wisely done, of molding the ecclesiastical polity and institutions of each nationality in harmony with the instincts of the people, and especially of embodying the great truths of revelation into their mental conceptions and religious consciousness. The spirit and life of our theology must be preserved in all its fullness and power, but in order to that end its accidents and local peculiarities should not be too tenaciously adhered to. We have our twenty-five "Articles of Religion," but scarcely half of them are properly theological, and some of these are expressed in apologetical or polemical forms, growing out of their historical development, which could not be appreciated by those who are not familiar with the conditions through which they came into their present shapes. Why, then, should these forms be imposed upon our Christian converts from heathenism? Our "General Rules have many confessed excellences, but they are only a very small part of a system of practical morality, often descending to local and accidental details, which among ourselves have become antiquated, and which must sound very strangely among the antipodes. Let us, therefore, give them, then, a local, and not a foreign, Methodism.

The probable future of evangelical missions is among the most deeply interesting problems of the age, having also the most tremendous bearings upon questions of theology and biblical interpretation of sociology, and the commonwealth of nations; and, indeed, of the destiny of the race. In the light of the experience of the current century, the progress actually made from very small beginnings, the awakening of evangelical Christendom to a sense of its duty in the matter and of the vastness of the opportunity, the clear indications of the divine will made by the workings of the Spirit, and the orderings of providences, we may see clear indications of possibilities and prospects of the most glowing and assuring character. The Messianic Psalms read in the light of these things appear to be transformed into the records of our timês, and some of the grandest visions of the Apocalypse seem to be realized in our sight. Computing the progress of the future, with its enlarged facilities, by that of the past, one may readily reckon up the years that will be required to literally accomplish the divine command to "preach the Gospel to every creature,"

and even the most sober and thoughtful cannot fail to detect in the events of the age most remarkable indications of the coming of great and far-reaching changes in the affairs of the world. The colossal proportions attained by British commerce and diplomacy, the proximate universality of free thought and of its best vehicle-the English language-the appliances in use for the world-wide diffusion of the Gospel by railroads, steam-ships, and telegraphs, and the polyglottal printing-press, all unite to raise the highest hopes for the speedy Christianization of the whole world. The duty of obedience to Christ's parting commandment to "go, teach all nations," remains the same whether in darkness or in light; but to those who have toiled long and wearily in darkness the coming of the dawn cannot but be cheering; and since God is so strangely opening the way for the spread of the Gospel among all nations, the Church is called upon, not only to rejoice in the promises given, but to go forward in assured expectation that the promised day of triumph draws near.

To sober our too sanguine hopes, it may be told us that the Roman Catholic missions of the seventeenth century presented very high promises of success, and in fact showed an inventory of successes actually achieved even greater than any that can be shown by the Protestant missions of the nineteenth. It is known that they baptized tens of thousands of nominal converts in India; that the proselytes made in China and Japan were counted by hundreds of thousands, and that large portions of what is now our own national territory was originally occupied by the Jesuits from Montreal; and yet all these great and promising beginnings were followed by disaster and almost entire failure. At the beginning of the present century nearly the whole of these results had disappeared. Does a similar fate await our Protestant missions? and if not, why not? The Roman Catholic faith has not, in any modern instance, succeeded among any heathen people, except as it has been sustained, and indeed forced upon the people, by the civil power. Their work of conversion stops short of any real transformation of character, and the baptized heathen remained a heathen still, with only an additional fetich and another idol in his pantheon. Without the power of the sword there was no power over the heathen rulers who, jealous of their authority,

maintained their ancestral customs, and resented and punished with expulsion or death those who were attempting to supersede them in their authority. The decay and final failure of those Roman Catholic missions were clearly owing to these two causes, both of which Protestant missionaries have been especially careful to guard against. Their converts were Christians only in name and form, for Xavier himself confessed that there was no improvement in the lives of the converts of the Portuguese missions in Ceylon, and that he had but little hopes of the salvation of any of them, except those who died before they had lost the sanctity received in their baptism; whereas the chief dependence of Protestants for the perpetuation of their work is in the transformation of the characters of their converts. It is often said that in some of our foreign fields whole villages or tribes come to the missionaries and profess their desire to become Christians, and ask for baptism, which, of course, is not granted without proper evidence of a real and spiritual conversion. To become a Christian on such conditions in any heathen community is therefore a very serious matter, which will be undertaken and persevered in only under deep convictions, and, when so undertaken, with the accompaniment of a newly-begotten religious life, the work may be expected to abide, even should it be tried in the fires of persecution. That it can do so has been proved in the cases before referred to in Tahiti and Madagascar.

