the value of a definite religion or wholly to exclude its influence; it is only meant that it is of no use to teach the definite and dogmatic doctrines of Christianity, till men have already advanced to some considerable degree in the cultivation of the intellect, and in the arts and habits of civilized life. The argument involves three suppositions, each of them suggestive, as it arises, of some further questions.

I In the first place, it involves the belief that men in a rude state are mentally incapable of understanding the doctrines of the Christian religion, and need the labours of the schoolmaster before they are able to profit by the ministry of the preacher. That the intellect is generally in a low state in savage peoples, and that it is palpably incapable of abstract reasoning, is certain; but we must take care that its defects are not exaggerated. The condition of scattered peoples, such as the wretched Bushmen or the ill-developed Australian, reaches indeed to the lowest degradation conceivable in creatures originally gifted with intelligence. The aspect of humanity among such tribes is most humiliating. The intellect is almost lost, and the entire habits more nearly resemble the irrational animal than the rational man. But such a description is very far indeed from being true of savage tribes accustomed to congregate into communities, such as the North American Indians and the various tribes inhabiting the islands studded like gems on the bosom of the sunny Pacific. There the intellect is found possessed of great acuteness and sharpened into considerable ability, while industrial art flourishes in some directions, and has been found in the past side by side with the atrocities of a revolting cannibalism. Such tribes are by no means devoid of intellectual activity. That they are unable to understand intellectual refinements; that they could not appreciate, for instance, the subtle definitions of the Athanasian Creed, is most true.

But if the objection means no more than this, it is founded upon a misapprehension.

I have shown in a previous lecture that the Creeds really contain no more truth than the simple doctrines out of which they grew. The whole Athanasian Creed in its substance is contained in the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation.

It by no means follows, therefore, that because the savage cannot understand the theological definition, he cannot understand the revealed truth which the definition was invented to defend. Wherever the common relationships of life are recognized, and mutual affections cultivated, and the slightest sense of law possessed, ideas must exist, and language corresponding with them, generally sufficient to teach the grand outlines of Christian dogma. The state of a condemned being, the act of saving one in danger, the love of God in the forgiveness of His enemies, the incarnation of the Deity, the protection and help of an unseen Spirit, are all truths so germane to our natural modes of thinking, speaking, and acting, as to be easily understood. We have the positive testimony of experience to this fact. The details of doctrine may be beyond comprehension; but the great simple truths of God's love for sinners have ever been found to be within it. The records of modern missions, as for instance to New Zealand, Polynesia, and North America, prove this beyond a doubt [2].

Moreover, another consideration should also be taken into account. The Gospel does not consist of the proclamation of a bare letter, but of a message accompanied by a quickening Spirit. No believer in the Person and office and work of God the Holy Ghost, and in the promise of God that His word shall not return unto Him void, can doubt the sufficiency of this Divine agent, alike to open the portals of the understanding, and to break down the moral barriers of the will for the entrance of God's truth.

What is impossible with man is possible with God. To leave out this Divine agency is to omit a vital condition of the case. We must not strip half the truth away and then declare the remainder to be incredible and impracticable. This is done every day, and what wonder if the result be wrong, when the process is so manifestly fallacious.

II The plea urged for the priority of civilization over Christianity in the progress of mankind, further involves the supposition that the spheres of religious truth and of temporal well-being are not only distinct but separate, so that the one may be cultivated without the other. It is the common mistake of dividing a man into two selves, instead of regarding him as one indivisible being, and all his various faculties and powers as branches on one stem, streams out of one fountain. The relation between a man's inward self and his outward life is intimate in the highest degree. It is impossible to modify either one of the two without affecting also the other, so close is their mutual dependence. It is not, however, a dependence of equality. None will call into question the superiority of the inward over the outward, not alone in the essential characteristics of the two, but in the predominant and ruling influence of reason and conscience over the outward life. The outward is but the reflection of the inward. The true order of progress is therefore not by acting on the inward from the outside, but by acting on the outward from the inside. Such as the man himself is, such will his condition permanently be. True civilization must not only include the inward self, but must begin there. For till this is raised, all efforts to elevate the outward condition will necessarily and inevitably fail.

A curious illustration of this is afforded by the known. tendencies of savages, brought for a while under civilizing influences, to relapse into the habits of their barbarism directly they are left to themselves. This is notoriously

the case with the African and the Australian.

Let the

force of the superior will be removed, and in the absence of its correcting influence the man returns to his savage instincts, flings away the clothing and habits of civilization, and resumes the wild, wandering, and shiftless habits of his barbarism. The reason is palpable. The civilization acquired is only skin deep, or not even that. It is but a thin varnish, thrown over the untamed instincts of the savage. The man himself has remained unaltered, and the remission of the moral influence leaves him free to show himself in his own natural character.

On the other hand, there are many instances of true civilization being accomplished among savages - a true civilization, although an imperfect one. For civilization is not the growth of one generation, but of many. Nor can men be expected to lose all the traces of primitive savagism, till the taint has died away in a generation of parents and is no longer imbibed by the infant at the breast. But while this is true, it is also true that a real civilization has been wrought both in individuals and communities. The existence of a native African bishop bearing rule within the pale of the Church of England is an instance of the one, and the settled communities of Indians established within the borders of the United States and cultivating the habits of European life afford an instance of the other [3].

It follows from the evidence at both extremes that civilization must be primarily and essentially inward. Till it is seated in the character, it can exercise no abiding influence over the life. No amount of external luxury, could the savage be introduced at a step into the refined and voluptuous habits of old civilizations, would be of the least effect on the man. But change the man, and in that degree you give him not only new habits, but new principles and powers.

This being so, where are we to find the transforming power to revolutionize the man? It is not in himself, and external influences are too superficial. The moral leverage to upset the old self and bring in the new can be supplied by religion alone. In his untaught condition, when his belief is rather a superstition than a religion, this belief is still found competent to dominate over his passionate influences. Let religion be presented, not in its human corruption, but in the perfection and purity of the Gospel, in truths relative to man himself and God equally simple and sublime,—let it be presented, not as a dead human letter, but as a message from God, accompanied by the living Spirit of grace and truth,—and then success is possible. It is true of the heathenism of savagery as well as of the heathenism of civilization, that "the entrance of Thy Word giveth light, it giveth understanding to the simple."

The results of modern experience confirm this in the highest degree. To those who find their life-work in endeavouring to improve the condition of our fellow-men at home among the crowded haunts of London and other great centres of our population, the two lessons-that you must act upon the man, and that religion alone supplies the effective mode of doing it, are the fixed principles of their social science. The most lavish generosity in the provision of all outward comforts, if it stand alone, is as great a waste of effort as it would be to fling a bag of gold into the midst of the sea. While the moral self remains unchanged, the man will ever gravitate back into his normal misery, just as a dead body lifted by a strong hand to the surface of the water will sink into the depths again, as soon as it is left to itself. But let the man be changed, and he rises by the buoyancy of his own self-respect. Let the drunkard become sober, the profligate chaste, the liar truthful, the fraudulent honest, and