American chapels, gypsum angels conduct themselves with commendable propriety, and the painted Madonna never disturbs the gravity of the priest by tipping him a profane wink as he carries around the plate for the contributions of believers. Catholics here take the papers, and begin to reason with regard to the claims of the various ecclesiastical bodies around them. The anxiety of the bishops to have all Church property vested in themselves is a very significant fact. It looks very much as if they anticipate insubordination and insurrection among their followers, and if they cannot prevent the people from slipping through their fingers, they wish, at all events, to make sure of the property. These things show that in this land of light, some rays will penetrate even the dark caverns of Rome, and wake the sleepers.

Here, then, is one important part of our field of labour. A million and a half of Catholics are in our midst, with the scales falling from their eyes, and the Spirit of God whispering to their hearts. They can be more easily reached by books and tracts than by the living teacher. In the code of the priest, to enter a Protestant church and hear a sermon is a heinous sin, to be visited with a tenfold heavier penance than lying, drunkenness, or profanity. Moreover, it is a visible thing, and the priest or his spies will detect it and sound the Church thunders. But the book or the tract can be put away from the prying eye of the "holy father," and if the confessional should fail to draw it out, his reverence may console himself with the fact that there are other persons to whom the practice of fibbing, too prevalent among certain classes of his disciples, has often proved annoying.

Tracts and religious books may also be employed with good effect by our missionaries in foreign countries. Many idolatrous nations, as the Chinese, the Hindoos, and the Japanese, are given to reading, and the tract for which so many eager hands are stretched out toward the "teacher," may go from hand to hand, and from dwelling to dwelling, like a beam of Heaven's own light. The following interesting fact, to which we might add scores of others from the reports of the various publication societies, is taken from the Report of the American Tract Society. It is related by the Rev. Dr. Scudder, missionary at Madras:

"The case is that of K. Das, a respectable man of the weaver caste, who without ever seeing a missionary, or a Christian of any kind, has for a considerable time renounced idolatry, and been in the enjoyment of the consolations of the Gospel. His account of himself is as follows. He returned from a pilgrimage to Juggernaut very much dissatisfied with what he saw there, and his mind ill at ease about the worship of idols. In his own village he obtained a tract, entitled 'God is a Spirit.' This he read again and again. He then

heard that some missionaries had been seen in a village near to his own, and had distributed tracts there. He went, as he said, to beg, buy, or borrow some of them. He obtained a volume of tracts, and the Gospel by John. He soon made himself acquainted with their contents, and commenced in secret to pray to the living God. He then disowned his former idols and all connexion with them. He at first met with great opposition, both from his own family and his neighbours; but as he had some influence, and was able to plead his own cause with a good deal of ability, he did not at first meet with much persecution. He continued worshipping the true God for almost two years, before we again visited the district. So soon as he heard of our arrival, he came to us with the request that we would preach in his village; after which he declared his belief in the Saviour whom we had preached, and wished to be baptized. He gave so satisfactory an account of his conversion, that we invited him to Berhampore, that he might be received into the Church by baptism. We may add that he has since been baptized, and gives us reason to hope he will become a very efficient native preacher."-P. 152.

The means which we are using with so much success in spreading the truth among our own people, has thus been found a valuable auxiliary in the foreign field. Shall American Methodists abandon this effective instrument to other denominations-let them do all the work and have all the reward? We rejoice to know that our society, young as it is, has already put forth forty-two different publications in the German, Danish and Swedish languages, and that our missionaries are employing them with good success.

In regard to the enterprise in general, let us glance at the motives which urge us to the performance of our duty. A thousand millions of immortals live upon the earth to-day, each shaping an eternal destiny. Sinners may drag each other down to hell; the Christian may lift souls heavenward. Aliens from God must be won by truth and love. God places the truth in our hands, and commands us to "Preach the Gospel to every creature." Tell of Jesus to the perishing. Spread the good tidings. Give them voice on every wind. Speak to the ear-address the eye. Let the living teacher and the mute evangelist go hand in hand, and go everywhere. Let the Church not be fearful, but arise, full of faith and hope, and "sow beside all waters." Already in China, in Burmah, in Ceylon, in Turkey, in France and Germany and Sweden, in Mexico, South America and Australia, the living witness and the voiceless messenger have gone, and already the wilderness breaks forth in songs. If we love souls, and desire to see our Saviour glorified, let us neglect no available means for spreading the tidings of great joy. But there are additional motives which appeal strongly to our patriotic emotions and principles. Free institutions cannot be permanent, unless based on the solid foundation of national intelligence and national morality. Is our rock so strong that we can bear, without danger, the annual addition of a hundred thousand FOURTH SERIES, VOL. VIII.—2

votes, controlled by infidel agitators, or wily Jesuits, more attached to a foreign despot than to American liberties? Is there not a possibility that this new force will be exerted amiss, in opposing salutary reforms, and in elevating to office unworthy men, under whose weak or corrupt rule, law shall cease to protect the innocent and to be a terror to the guilty?

It is evident that we ought to adopt all right measures to Americanize, as rapidly as possible, our foreign-born citizens and their descendants. The sooner the foreign language, and the foreign manners and customs are laid aside the sooner American modes of thought and feeling are acquired-the better. In fact, the first generation trained up on American soil, and in habits of daily intercourse with Americans, lose, to a very great degree, the peculiarities of the races from which they sprung. But there is no bond of union like that of religion. It takes hold upon the deepest emotions of our nature, and the most tender fibres of the heart, and from it springs the strongest brotherhood that binds man to his fellow. In seeking, therefore, to harmonize and soften down our various national elements into one safe, healthful and beautiful whole, there is no means comparable with judicious, honest, Christian effort to enlighten their minds and save their souls. Send out ministers, colporteurs, books, tracts, that the dwellers in our republican Babel may exclaim, as did the Jews who had come up to Palestine from many lands: "We do hear them speak IN OUR TONGUE, the wonderful words of God."

