Let us be thankful that in the Holy Scriptures we have the means of thus revisiting that source, and making fresh draughts from the pure waters of life and truth.

become the worst. Without the aid of divine grace, without an influence from on high, without the leaven of Christ's religion, man can never reach his highest development in relation either to the future world or to this. Every right and good tendency in him is, in its normal evolution, ready to welcome and embrace Christianity. Scientific superciliousness and philosophic pride and prejudice are no part of man's true development. But though the evil of man's nature crops out everywhere, yet, on the whole, intellectual light and culture are more favorable to Christianity than brutish darkness and ignorance. Ignorance may be the mother of superstitious devotion, but knowledge is the foster-parent of true religion. Christianity does not fear knowledge or frown upon it; rather she both commends and commands it: "Be not children in un

malice be ye children, but in understanding be men"-be men-men is what Christianity wants; not ignorant children, but intelligent men. All souls may be, in the sight of God, equally precious, yet the conversion of one St. Paul was of more consequence to the advancement of the Christian religionsuch are the law and movement of Divine Providence-than the gathering in of whole masses of ignorant heathen at Laodicea, at Sardis, or even at Rome. And, as civil liberty must naturally help to produce, in a given community, a greater number of men, of real, intelligent, manly men, it can not fail to exert a favorable reflex influence upon the promotion both of the truth and of the power of Christianity. Moreover, civil liberty must give Christianity a freer scope for exerting and diffusing its own benign influ

Now it is but an identical proposition to say that, wherever the tendencies of Christianity are most effectually reached, its proper results most thoroughly worked out, there Christianity will exist in its most complete and characteristic form. And every stage of progress toward such a consummation must be so much vantage-ground for further advancement. If Christianity tends to promote civil liberty, or naturally to coalesce with it, then the existence of civil liberty must react advantageously upon Christianity. Neither can be the friend of the other, or they must be mutual friends; and that though each may have many other friends besides. There may be many other influences favorable to civil liberty besides Chris-derstanding," is her injunction: "howbeit in tianity—and among them may even be some of an utterly irreligious and Antichristian character―as, on the other hand, there certainly are many influences favorable to Christianity besides civil liberty. The same is true of the relation of Christianity to general light and knowledge, to civilization and social culture. It is among its divine credentials that it falls in and harmonizes with whatever tends to the elevation and happiness of man, or to the unfolding and enlargement of his powers-to the perfecting of humanity in any of its aspects or relations. Christianity has its proper spiritual purpose, which is no other than to lead man on to the attainment and accomplishment of the highest end of his being, in his relation to what is above and beyond this present world. But notwithstanding this-or, rather, precisely because of this it is in con-ence. scious harmony with all that is true and beautiful and good, with all that is pure and honest and virtuous, with all that is lovely and noble and manly. The more perfectly man is developed as man, in all his normal faculties and relations, the better vehicle he becomes for the manifestation of the full power and glory of the Christian religion. Such a development, from whatever causes proceeding, is, humanly speaking, a preparation for Christianity; for, if this religion comes to raise the fallen, to elevate the de-lution is often thrown back upon us as setgraded, to guide the erring, to enlighten the dark, to ennoble the mean, to reform the vicious, she can not but welcome whatever will help her in her benign mission. But light and liberty and love can not but help her. Christ did, indeed, once say, “He that is not with me is against me," but it was of Satan he then spoke. Again he said, "He that is not against us is on our part;" and then it was of well-intentioned but partially enlightened men he spoke.

It is true, man's nature is radically perverted, and the best things may, by abuse,

