universal in the world, when the great Offering was made and the holy blood shed upon the cross. Whence came such belief and practice, unless it was the assent of the soul, feeling the burden and terrible guilt of sin, to a primarily revealed truth coming with all the authority of sacred ancient tradition, and declaring: "Without the shedding of blood there is no remission."

The bare mention of the soul's immortality brings at once to the remembrance of the classical student, certain pages of the great Roman orator, where that sublime and Christian belief is set forth with a diction and eloquence worthy of it and of him. It will call to mind, too, that most beautiful and touching of Plato's dialogues, the Phaedo, in which, whatever we may think of the arguments there adduced to prove it, the soul's immortal life stands out as the central thought. It may suggest, also, a fine passage in that remarkable essay of Plutrach, "De sera Numinis Vindicta," as well as similar writings of other moralists. Of much that is found in the moral essays of the last-named philosopher, it is truly difficult to say what most compels our admiration; whether the amazing extent of his knowledge on subjects political, moral, philosophical and historical; or the great wisdom of many of his views and the solid good sense prevailing everywhere; or the conservative and serious tone in which he often discourses; or finally, the wonderful agreement of many of his opinions with those of the most distinguished teachers of the Christian church. He lived, it is true, a little after the apostles; but there is no satisfactory evidence that he knew anything of the Christian faith. On the contrary, his writings furnish conclusive proof, that he derived his belief from other and far older sources. In the essay above

mentioned, many of the doctrines are so just and so much in according with our own modes of thinking, that for the moment, we seem to be reading from the Fathers, if not from one of the old English divines, pour ainsi dire, done into Greek. So general was his knowledge of his own and previous times, that he perhaps more than any other ancient writer, may be said to have been the compiler of ancient belief. In him we seem to see a deeply religious mind seeking honestly for the truth; and by immense labor, and with great patience and discrimination, culling out the rational teachings of preceding ages; and, after working them over in the laboratory of his own thoughts, presenting them in his own form, to his own and succeeding times. We wonder where he, a heathen as he is often called, obtained those Christian views. And we can find no satisfactory solution of the difficulty, except on some hypothesis such as we have suggested, that in the old philosophies, there were the remains of an early oral revelation.

We are unwilling to leave this brief and imperfect enumeration of doctrines without a passing allusion to the correct views of some of the ancient writers, and of Plato, as perhaps their best representative here, in regard to the general character of all spiritual truth. The grand distinction between the natural and supernatural is everywhere kept in view in his writings. The spheres of sense and of reason are never confounded. Each has its fixed limitations. And as soul is older than body and superior to it, so is the spiritual sphere the higher and the nobler, the realm of necessary truth and being. This important distinction, in its whole breadth, is laid down and illustrated with great clearness and beauty of language in the Timaeus,1 where true being is designated as rò őr, and the phenomenal and only sensible as zò pyróuɛvov. The first includes all that is absolute, uncreated and eternal, the latter extends to all that exists under the forms of sense and time, the truly natural. Elsewhere and often he speaks of the specific forms which fall under these general heads, as rà aiovŋrá, the sensible, and và vontά, the purely rational; or as Tò ogazór, the seen, and zò aidés, the unseen. These distinctions suggest almost exactly similar ones in the sacred Scriptures, and none more readily perhaps than that in 2 Cor. 4: 18, where in like manner the " seen and the temporal" are put in direct contrast to "the unseen and eternal."

Had it come within our original design in preparing this article, we could have found in the ancient ethical teachings abundant

1 27. D.

statements of Christian duty as well as doctrine. Though in matters of practice every mind has the impulsive power of conscience, which, in spite of education, tradition or authority, will guide aright in many things, if carefully obeyed; yet there are some laws which bear upon them the sign manual of Divinity. We see that human wisdom could not have originated them, just as it could not have invented many beautiful arrangements which we find in nature. Such have existed, even where no written revelation ever found its way, unless it was one now lost. We must refer them to an earlier age and revelation. And infidelity, when she points to those sublime laws, as independent of revelation, and as showing its uselessness or annulling its authority, begs her ground entirely, and holds it only at the mercy of history and reason.

