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humanity, in the true soul-saving sense, and soul-saving sphere; for it will not allow us a Kinsman Redeemer, unless he can anticipate all science; whereas it was only by keeping outside of the philosophies and the sciences, and associating himself rather with the great humanities of our race, that Jesus could be the Kinsman Redeemer of man as man—of all classes, of all cultures, of all times, of all lands. Rationalism, in fact, denies Christ's claims to be the Redeemer, for the very reason that he shares with us those very sinless infirmities that pre-eminently qualify him to be our Redeemer. It would thus put away beyond our reach the human hand let down to save, or tell us that if it can thus get down so far as to our own level, it must be a commonplace human hand, that cannot We tell Rationalism, No. It is a saving hand that shows itself divine, and most divinely divine, that it has incarnated itself so humanly, and reaches down so low. The Christ was found, not in king's palaces, not in chambers of legislation, not in halls of learning, not in mansions of wealth (though he could also be there at times), for there, in these social altitudes and seclusions, men were few-but among the poor, sick, carestricken majorities of the race; and by thus divinely choosing to be himself a poor man among the poor, he ennobled virtuous poverty, and proved himself all the more to be our Kinsman Redeemer. We appeal from Rationalism to Reason, if anything could be worthier of the case-worthier of God, than to send us such a Son of Man as should be truly "the Son of Man," representing humanity in all its frailties (sin excepted), as well as in all its faculties; in all its quivering tenderness, as well as in all its strength.

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Thus far for the human side; turn now to the divine. By a cruel wrench, Rationalism snaps the bond that unites our Christ with the Divinity. "They have" thus, we may each say, "taken away my LORD," and but little does it now matter where they have laid him." Even in the lordliest grade of the human scale, as a mere man among men, to us it is but putting him in a sepulchre still; the living and life-giving Christ remains to us no more. We feel that we need a ladder Godward, which shall not only "be set on the earth," that we may get on it, but "whose top shall reach to heaven." We need such a Saviour as, while standing in human form on the earth, could truly denominate himself, as he did, "the Son of Man who is in heaven." This top part of the mystic ladder Rationalism cuts away. The earthward part it leaves, not without injury also,-but yet leaves, towering to a more or less noteworthy height. But what of that, if he was after all nothing more than "one of us," a mere man among men.

Of what avail were a ladder heavenward, though it should reach 1,000 miles, if it stopped short there, over one that reached only 100 miles?

But that is by no means all. Unless the ladder reaches heaven, and has an attachment there stable as the Godhead, high otherwise as it may be, it will not even stand. Unless Jesus be very God, it will be impossible to hold consistently that he is perfect or sinless man. What evidence have Rationalists that Jesus was sinless, any more than that Mahomet and those others were? Evidence? On their principles, all the evidence leans the other way. They cannot cite apostolic testimony, not to name Christ's own testimony, for the sacred writers, according to Rationalism, were blunderers at the best. Their writings, we have been told, "are shrouded in unbelievable myths "-that is, fables; and it is the prerogative of Rationalism, we are also told, "deliberately to pick and choose which of its various and contradictory utterances it will adopt, as most likely to be true." The only pertinent and decisive answer to all doubt on the point would be, that Jesus and his apostles worked miracles, as God's seal that their word was true. But this emphatically is the answer that will not be received-that is, in fact, scornfully repelled. Worked miracles? exclaims Rationalism. No; they only said they did; and by this very belief in miracles, Jesus, equally with his apostles, showed, we are told, his ignorance, superstition, and, in a redemptive point of view, his total unreliability. What proof, then, of our Saviour's sinlessness remains? None whatever. Nay, if we even accept as true what the evangelists tell us of Christ's pretensions at his trial, about sitting at the right hand of power, and compare them with the Jewish code on blasphemy, and make no allowance for miracles, there will remain ample reasons on which Rationalism might, or rather must, with its own Lord Amberley, infer, that Jesus was fairly obnoxious to the charge of imposture, or blasphemy, or both. The Gospels, they expressly tell us, are mythical and unreliable. Anything in them that is supranatural, or out of the ordinary course of nature, they set down as, in their own phrase, “unhistorical," i. e., not true, but to be purged out of history as a mere fabulous weed. Now, what consistent Rationalist, however he may trim or wink hard, could hesitate, in his heart of hearts, to rank among these mythical cobwebs the alleged sinlessness of Jesus; for it is clearly out of the course of all human experience, and outrages all analogy, that a frail, mortal, and mere man should live thirty or forty years in a world like ours, and die an ignominious death, and be of all men who ever lived the solitary one, of whom we may certainly aver

that he never omitted a single duty or committed a single sin. The Rationalist will believe this all the less, that it was a representation of Jesus (he would say), most natural for the apostles to make; for it was needful to invest their Founder with the glory of sinlessness, as well as with the glory of miracle, that the new religion might make way the more triumphantly among men. But Rationalism can tolerate neither. That Jesus was mayhap a martyr, guiltless of death, it may admit, though even this is precarious. Lord Amberley would not have crucified him, he says, but he held him to have been justly condemned. But that he was absolutely sinless, what candid Rationalist can believe, without contradicting all the analogies and experiences of human kind? And if such be his logic, let him speak it manfully and articulately out.