We have but to glance at the history and geography of Christendom to find this view abundantly confirmed by facts. We shall find that, whenever and wherever civil liberty has become quietly and permanently established, then and there has Christianity had its purest and noblest realization — has exerted most widely its transforming spiritual influence-in Germany, in Holland, in Switzerland, in England and Scotland, in America, in France. The old French Revo

tling the whole question against us; but it is strangely or studiously forgotten that all the horrors of that revolution and all its atheistic orgies resulted not from civil liberty, but were the natural and necessary fruit of the preceding ages of civil and religious despotism, of grinding and intolerable oppression. The atheism and the spirit of license already existed; they caused the evils of the Revolution, and were not its effects. Voltaire was already on the scene, and had completed his career. Meantime, so far as civil liberty has resulted from that revolu

tion, even though atheism may have had a hand in producing it, for God often brings good out of evil, it has been an inestimable blessing to France and to Europe. Our greatest temporal benefits commonly proceed from a variety of causes; and it is sometimes through the crisis of a violent and dangerous disease that the system is most thoroughly purified and invigorated. Had not men perversely insisted upon associating the idea of infidelity with the spirit of liberty, on the one hand; and, on the other hand, had not quite too much of the old religious and civil despotism been retained and restored in the conservative reaction, the blessing resulting from that revolution had been greater still. But after all, at this present moment, is there not vastly more of intelligent practical Christianity in Hungary than in Austria, in France than in Spain or Italy, or in any country of Europe where civil liberty has always, or until recently, been suppressed? Those professed friends of Christianity, who, in the fanatical zeal of blind conservatism, insist upon identifying civil liberty with infidelity and atheism, and Christianity with despotism and oligarchies, inflict upon the cause of true religion a sorer wound than could ever have been inflicted by infidelity and atheism themselves. They furnish infidelity and atheism with their most effective weapons; they put the greatest stumbling-block in the way of religion; they make zealous infidels and atheists of thousands, who would otherwise, by God's grace, be as zealous Christians. The lovers of freedom will be infidels, because Chris-hand. In no such spirit did Jesus and his tians will be lovers of absolutism, defenders of slavery, and advocates of caste.

once to the present time, compare the energetic, intelligent, aggressive spirit of Protestantism in England, or Switzerland, or America, with the cold and torpid condition which the same religion has, at least until very recently, manifested under the prohib| itive system of Denmark and Sweden. Error, corruption, conscious weakness, may be intolerant; but Truth needs no such protection; she rejoices in her own strength, and in her perfect adaptation to man's nature and wants. She does not treat man as a maniac who must be laced in a strait-jacket in order to be kept in the true religion.

But after all, as, since the Christian era, civil liberty has flourished nowhere outside of Christendom-and this is a significant fact

so an enlightened and living Christianity has always flourished best, if not exclusively, under the ægis of civil liberty. As Christianity makes the best freemen, so free men make the best Christians.

Had Christianity needed the protection of an intolerant religious despotism, what would have become of her in the earliest and purest periods of her history, when all the powers of the world, both civil and religious, were arrayed in deadly hostility against her? And how can she now hope to subdue the world which still lieth in wickedness—to prevail over the Brahmanism, and Buddhism, and Confucianism which hold possession of India and China and Japan, containing about half the population of the globe? When she asks of the Chinese and Japanese a free entrance among them, shall she plainly tell them that, so soon as she gets the upper hand there, she will strip of their goods and banish from their homes, or consign to prison, torture, and death, all who refuse to receive her teaching and conform to her rites? Surely, if she prefers her petition with such an intention, she ought, in honesty and fairness, to announce it before

apostles preach the Gospel of the kingdom of God; in no such spirit did he open his great commission in the synagogue at Nazareth; and in no such spirit is the world to be subdued to his obedience. When James and John would have called down fire from heaven to consume those who refused to receive him, he meekly rebuked them, saying, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of; for the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." Christianity is not to convert man as Charlemagne converted the Saxons, and Philip II. the Moriscoes; her festivals are no longer to be St. Bartholomew's Eves* and Sicilian Vespers; her Easters are not to be made more joyous and solemn by holocausts of hundreds of human beings in autos-de-fe; her heroes and champions are not to be Torquemadas, and Philips, and bloody Marys, and Dukes of Alva; her tender mercies are not to be

That religious liberty reacts advantageously on Christianity needs no further argument but the simple appeal to history and facts. The religious despotism of Roman Catholic countries serves merely to keep out the light and truth which might lead to a reformation of old and festering corruptions, and to educate, or rather to leave uneducated, masses of men semi-atheistic, semi-heathen, superstitiously devout, but morally and intellectually weak and childish. And in Protestant countries religious intolerance has uniformly resulted in dwarfing and paralyzing the religion it was designed to protect. This is abundantly illustrated in the religious history of Ennature of the facts. Had his Infallibility expressly gland and of America. Intolerance has al-made the apology for himself when he was better inways been followed by religious declension formed, the case might be otherwise. Did he ever and doctrinal superficiality. To pass at make it?

