as you please, but only hear the church, has always been the language of ecclesiastical despotism, to the mind disposed to think for itself; and in the prelatic vocabulary, church is synonymous with hierarchy. Yet papists vaunt their uniformity and reproach us with our divisions, as if this were an unanswerable argument in their favor, and against us. As well might the graveyard boast its own quiet, and reproach the busy mart with its bustle and noise. On all the great doctrines of the gospel there is essential unanimity among evangelical Protestants of every name; and any unanimity beyond this in the papal or prelatic church, is produced by intellectual palsy or death. The security which the rigid papist enjoys against sectarianism, is very much like the security which the man half dead with paralysis has against convulsions.

Freedom in religion, as well as in other matters, has its responsibilities and dangers, its trials and inconveniences; but yet without freedom there is no life. The living man must sometimes feel pain; it is the dead only who never smart. The celibate priest, by the efforts of his own ingenuity, makes an automaton, and by pressing its springs, he can cause it to move a little, and utter a few specified words which it was formed to utter. The married minister, according to God's ordinance, begets a living child, endued with spontaneity, sense, and reason. "Pshaw," says the priest, "your child cries, it is noisy, it makes trouble, it gets sick, it is exposed to danger, it gives you great anxiety; but here, see my child, that does not cry, is never noisy, makes but little trouble, is never sick, seldom runs into danger, gives me almost no anxiety." "All true," replies the minister; "still I am well contented to be the father of a living immortal man, if he does cost me some anxiety and labor, rather than the maker of a mere machine, however ingenious or amusing it may be." Here is just the difference between the two systems.

The Presbyterian theology is also strict and Augustinian, or rather I would say, Pauline, in opposition to loose and Pelagian views. There may be much of religious emotion and many lovely traits of character, even under the influence of an indefinite or Pelagian theology; but a doctrinal tendency of this kind is always injurious to the solidity and firmness of the Christian character. Though much is sometimes said, theoretically, of the necessarily immoral tendency of the strict Presbyterian theology, yet, in practice, it has always been found that, in com

munities where this rigid theology prevails, there the morality is uniformly more strict and pure than in communities of an opposite theological tendency.

I am now to give, according to the plan indicated,

III. SOME SPECIAL REASONS WHY THESE PRINCIPLES OF PRESBYTERIANISM SHOULD BE INSISTED UPON AND PROPAGATED AT THE PRESENT TIME, AND IN THIS COUNTRY.

1. These principles are best adapted to the present political condition and tendencies of our country.

Our political institutions are democratic, and the tendencies are to a continued increase of the democratic development. This tendency must go on, for it is the tendency of the age, and not of an isolated nation. The old world is much faster verging towards democracy than the new world is towards monarchy. The church, in all countries, is the great educational seminary for the people at large; and as they are educated in the church, so will they act in the state. All the democratic elements in the British constitution, all the republicanism now in existence, owes its origin to a republican church organization; and had there been no church without a bishop, there would at this day have been no state without a king. Says that bitter hater of the Puritans and Presbyterians, David Hume, "The precious spark of liberty had been kindled and was pre*to this sect * * served by the Puritans, ** and * the English owe the whole freedom of their constitution." And again, "The noble principles of liberty took root, and, spreading themselves under the shelter of puritanical absurdities, became fashionable among the people." (Hist. of England, V. 183, 469.)

* *

Yet some strangely think, at least they affect to think, for they actually say it, that a monarchical church organization, so far from being unfavorable to civil liberty, actually promotes it, gives people a relish for it, and an ability to secure it. By what strange process of reasoning they arrive at such a conclusion, I cannot tell; but they remind me of the reasoning of an old gentleman who was lamenting the fact, that all his sons became drunkards. "Why they should get into such a way," said he, "of going to the tavern and drinking and getting drunk, I cannot see; for I never kept them from spirits when they were young: I always bought my rum by the barrel and let them help themselves whenever they wanted. I am sure if they are drunkards it is not my fault." The old gentleman seemed

very sincerely to entertain the idea, that keeping children from rum was the very way to make them drunkards, and giving it to them was the way to make them sober; and it must be by some analogous process of reasoning, that some people persuade themselves that a despotic church is favorable to a republican state. I know that some men may be sincere and hearty republicans, notwithstanding their connexion with a despotic church, as some men may be temperate notwithstanding a childhood accustomed to alcohol; but that there is any essential tendency in the early use of alcohol to make men temperate, or in church despotism to make them freemen, is what I have never yet been able to see. So far as abstract reasoning or the observation of facts may go to justify a conclusion, it is directly the reverse of that which those people assume.

