be girded about, and your lights burning," for " if he shall come in the second watch, or in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants."

E. F.

ART. XXII.

Inefficacy of current Religions.

EVERY thoughtful person must have been struck with the seeming weakness of current religions. I speak of their weakness, not as judged by their apparent number of defenders, but by the meagerness of that success at which they aim. Concurring in the cardinal features of an unhopeful theology, they seek to induce such an acceptance of its mystic elements, as shall open to the soul the door of salvation. At this they aim. In accomplishing this, they accomplish all; failing in this, they fail in all. The graces of life, intellectual culture, the prosperities of the world, the solid manly virtues even-however these and various other ends may be obtained, they are of no account. Salvation by "imputed righteousness" through the sacrifice of an "incarnate God," is the point of their intended success. To fall short of this, is signally to failto fail in a work alleged to be of the very highest importance in the chief labor of life.

How has Christendom succeeded in this? Our own country will compare favorably with any other in this respect. What is the answer it offers ? I suppose the several Christian sects, taken together, would make, on an aggregate, about three millions of communicants, or, including the Roman Catholics, four millions, out of a population of twenty-five millions of souls. Thus one only in every eight, or, including the Roman Catholics, one in every six, of our entire population, is supposed to be in a "hopeful" condition;-and this by the aggregate

1 See American Almanac for 1850. Later returns may slightly change these fractions.

opinion of all the sects, each, of course, judging favorably of its own. When we take into the account, however, the estimate they form of each other, our fraction is very materially reduced. The Roman Catholic communion excludes all others, at once and forever, from the "pale of salvation." Instead of four millions saved, we then have but one million, and our fraction goes suddenly down from one-sixth to one-twenty-fifth. Having excluded so many, it would trouble our Protestant understandings to know how the remaining million of the Roman church could be saved, if judged by any other rule touching character, than the rule of contraries. Turning to the Protestant sects, the case is equally discouraging. They mutually exclude each other and the Roman church from the kingdom of grace, until it again becomes a deeply interesting question whether there remains hope for any.

But, waiving this aspect of the subject, we must not forget that a large number of the reported communicants of the several sects, are regarded by their respective churches as having the "form of godliness without the power thereof;" and others, including the members of two or three of the later sects, are believed to be in an unsalvable state, on account of the radical heresies which they are supposed to have embraced. When suitable deductions for these shall have been made, there is great reason to believe that not one in twenty of the people of these United States of America, will have a plausible prospect of an "evangelical" salvation. As we do not wish, however, to strain this point, let it be set down at

one in ten.

Now I submit that this is a most remarkable state of things. With a hundred and twenty colleges; with forty theological schools, containing pious professors, instructors, and tutors, numbered by hundreds; with twenty-five thousand professed ministers of the gospel; with one day in seven set apart to the express work of persuading men to accept salvation on the proffered terms; and with a government favorable to the utmost freedom of thought and of effort;-with all these advantages, not one in ten has a plausible hope of salvation by the commonly ac

cepted method. The interests of every man, woman and child, are supposed to be involved in this form of effort,— interests, not for time alone, but for eternity; to the discussion and enforcement of which they are generally accustomed to listen twice and thrice a week,-discussions by learned and able men trained to this very toil, and yet, success has reached scarcely one in ten! However respectfully the remaining nine may listen to what are called the "overtures of mercy," they cannot be persuaded to accept them.

Pre

There is no parallel to this in any other department of life. Call together a company of men for the discussion of any question of mere temporal interest, and it will be found in no wise impossible to carry a reasonable point with them. If a new railway is to be opened, or a manufacturing establishment erected, the men whose interests are really involved in the enterprise, can be convinced of it, and persuaded to invest their substance therein. judice may temporarily oppose; but a short time brings the matter to an issue, and those who believe their interests involved, do not longer hesitate to act. Practically, we find men but too easily persuaded here, and such enterprises are even over-done. If, after a full, and many times repeated, statement of the considerations deemed conclusive in the case, a final vote should secure for the enterprise not more than one voice in ten, we should pronounce the effort a most signal failure. We should assume that the reasonableness of it had not been made out.