The fact of a primitive civilization, we do not forget, has something to do with the question of human progress and various theories often advanced respecting it. If the early condition of mankind was an elevated one, of which we think there is sufficient evidence where we have designated it, then for half the centuries since the creation of man, has his progress been downward; a descent from an eminence of spiritual life, and all its attendant and related good. Art, history, philosophy and spiritual truth were lost wholly or in part; and though in the later centuries, and chiefly in connection with the Christian dispensation, the race has begun to ascend again to its original inheritance of Truth and Light, yet humility in view of what has been lost, rather than pride over what has been gained, might be the more fitting sentiment. And as an intellectual decline evidently followed close upon a spiritual, so may we expect no true or permanent or desirable progress except as it attends upon a spiritual culture. Reformers may learn lessons from the remote past; and this most clearly, that human progress is no inevitable fact or law. We may scatter knowledge everywhere; this alone "puffeth up," generating pride which leads to ruin. We may have telegraphs and steam-ships and railroads; and thus wealth and power may be increased. But wealth and power are apt to result in luxury, and this like pride leads again to ruin. If, with these ministries of nature, there is Charity, Faith and Righteousness, then may we look for rapid progress, and a final return to the high summits of true humanity. But if Pride and Luxury and the lust of Power shall reign, who shall say, that ere that time arrive, the race may not yet again return to the darkness which characterized the middle era of mankind?

ARTICLE III.

PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY ADAPTED TO BE THE RELIGION OF THE WORLD.

By Rev. Charles White, D. D., President of Wabash College, Ia.

THERE are several systems, assuming to be religious, which have striven long and vigorously for universal ascendency and dominion. Paganism, under numerous and various forms, already asserts supremacy over more than half of mankind. Islamism holds, under an unyielding sway, one hundred and twenty millions of the population of the earth. Papacy, claiming with great effrontery to be the only pure and true religion, is now struggling with vast zeal and unconquerable energy to plant itself over the whole of the habitable world. These schemes of religion are not at all well adapted to the nature and condition of mankind. They are strikingly inefficient, in creating an intelligent faith; in providing for the depressed and poor; in establishing a true and safe freedom; in meeting the great demand for mediation and mercy made by our moral nature; in raising man to the true grandeur of his being; in securing their own universal diffusion. Protestant Christianity seems capable of accomplishing all these grand ends. Well suited is it, therefore, we may safely allege, to be the religion of our race.

I. The first proof of this adaptation may be found in the fact that Christianity presents openly and intelligibly to all men the evidence of its own truth and divinity.

The unlettered and unthinking constitute a large portion of the population of the globe. Neither the Papal, Pagan nor Mohammedan religion has so much as designed or made the least attempt to present to the great masses of ignorance and depression any proofs whatever of its origin and authority. The priests and teachers of all the false systems have assumed arbitrarily to dictate to the faith of the multitude. Claiming to be the sole privileged depositaries and organs of the counsels and communications of superior beings, they have urged peremptorily the unhesitating reception of doctrines and services, on their own bare declaration of antiquity, divinity and authority. Thus under the management of a corrupt and cunning priesthood do these superstitions approach the uninstructed, credulous

multitude with a fore-front of concealment and darkness, and then challenge, on pain of eternal death, an unwavering, implicit assent to a mass of unexamined fables and absurdities. This unconditional submission of religious faith to the craftiness and depravity and tyranny of a fellow-man, humiliates, corrupts, prostrates and crushes most pitiably.

A religion for mankind, for the unlettered as well as for the learned, must bear upon itself visibly, unmistakably the proofs of a supernatural origin and a Divine authority. Christianity, I allege, does this, does actually come with God's own image and superscription, even to the common mind of the race, all marked upon it most distinctly, legibly and luminously. He that runneth may read; the way-farer of the world need not err. The divinity and authority of Christianity rest on this simple and intelligible foundation, the truth of the narrative found in the four evangelic histories. The proof that their account is most accurately true, lies upon the very surface, entirely visible to unlettered men. There is everywhere perceptible to such men, a frankness, a sincerity, a straight-forwardness, a total absence of all appearance of understatement, overstatement and concealment, a disinterestedness, a fulness of knowledge, an honest truthfulness, which almost compel belief. Assured that there is in the sacred record no coloring, embellishing, conjecturing or imagining, but an unvarnished, most veritable relation of supernatural events, heavenly teachings and undeniable miracles, precisely as they occurred, the uneducated readers perceive and acknowledge that Christianity emerges from this scene of Divine power and Divine wisdom, bearing heavenly attestations most clear and satisfying.

Divine revelation presents, both in bold outline and in graphic touches, such accurate, vivid and full pictures of the nature of the heart of man as to convince unstudious and common men, who have carefully turned their attention upon their own character, that the painter must be the Great Searcher of the heart. The Scriptural delineations of man present features which otherwise would never have been discovered, but which, once traced and painted, the mass of uninstructed readers may instantly recognize.

Another evidence of Divinity, clear and open to the same description of persons, is a remarkable agreement between the teachings of Christianity and those of unperverted conscience. From both they hear the same stern, fearless, authoritative voices on all great moral questions. They perceive that the Gospel presents just the grand, pure objects to love, interests to pursue, treasures to obtain, which