Again, popular education, the education of the masses, is essential to the existence of republics; and where has there ever been provision made, under prelatic rule, for this kind of education? Prelacy I know has made magnificent endowments. for the higher branches of education, the education of the few; but search the annals of education through and through, and where will you find a liberal system of common schools which did not originate with a popular church organization? Presbyterian Scotland, Congregational New England, and Lutheran Germany, have been the great introducers and sustainers of common-school instruction, both in the old world and the new; and in all those countries, the introduction of the common-school system immediately followed the presbyterial church organization. The reason is obvious: prelatic despotism seeks to control by direct authority, by a sacerdotal caste; but presbyterial parity depends on the power of argument and persuasive reasonings. To the efficiency of the latter, intelligence is essential; to that of the former, it is generally a most formidable obstacle. The education of our people, therefore, to the views and habits essential to the maintenance of republican institutions, both in the common school and out of it, depends mainly on the churches of our land which are presbyterially or independently organized. I do not say that individuals of other organizations will not take deep interest in this matter and effect great good; but I say the main dependence, the chief reliance, must be on the churches which are democratically organized.

2. These principles are best adapted to the physical condition and necessities of our country.

To bring our soil under cultivation, to civilize our country, to rear within it the structure of society on a solid and permanent foundation, we need a sturdy, self-relying, unflinching yeomanry, intelligent and of strict morality, with heads to plan and hands to execute the most arduous labors; and this is just the sort of population which a Presbyterian church is likely to produce, and which it always has produced. Look into all the branches of the Presbyterian household, and these are always the characteristics of her sons. If some other forms of religion may boast of more elegance, refinement, and taste; if others still are wont to exhibit more emotion, or the flame of a more showy zeal; none can show greater knowledge of the useful, more skill in the adapting of means to ends, a more determined perseverance, a more patient continuance in well-doing, an energy more unflagging, a zeal more lasting, a courage more steady, an intelligence more enlightened, a morality more strict, a success more certain.

The activity and enterprise, the thrift and shrewdness, the intelligence and good morals, of the Scotch and the Yankees, have passed into a proverb: none are more cordially welcomed than they, into any new place which is to be built up by industry and good management; and for very many of their most valuable qualities they are obviously indebted to the education which they have received from their ecclesiastical institutions, their churches and their common schools, their Bibles and their psalm-books. What kind of a civilization would have existed in this new world without them? if the Spanish or French, who first got footing here, had succeeded in holding on upon the soil? Mexico and South America now graphically portray the civilization that might be expected here, if Popery and Prelacy, instead of Presbyterianism and Independency, had had the training of our infant institutions.

The same causes that made these churches useful at first render their services necessary still. The same causes that have made them such a blessing to the nation already, would make the same principles which actuated and informed them, still more generally useful if more widely diffused. These are the principles to make the wilderness blossom as the rose, and the desert and the solitary place to be glad. Having tried their efficacy, having witnessed their fruits, having already reaped from them an abundant harvest of good, we trust our countrymen will not turn from them to try other and opposing princi

ples, the operation of which has already turned many a fruitful field into a desert, but seldom, as yet, a desert into a fruitful field.

3. These principles are best adapted to the moral state and wants of our country.

No religion can be efficacious with us, unless it can make its appeals to the understanding, and through the understanding address itself to the emotions and the conscience. No state authority here enforces ecclesiastical decrees; there is no veneration for ancient usages that can stand in the place of an enlightened and tender conscience. A religion of the imagination, or a religion of emotion merely, cannot exert a permanent influence amid institutions such as ours. All the religion of high church prelacy, whether papal or Puseyite, is a religion of the imagination only. Its efficacy consists in a mysterious power communicated to the sacraments in consequence of their being administered by certain persons who have been ordained in a certain line of succession. Now there is no shadow of a proof of the communication or even of the existence of any such power. It makes no manifestation of its presence in those who claim it. The influence of the doctrines and precepts of the New Testament is not at all increased by it, in those who are said to receive it; nay, a reliance upon it seems uniformly to have a tendency to weaken this influence. According to all the sources of evidence to which we can have access, Isaac Watts and David Brainard were as good men and as useful ministers as they could have been if all the bishops of the church of England had laid their hands on their heads; and the celebrated Talleyrand was not in the least like Jesus Christ, or even like Paul or Peter, though he himself wore a mitre, and was said to be charged with this mysterious power as a Leyden jar is charged with electricity.

What has the understanding to do with a system which supposes that baptism or the Lord's Supper, when administered by Talleyrand, secures, at least for the time, the favor of God and the salvation of the soul; but when administered by Payson, are in the sight of God of no avail whatever? a theory which makes Jonathan Swift a true minister of Jesus Christ and Jonathan Edwards an intruder and an impostor? What is this mysterious power that produces no effect appreciable by any of the powers of perception which God has given us? Which cannot be known by the intellect nor appreciated by the senses, which SECOND SERIES, VOL. XII. NO. 11.

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