The genius and spirit of Protestant missions, by forbidding them to become complicated in any political intrigues, and by teaching them to inculcate peaceful subjection to the established political authority, is the best possible guarantee against political proscription. As political rulers come to understand that Christianity is not a revolutionary power, in respect to politics and dynasties, but that it every-where inculcates due subjection to authority, it will secure the favor and protection of the civil rulers. That fact, together with the influence of commerce and diplomacy in favor of religious liberty, and greater still, the liberalizing influence of the spirit of the age, seem to afford a sufficient assurance that the Protestant Churches that have been or may be planted in heathen lands will not be ruthlessly crushed out by the hand of persecution.

It would lead us beyond our limits should we attempt to

discuss the special and distinctive character of the Christian Church as it may be developed by missions among the heathen; and yet a few passing remarks may be ventured. There is ground to believe that the Church so formed will possess some conditions of advantage over most of the Churches of Protestant Christendom. Nearly seventy years ago that wonderful preacher of the Gospel, Rev. Robert Hall, in delivering the charge to a young minister about to go forth as a missionary to India, used language that has lost none of its fitness or adaptation by the lapse of time. He exhorted the prospective missionary to seek to have his mind and heart in the closest sympathy with the spirit and substance of Christian truth, without very closely insisting upon any of its specifical forms as taught in the schools of doctrine. His words are: "Among the indirect benefits which may be expected to arise from missions, we may be allowed to anticipate a more pure, simple, apostolical mode of presenting the Gospel, which it may be doubted whether any of the various denominations under which the followers of Christ have been classed have exhibited precisely as he and his apostles taught. In consequence of the collisions, of disputes, and the hostile aspects which rival sects bear to each other, they are scarcely in a situation to investigate truth with perfect impartiality. Few or none of them have derived their sentiment purely from the sacred oracles as the result of independent inquiry; but almost universally from some distinguished leader who, at the commencement of the Reformation, formed his faith and planned his discipline amid the heat and fury of theological combat. Terms have been invented for the purpose of excluding error, or more accurately defining the truth, to which the New Testament is a stranger, and on those terms associations and impressions are ingrafted which, in some instances, perhaps, little correspond to the divine simplicity of the Gospel."

These words, uttered at first in warning, have since become prophetic of a better day, which is already in part fulfilled. The implied censure of the theological thinking of Protestant Christendom has come to have less cause for its use than formerly, but still it is not wholly uncalled for, but the theology of the more fully developed foreign missions is evidently an improvement by reason of its nearer conformity to scriptural

statements, and its greater breadth and simplicity, its spirituality and catholicity. And as the artificial landmarks that at home divide the various schools of theological thought sink out of sight when Christians of different family names stand together in the presence of the overshadowing forms of falsehood and unbelief, so in that position ecclesiastical lines of demarkation lose very much of their value and significance. It is scarcely to be hoped-perhaps it is not desirable-that all denominational differences should be ignored, and the several missions fused into a common mass; but surely it is not wise to reproduce in foreign lands all the petty feuds or historical divisions that have given rise to many of our denominations, most of which are represented in the mission fields. It would not be edifying to converts from heathenism to be confronted at their coming into the fellowship of the Church with the sixteen kinds of Presbyterians, or the half as many of Methodists. In this matter something of the fusing power of true religion, directed by a fair share of common sense, might be practically useful. When the Methodisms of our foreign mission fields shall become locally individualized, it may be hoped that they will also be consolidated into a common mass.

ART. VII.-POPULAR AND PERILOUS DRIFTINGS. COULD Some influence appear potent and persuasive enough to draw the half of all young people into thorough acquaintance, by actual labor, with different branches of agriculture, (whatever business or profession they might follow in after life,) and lead the other moiety of our sons and daughters to become, after full apprenticeship, skilled artisans, such influence would grandly restore to the land physical soundness, moral integrity, and prosperities richer and wider than can be well imagined. Nor would such lives of early discipline and every-day work at all prevent (in my opinion) the noblest achievements by every generation in science, literature, and art.

Unhappily, the prevailing sentiment of society, and the average training in excellent families, tend in very different directions. Insomuch that the popular currents are drifting FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXXV.—35