Such are the grounds on which we affirm, No miracles, no Christ. Many there be in these days who skit at Paley and the external evidences. We believe there never was a time when these external evidences had more call to be arrayed. In holding by supranaturalism, we, of course, hold by plenary inspiration plenary, we say, not verbal; for this position of plenary inspiration leaves margin enough for the revision and readjustment of this thorny question. God himself has left us this margin; for he has clothed his truth in human, yea popular language, and passed it through the subjectivity of men of all ranks, from Jewish kings to Tekoan herdmen, and Galilean fishermen; men of all temperaments, from a meek Moses to an ardent Paul, from a poetic Isaiah to a prosaic James; and men of all experiences, in sun and storm, in palaces or in jails, and penal islets of the Egean, in the palmy days of Israel's glory, or mingling their tears in the rivers of Babylon, in the heights of ecstatic communion, exulting in God as their exceeding joy, or crying out from the depths, "Hath the Lord forgotten to be gracious?" God thus passed his revealing breath over every chord of the human spirit, that it might evoke a representative note of joy or wail, hope or fear, for the solace of struggling humanity of all time. He chose a lens for his truth, dotted with human infirmity, that it might the better reflect the hues of all mortal want and woe. The Bible, being thus equally human and divine, "drops like the rain, and distils like the dew" over all breadths, and into all intricacies of human life; while its transmission is left without miracle to human fidelity and care, in order to intensify its evidences, and to ennoble our own natures. The more we dig in this mine, the more shall we be rewarded with celestial ore. May this be largely your experience in the academic session now opened.

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REMINISCENCES OF BYEGONE DAYS.

THE "Ten Years' Conflict," which ended in the disruption of the Church of Scotland, was not the only battle for freedom which was fought during that decade. The popular demands for Free Trade," "The People's Charter," and "Complete Suffrage," were urged with no less potency, and have practically been conceded; for our trade is all but free, our suffrage is all but "universal," while the vantage ground gained will enable the true friends of liberty in due time to make it complete." The great commotions of those days are but little known to the present generation; but to some of us who were not only intimate with the leaders of each movement, but had a share in their earlier, and hitherto unchronicled labours, they are yet felt as reminiscences of peculiar interest, and worthy in some of their personal and religious characteristics to be recalled. Richard Cobden, Joseph Sturge, and Feargus O'Connor have passed away, but the fruit of their labours remains, and bears evidence to their wisdom and prudence, as well as their invincible power. As the apostle of free trade, we knew Richard Cobden when he wrote his first article, entitled, "Russia, by a Manchester Manufacturer," and gave it to the commercial world in Tait's Magazine. We can call up the time when John Bright gave indications of future greatness by his first appearance as a speaker on temperance at Rochdale; and we were just getting to know something of Joseph Sturge when, in the Council of the Anti-Corn Law League, there was found to be a disposition to accept an eight shilling bread duty. He stood up, and with his usual quick, but intensely earnest eloquence, said, "a fixed duty is a fixed injustice." The deathknell of the corn laws was heard in those words, and he lived to see them buried. With Feargus O'Connor we had little personal acquaintance; but from all we ever knew or heard of him we are led to conclude that in many things he was more sinned against than sinning; and as to his physical force propensities, we believe that had they been ever put to the test, he would have been found some day, like his confrère, Smith O'Brien, taking shelter in a cabbage garden. But, while the leaders of these political movements were not interfered with by the government, such was the state of matters that for years, although Joseph Sturge was chairman, he was advised by counsel, through his own solicitor, that it would not be safe for him to sign any of the minutes of the meetings of his Suffrage Association. But Henry Vincent, Arthur O'Neil, and Thomas Cooper, the author of The Purgatory of Suicides, also

No. 9.

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Vol. 3.

zealous advocates and earnest workers, did not escape with impunity; for though they only demanded rights, which a Tory government, to a great extent, has since conceded, they were tried with many others, and most of them sent to prison ! Now all this has passed away, and Henry Vincent, Arthur O'Neil, and Thomas Cooper yet live to enjoy the fruit of their martyrdom, and what is better, to promote by their life and conduct and Christian labour the highest interests of their fellow-men. They were all believers in, and advocates of, the great foundation doctrines of the "Evangelical Union." And so it has ever been in the history of the world. Neither Christ nor his disciples intermeddled with politics in the worldly sense of the term, for their weapons were "not carnal, but spiritual"; yet from the time when Jesus uttered the words "Render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things that are God's," and Paul boldly asserted his rights as a citizen of Rome, Christians have been politicians; and we believe it will be found on inquiry, that most, if not all great reforms which our country has seen, have had their spring of action in the principles thus laid down and exemplified. The politics of the New Testament will yet govern the world. Trimming politicians may have tact enough, and are often politic enough in these days to make concessions, and even appear to be reformers, when to resist public opinion were hopeless; but beyond these iconoclasts, who construct only where they cannot hinder or destroy, we can only think on such noble men as those to whom we have referred as the real authors of England's greatness.

But how came we to get into partnership with such distinguished men? In this way. Having been chosen as a delegate to represent a public meeting at Birmingham, we became the guest of Mr. Charles Sturge, brother to the great philanthropist. There, in that happy home, we found a heaven on earth; and through that connection, and our discussions at the conference, we became intimate with some of the leading spirits of the day, especially with Mr. Joseph Sturge himself. Having accidentally remarked to our host that the position we occupied was more of a preparatory than of a permanent character, and that England had great attractions for a young man in public life at that time, he mentioned this to his brother, and before we had returned, there was a letter inquiring if we would accept a post of usefulness in England, "if it were in all respects congenial to our mind." Such were the words which led to a correspondence, ending in a removal to co-operate with Joseph Sturge; and the next three years found us visiting together city after city, and town after town, in

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