ry with Calvinistic books; it being as well, sometimes, to reach Calvin through the Bible, as the Bible through Calvin..

Who is more worthy of applause; he who acquires his orthodoxy by patient labor, or he who assumes it, or who receives it as a hereditary fortune? It is easy to stride a creed, and, armed cap-a-pie, to dash in headlong against all real or imaginary foes; but he who trains himself by patient discipline, and digs out the metal, and forges his own steel, is likely to prove as valiant a defender of the faith, and to do as signal execution.

It is one thing for a man to settle his creed; another, to have it settled for him. There be enough of the latter; persons profoundly orthodox-orthodox to the back-bone-steeped, as it were, in a system theology-persons who, to all appearance, never had a doubt themselves, who have no sympathy with those who do, and whose constant delight it seems to be to mouse for heretics. Of all intolerant and intolerable persons these are the worst; persons who never thought with sufficient depth and comprehension to see the difficulties which invest the subject, and who then demand an absolute conformity to their straitened creed.

Contrary to this, we contend that the churches should tolerate, and even encourage, that fearless style of thinking which advances boldly from premise to conclusion, and which never sticks at arbitrary rules. Truth is the only limit which God has set, and man should stand in awe of nothing else. What if some do abuse their liberty and corrupt the faith? As an offset to this, others again, true to truth and conscience, shall shake off old doubts and errors, and passing beyond to unexplored regions, shall return with a precious freight of pearls. We say, with confidence, that such large liberty is the wisest policy, and that it will doubly repay the evil.

At least let the church never deny its ministers or members the right of thought and free inquiry. It is well to be impatient of intellectual conceit, and the churches are bound to look after the purity of their faith, and the purity of their members; but how fatal is that blindness which shackles mind! Whoso runs astray, and sects and schisms are endless, almost

anything is better than an imperious, stagnant, lifeless orthodoxy. Let the Papists tax us with Universalists, Unitarians, Quakers, Mormons, and all the rest; we can better endure it than "that gross conforming stupidity," which Milton speaks of, "that stark and dead congealment of wood, hay, and stubble, forced and frozen together, which is more to the sudden degenerating of a church than many subdichotomies of petty schisms."

And since, there be those whom no dragooning can keep from heresy, nor force into the prevailing orthodoxy, and since, as history has shown, a church can never preserve its purity by arbitrary power, therefore is it better to let men think and express those opinions freely, which, if false, the church can see and grapple with, than to try to keep them smothered where they will work in silence. Error, like the hidden fountains of the earth, must, in the long run, have vent and issue. "History," says Neander, "allows nothing to be covered up or concealed. False elements which have imperceptibly attached themselves to Christianity, in its process of unfolding, must cast off the envelop, expand to the open day, and fully express themselves, that they may be overcome by the pure Christian principle." Whatever is in the heart of man must finally issue forth and expand its force. Men will corrupt the faith, and every truth of Scripture must have its conflict. What use then to put off the contest by suppressing thought. Men will think, and first or last, Christianity must grapple with every form of error.

Though reason brandish her keenest weapons, and do her utmost, what but cowardice can fear the result. If any human device can undermine and overthrow God's temple, let it fall. But he is blind to the past, and hopeless of the future, who feels not, that Christianity is equal both to outward assault and inward corruption; and that, repelling all foes and expelling all errors, it is destined to emerge purified and victorious in the final conflict.

ARTICLE VI.-AMERICA VINDICATED BY AN ENGLISHMAN.

America: The origin of her present conflict; the prospect for the Slave, and the test of British Sympathy. Illustrated by incidents of travel in the United States. By Jas. W. MASSIE, D. D., LL. D. London: John Snow, 35 Paternoster Row.

THE REV. JAMES W. MASSIE, D. D., LL. D., has published the results of his tour of observation and his mission of fraternal sympathy in the United States, with a historical sketch of the political and moral antecedents of the Rebellion, which together form the most complete and satisfactory exposé of the causes and bearings of the war that has yet been laid before the English public.