* It is little to the purpose to apologize for the Pope the infallible Pope-who ordered a Te Deum to be sung upon hearing of this massacre, by saying that probably he had been misinformed in regard to the

exhibited in Albigensian and Waldensian | be able so to do, to put them all down by crusades, in Dutch massacres, in Huguenot force and crush them with the strong hand! expatriations, in inquisitorial tortures, and (But then, what of the "more than twelve Smithfield fires. No; turning away from legions of angels?" And suppose Peter to such scenes, let us listen to the words of have told Simon Magus that, if the law alJesus: "Come unto me, all ye that labor lowed it, he would send him forthwith to Or Paul to have and are heavy laden, and I will give you torture and the flames! rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of told the magistrates at Philippi that, if he me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and had the power, he would scourge them, and, ye shall find rest unto your souls." And instead of thrusting their feet into the stocks, hear the Apostle saying, "By the gentleness would bind them to the stake and burn them and meekness of Christ I beseech you." upon the spot! Or to have announced to the Such is the spirit in which Christianity is Athenians on Mars Hill that, as soon as the to go forth to her future and final victories. Christians should grow strong enough, they Such is the spirit in which she is to grap- would drive them out of their temples, throw ple with the free thought and the free and down their altars, and compel them to worvigorous activities of the present and the ship in Christian churches, or strip them of coming age. The weapons of her warfare their goods, and banish or immolate them are not carnal, but mighty through God to all! the pulling down of strongholds. Civil and religious freedom are the conditions of her real and complete success.

No; Cortez and Pizarro are not the representatives of the apostles, nor the models of Christian missionaries. Such was not By religious freedom we mean that there the spirit in which the Gospel was preachshould be, under the law of the land, free- ed at the first, and such ought not to be dom of thought, of speech, and of the press, the spirit in which it is to be professed and for all kinds and modes of religion, includ-propagated now. Surely it has greater ading not only all denominations of Chris-vantages for preserving itself and making tians, but Judaism, Mohammedanism, Pagan-progress now than it had then. If it sucism, Pantheism, and Atheism. Of course, ceeded then without the protection and aid the State may have its own religion, while of intolerance, still more may it succeed withit tolerates all others; and malicious blas-out such aid and protection now; for it will phemy, or immoral practices, or foul and hardly be suggested that the fires of intolreckless assaults upon Christianity, how-erance are intended by Divine Providence ever they may seek to clothe themselves in the guise of religion, may be restrained by law as being offensive to the moral sense and the well-being of the community. Precisely at this point nice questions may be raised; and here, as in all complex practical matters, it may be difficult so to frame the rule as definitely to provide for all real or supposable cases. But the principle should be universal religious freedom.* Some may think so broad a toleration inconsistent with earnest loyalty to Christian truth. But suppose Christ to have told the Scribes and Pharisees, and Herod and Pilate, that he proposed, as soon as he and his followers should

as the appropriate modern substitute for the primitive miracles; or that what the suffering of persecution did for the purity of the early Church the exercise of persecution is to accomplish for the later Church.

Christianity needs only a fair and open field, with really earnest and faithful adherents who believe in their Lord with all their hearts, who love his blessed name as St. Paul loved it, and who love the souls of men even as He loved them who died for their redemption. Going forth in such a spirit, there is no danger of defeat, no doubt of success. help is in the name of the Lord, and a strong tower is our God. Our hope and confidence are in the truth, in the presence of Christ, and

Our

*This should be the spirit of the laws both of in the power of the Holy Ghost. "And where Church and State.

the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

THIRD SECTION.-MINISTERIAL SUPPORT.

NEED OF LIBERAL SUPPORT FOR THE GOSPEL MIN

ISTRY.