It is useless to assume here that such enterprises spring from an unholy ambition, tend to cherish an inordinate wordliness, fall in with the "natural depravity" of the human heart, and therefore succeed. Such an assumption bears too broadly; it proves too much. When admitted, it must carry us quite beyond the point aimed at, and lay all our business enterprises under the ban of Christian condemnation. But these enterprises are in no small degree the pride and boast of our age. They are quoted as evidence of the stimulating power of the Protestant forms of Christian truth. They are expected to further the interests of that truth by imparting strength to the common mind, and thereby fitting it to grapple with the

greatest questions of life. But the assumption that they spring from depravity, and are nurtured by it, if admitted, would throw us back into the barbarism of the Romish church, or of Paganism itself.

Besides, if these enterprises are born of depravity, they should thrive by depravity. In their native atmosphere they should breathe freely, and. attain their greatest dimensions. Whether or not they do this, let our twohundred-thousand-dollar bank defalcations, and the peculiar plight of some of our railway-corporations, answer. I will not deny that here and there an individual may seem to succeed in trade,-may actually succeed, for a time, in the merely financial department of it, though clearly dishonest. But even this success comes not of the dishonesty, but of the enterprise in spite of the dishonesty, and because it is supposed there is no such dishonesty connected with it. The moment that dishonesty is generally known, it puts an end to all further seeming success.

No; business enterprises succeed among us because they present tangible issues, and are warranted by intelligible considerations. Men are persuaded to them, because they believe they have an interest in them,-not all interests, but some interest,-and that belief works itself out by a reasonable method. Indeed, business interests involve other interests, and are pursued, therefore, with an earnestness and perseverance which they could not otherwise command. Daily subsistence, the interests of education, the establishment and maintenance of religious institutions, the upholding and enforcing of laws designed chiefly to promote the morals of the community, ―these are among the highest interests of life, and thrive best in those countries where business enterprises are most successful. To promote these moral interests, men cheerfully devote the fruits of their industry, and feel that they are acting a rational part. Ninety-nine in every hundred are so far openly and sincerely committed to the interests of virtue.

But all this is only preparatory; and yet here they rest. Having gone as far as there is any thing intelligible to guide them, few can be persuaded to go farther. Still, in the eye of current religions, if this much alone is gained, nothing is gained. The only permanent and real good

lies one step farther on, in the "acceptance" of "proffered mercy" on the scheme of "substituted righteousness" and "vicarious sufferings." Such acceptance may produce no visible or appreciable results; yet, without it, all other results are declared to lack soundness and vitality, and therefore to be valueless,-aye, worse than valueless, because, with seeming good, they beguile the soul into utter and final woe. Yet, with this awful pressure resting upon them, nine in every ten coolly but firmly refuse to take the remaining step,-the step which alone can give value and significance to all they have done! Here and there one, by concerted, extraordinary, and long-sustained, clerical action, is wrought up to a condition of hopeful excitement; but with the same certainty that the stormtossed ocean returns to its former quiet, such a one returns to the plain virtuous condition he occupied before. It soon comes to pass that, for all practical purposes, his acquaintances, and the business world, estimate him as they did before.

Nor does it meet the point to say, that the world is grow. ing more vicious, and thereby becoming more insensible to pulpit appeals. For, in the first place, it cannot be shown that the world is growing more vicious. Our growing experience and acquaintance with the world enable us to perceive more and more fully the evils which really do exist. In unsuspecting childhood, the whole universe seems but a paradise, and the entire population but a community of saints. Year by year, however, the scales fall from our eyes, and the stains of sin become more and more manifest. We see clearly into the nooks and corners of society, and in mature life find much to condemn, where we had supposed there was every thing to approve. Hence, there may seem to be growing evils where there is only a growing perception of existing evils.

Again, in certain localities, as in large towns and cities, the vicious commonly congregate more and more, and thus cause a seeming increase of vice, while it really is not so much a growth as a concentration of evil. If, instead of confining our view to a narrow section of territory and to a brief period of time, we survey a whole commonwealth, or an entire country, in the light of a century, we shall find an improvement,-after allowing for