Dr. Massie, it will be remembered, came to this country in July, 1863, as the bearer of an "Address to Ministers and Pastors of all Christian Denominations throughout the United States," on behalf of nearly five thousand ministers of the Gospel in Great Britain and in France, who had severally subscribed the same.* This address avowed a positive sympathy with the Government and people of the United States in opposition to the rebellion, and recognized with gratitude and hopefulness the bearing of the war upon the destruction of slavery. Dr. Massie's antecedents qualified him for such an embassy of good-will. Long identified with missionary and philanthropic movements in England, he could worthily represent the anti-slavery sentiments of British Christians. Conversant with public affairs, and especially familiar with American institutions and politics-through early studies and the

* Strictly speaking, the Address in form was adopted by a Ministerial Confer ence held at Manchester, England, June 13th, 1863. But it was an expansion of an address which had been signed by nearly eight hundred French Protestant pastors, and by more than four thousand British Ministers.

domestic correspondence of later years, he was able, at the very outbreak of the war, to comprehend its real issues, and he devoted himself with zeal to the enlightenment of his countrymen, by means of pamphlets and addresses advocating the cause of the Union. He it was, who on the occasion of the reception of the Prince of Wales and the Princess Alexandra, flung out over the royal cortege, from his office window, the Stars and Stripes in union with the flags of Great Britain and Denmark. Of dignified and' affable manners, of fluent and winning address, of candid judgment and catholic sympathies, Dr. Massie was just the man to represent to us the better spirit of England toward our affairs, and to conquer the prejudices and animosities which her evasive neutrality had awakened in all classes of our citizens. The same qualities enable him to commend our cause to his countrymen with an intelligent and earnest sympathy. His mission to us and his report of that mission at home are standing memorials of international peace and good-will.

The plan of Dr. Massie's work is not favorable to the highest literary excellence. It is neither a book of travels nor a discussion of principles, but a running commentary upon incidents and events relating to the War and to Slavery which came under his personal observation, prefaced by and inter spersed with historical and other matters pertaining to "America and her Conflict." Sometimes the author falls into a desultory, conversational style, in which the order of his thoughts and the construction of his sentences are quite secondary to the statement of facts. Indeed, the work, as to its form, gives evidence of hasty composition; and a careful revision might result in recasting it throughout. But it puts our case so clearly and forcibly, in a plain common sense way, and it is so true and so genial in its sympathy with Union and Freedom, that we cannot be tempted to criticise its minor defects.

Take, for example, the following statement of the duty of the Government of the United States to maintain its own integrity and that of its territory, together with the rights and liberties of all classes of loyal citizens.

"There are States which have remained in or have returned to the Union, which have been called slave States, and have interests involved in the settlement of the present strife. A large part of Virginia, Florida, and Louisiana, all Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, East Tennessee, and the lands which give the un disputed control of the Mississippi, belong to Federal government, and the people, white and colored, dwelling there, are its subjects, to whom an equitable administration of all the advantages of a good government are due. In the States involved in rebellion there are said to be many thousands groaning under oppression, faithful in heart and purpose to the Federal authority, and waiting for its restoration where they dwell. Can a paternal government surrender those who have never broken their allegiance? or can it leave the feeble and helpless victims of oppression, brought into bondage by its former abuse of power, to continue sufferers of a brutal thraldom which threatens their utter destruction? "How few Englishmen know the extent and geographical relation of the States for which secession is demanded, or the position of the territories yet unorganized into States; the relation of the arterial rivers and coast harbors which may be included in the coveted boundaries; and the extent to which the commerce of the principal cities might be affected by the inter relations of the States stretching along these confines. By what process could we ascertain the propor tion of white adherents to the Northern Union shut up in the rebel States, or the negro population who have been transported from the land of their birth by slave traffic? If this birth made them citizens of the Republic, surely liberty to enjoy their rights should be guaranteed by the supreme authority. The prin ciple involved in the right of secession is of essential moment to the integrity of the American Republic and the duty of resistance by constituted authorities; as also the responsibility of a representative government to the citizens by whom its members have been appointed, for the territory entrusted to their care, however its inhabitants may be located. [pp. 26, 28.]

Dr. Massie significantly reminds his countrymen accustomed to the lead of the Times, that questions of such magnitude "cannot be determined by a newspaper paragraph."

It is curious to notice upon what familiar points in our po litical polity Dr. M. deems it necessary to enlighten his countrymen; and yet there are some American voters who might be instructed by the following lucid statement:

"The Presidential prerogatives have either been exaggerated or misapprehended in Britain, especially by such as have objected to the policy of Mr. Lincoln during the past two years. He has been charged with doing too much, and failing to do what ought to have been done. Why have he and Congress failed to abolish slavery, since not only did he avow himself opposed to it before his election, but it has manifestly been the cause of all the recent conflict? Why did he proclaim freedom to the slave in the rebel States, where he had no power, and leave it untouched in the loyal States, where his power was dominant? Why did he tell the Chicago deputation that he must maintain slavery, if to do so would strengthen the Union, and would abolish slavery if not doing so would