BY THE REV. JOHN HALL, D.D., OF NEW YORK.

WHY should we, at the present time, talk of this subject of ministerial support? Not because of any decay of the ministry, or any present decline in the popular interest in that body; but because, on account of the growth of the army every year in numbers, it is continually made more incumbent upon us to look well to the commissariat, to see that the supplies be adequate to the necessities of this ever-increasing band of Christian laborers.

Much discussion has been had upon this matter in years that are passed, and from time to time efforts have been made, with more or less of system and organization, to supply the deficiencies that have been felt to exist. We propose, however, a somewhat different method of proceeding in our time. We propose to agitate this question among the people themselves, and to go to those who have responsibility in the matter, and who have the whole thing in their hands; and, instead of originating auxiliary agencies to supplement deficient supplies, we propose to increase the supplies themselves by instructing the people, and creating upon the subject a sound and healthy public opinion.

from those countries where the State takes charge, in whole or in part, of the maintenance and support of the Church. There is no peculiar need to discuss this question in America any more than to discuss it in the countries where the Church and State are closely allied through the bond of maintenance from the State to the ministry of the Word. Having lived in such countries, and under this particular system, I am able to say that the proportion of under-supported ministers in those countries is, in my judgment, quite as great as it is in this country, and the arguments that we use here I have found it necessary to use in the Old World, and the ground I take here I found it necessary to take there, and the appeals that it is proper to make here are precisely the same kind of appeals that it is proper and necessary to make in the Old World.

Why is there need to discuss this matter? In the first place, because of the nature of the case itself. Our natural wants come under the laws of demand and supply-our food, our clothing, our comforts, and our homes. We naturally feel that we need, and we are naturally prompted to seek, the supply of them. But it is not so, as you know, with spiritual matters. Men have to be taught their need of spiritual things. They naturally know not, according to Bible statement, that they are poor and miserable, and blind, and naked, and in need of all things. Let there be a deficient supply of bread in a particular district, and very

The difference between this policy and that which has been heretofore pursued, you can easily realize. Suppose the reservoir in the Park were sending insufficient supplies of water through the pipes in the city. Various good men, at various points, might set themselves, with some pains and labor, to open pumps in their yards, and so to eke out the deficient supplies in the reser-soon, by the ordinary laws of life, there will voir. But the wiser policy would surely be to combine these various private and individual energies in such a way as to bring water enough into the reservoir to fill all the channels and supply all the wants of the city. And upon this principle we propose to carry the discussion of this thing to the people themselves. We have confidence in the conscience of the Christian people, that when they understand this matter they will supply that which is lacking in the premises. Nor do we talk of this thing now and here because there is any special necessity for discussing the topic in America as distinct

be a baker on the spot; but not so promptly and not upon the same principles will there be a supply of the bread of life and the water of life. It is necessary, therefore, from the nature of the case, to discuss this matter, to call men's attention to that which they need in the spiritual department.

There is necessity for this, in the second case, because of the deficient sense of responsibility on the part of great numbers of the Christian people. And yet they are not wholly to be blamed, as if they were doing wrong knowing it to be wrong. They have not thought much about the matter, and "evil

I think, in the third place, that there is necessity of an agitation of this matter, because of a very natural but somewhat culpable procedure on the part of the ministers themselves. I repeat this statement, because of a very natural but somewhat culpable procedure on the part of my brother ministers. They do not like to plead their own cause, and tell the people what ought to be done for their Why should there be a different standard own maintenance. I call that natural, but of judging applied to us as professional laI call it somewhat culpable; for a salary borers in one department from that which grab is never a popular measure. But at is applied to our brethren in other departthe same time I do not think that we are ments? We met these men in school, and quite free from blame in that particular. were not deficient in brains as compared There are three chapters in the Epistle to with them. We met the same men in colthe Corinthians that bear directly on this lege, and we stood as well as they did. They very subject, and we are just, as ministers, go to medicine, or they go to the merchant's as much bound to explain to the people desk, and by honorable effort they reach afthese three chapters as any other three chap- fluence. We go to the sacred desk, we go ters in the New Testament. We have no to deal with men's souls, we go to speak for