But there is a denominational motive, as well as a patriotic one, to deal liberally with the Tract enterprise. Other denominations have entered the field, and laboured with great zeal, and already their reapers return with joy, bringing their sheaves with them. That mammoth institution, the American Tract Society, is in the receipt of an income seven times as great as that of our society, and employs four colporteurs where we employ one. The various sections of the general Church are organizing, or have years ago organized, cheap publication societies, and are preparing every year for a more extensive and vigorous prosecution of the enterprise. Many of their publications are strongly denominational, and not a few of them contain direct attacks upon the spirit, doctrines and polity of the Methodist Church. Some denominations, too, send forth their colporteurs to coöperate with their home mission and church extension associations, and wherever it is practicable, congregations are organized, pastors are established, and possession is taken of the land. Christian zeal and intelligent activity are creditable to those who manifest them, and if we suffer others to outdo us, we must bear it in silence.

It may be added, with truth, that even books not directly inculcating doctrinal peculiarities, are nevertheless frequently one-sided in their effect. There pertains to each doctrinal school, not only a peculiar dogmatic system, but a peculiar style of general thought and expression, and a peculiar style of emotion, which act and react upon each other and tend to mutual reproduction. None but a genuine Methodist can write a genuinely Methodist book; a genuine Calvinist can write nothing but a Calvinistic book; and the unprejudiced person who reads attentively the book of either, however free from sectional peculiarities it may be, will be more or less deeply inoculated with the theological system of the author. These various societies are pushing their work with great diligence, and within the last two years they have probably visited half the dwellings of our entire nation. And they make little distinction among those upon whom they call. A Baptist colporteur will stop at the door of a Methodist, and a Methodist visit a Presbyterian family, and both be successful in selling books. This fact is so undeniable that the Report of the Presbyterian Board asserts, in emphatic italics, that "The denominational character of their publications causes no material hindrance to their circulation." We may rest assured that our people will be supplied with books from some quarter, and if we deal with a slack hand, and fail to supply their wants, we ought to rejoice that other communions have the wisdom and energy to cultivate the field which would otherwise be a desert. If we fail to meet the requirements of the times, and thus lose our commanding position, we will deserve to lose it; and if, while neglect and apathy drag us down, others rise by laborious Christian effort, they deserve their success.

Still we do not like to profess a magnanimity for which there is no occasion. We confess that we utter these things the more boldly from our strong conviction that the Methodist Church will not be remiss in this matter. Her leading minds have always been noted for faith, hope, and energy in every good word and work; her whole career is full of bold enterprise, and her ministers and people are as full as ever of the old fire. She will still win her triumphs, by the blessing of her Master, in new efforts to spread the truth of God. So far from being merely a casket in which the pearls are treasured up, the Church must be the strong diver that plunges into the ocean and gropes along its oozy bottom in search of the precious spoil. The Church should be full of life and power, bold to plan, and strong to execute her benevolent designs. Petty schemes, narrow views, and small faith have no place in planning the campaigns of the Gospel, and the more of spiritual bravery any branch of the Church

militant manifests, the more rapid its progress, the broader and deeper its mark upon the times.

Methodism owes its vast success not simply to the plain, commonsense truth of its theology, but, speaking after the manner of men, to the vigour and energy which its founders infused into it. John Wesley had no idea at first of the magnitude to which the movement would swell, yet his eye was quick to detect and his hand quick to seize opportunity; and, by a rare combination of prudence and chivalrous enterprise, nothing was lost through either rashness or timidity. Itinerant preaching, pastoral visiting, Sabbath schools, tract distribution, and the cheap volume enterprise, all were set in motion; and, in fact, John Wesley seems to have rallied around him, with almost prophetic wisdom, all the appliances and instrumentalities which the modern Church has found so efficacious for good. The greater the degree in which the followers of Wesley inherit his spirit of evangelical gallantry, the more they will do for God and for souls, the more deep and permanent will be their mark upon the age.

The press is an agency which no branch of the Church can neglect without a loss of power, and which Methodists will never neglect while they inherit any of the far-sighted wisdom of the fathers. When Martin Luther threw his inkstand at the devil, he used the right weapon, though not exactly in the right way. Next in importance to the voice of the living teacher come the types. Infidelity knows this fact, and utters its venom in many a scurrilous pamphlet, and in many a volume, more pretending but no less false. The Church understands it, and lays a strong hand upon the same powerful weapon. Thus, the press becomes a strong battery, whose guns can be turned upon friend or foe, and for the possession of which the moral belligerents contend in many a fierce attack and stubborn defence.

But we are in danger of exceeding due bounds in the length of this paper, and we therefore turn to the consideration of the various parts of our new organization, The Tract Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. If a new enterprise of the Church is to be set on foot, the first requisite is a brain—a strong practical mind to lay the plans and manage the interests of the enterprise, both temporal and spiritual. There must be some one to think, some one whose love of souls and whose sense of responsibility to God and the Church, will cause him to apply to the work all his energies of body and soul. It seems out of place to take funds collected for benevolent purposes, and pay away even a part of them in salaries, which, from the very necessity of the case, must be comparatively high. Yet if the objection be valid, it lies with equal weight against a paid,