accommodation which it affords for varying opinions among good men. But what does this amount to, other than an admission that it is a substitute for that forbearance in matters not fundamental, which the temper of Christianity should itself secure; that it is, in other words, a substitute for Christian charity, and in precisely the case where, if anywhere, that virtue should be most manifest. A thing inherently evil like this cannot be thus sanctified. Christianity cannot thus admit a moral evil that good might come of it; such an evil can find no analogy in those calamities or providential evils which, in the form of chastisements, are often found intrinsic blessings. Far otherwise. Nor let it be pleaded that this almost endless division and subdivision of the Church has an analogy in the civil and social divisions of mankind. If the former, like the latter, were founded in local necessities, and were promotive of good reciprocal relations, the argument would be more plausible; but it originates in, and is kept up by, sentiments of mutual variance; there is moral defect at the core of it, and inseparable from it, and this moral defect, whatever may be said of the contrary possibility, is, and, from the known tendencies of human nature, will ever inevitably be essential in it. It becomes the more startling when we remind ourselves how little real occasion there is in our dogmatic differences for such egregious organic distinctions. A sensible writer remarks*:-"We believe that were the whole class of topics whose substance or essential forms are disputed among evangelical Christians, wholly separated from our creeds and instructions, the symmetry of gospel truth would not be marred by the excision." The remark needs some, but not much qualification.

The question whether our common Christianity is more honored and promoted by that squeamish persistence in such differences, which has filled Christendom with polemic babble, and estranged its rended communities, in many instances, quite beyond any practical relations, if not beyond any mutual recognition, except a mere theoretical one-the question whether it is thus honored and promoted more than it would be by the tolerance

Article on Jacob Abbott's Christian Series, in the last Methodist Quarterly Review.

which would be necessary to allow these differences of opinion without such organic differences, is one upon which we decline here to speak; it would be trifling with the common sense and best feelings of the reader.

Nor is the argument, which is founded on the practical rivalry of sects in Christian labors, much more plausible. A sad reflection would it be, not only upon our poor human nature, but upon our faith, if the latter had to avail itself of the petty jealousies and bickerings occasioned by our differences on secondary subjects, to promote its works of love and mercy in the world. The man who so teaches is rebuked by the whole tenor of the Scriptures, and the whole temper and ideal of Christianity. He has yet to learn the elementary sentiment of his religion. Such a concession would befit the worst form of Jesuitism; it would justify practical Jesuitism.

And it is not only theoretically, but practically, false. No prominent scheme of Christian usefulness extant can be shown to be promoted by any such course. Only in very limited spheres, where sects are brought into close proximity, will it be found to give them energy, and then usually in a manner to do more mischief than good-embittering good men, and provoking the contempt of worldlings and infidels. On the contrary, it will be found that in proportion as an individual man becomes addicted to the great practical purposes of Christianity, will his spirit rise above his sect to the catholic sentiments of his faith; and what is thus found true of Christians personally, is found true also of them collectively. But enough of this.

While the advantages of sectarianism are so equivocal, what may not be said of its manifest evils? We can here but refer to a few of them.

One of the worst of them is, that by the importance which it gives to secondary opinions, it allows them to interfere so much with what we have called substantive Christianity. Upon the latter we can all stand, (all included in this discussion,) and standing there we are bound absolutely to mutual sentiments and offices with which our sectarian alienations are nearly as incompatible as light with darkness. We have been contending in these articles for the “spiritual life” of Christianity; this spiritual life is its spiritual

among sects which acknowledge their differences not to be fundamental! What a proof of the first consideration urged above against this enormous evil!

The Christian leaders of the country must yet come to a more serious examination of this subject. If not by its general moral aspects, it will yet by its local and fiscal results compel the attention of the American Church. We doubt not that it has a close connection with the declension of the Christian ministry, now so much deplored by nearly all denominations. Churches thus subdivided and wasted in competition cannot support their teachers, and young men will not be found willing to suffer martyrdom by starvation for this miserable warfare of sects. Even could they get their bread, yet the moral repugnance which the better class of minds must feel for the office of leadership in such petty guerilla strifes, must discourage many of them from entering a profession, the nobler fields of which appeal to every sentiment of devotion and heroism of which the human heart is susceptible.

A third, and very serious result of this evil, is its moral effect on the Church. We need not enlarge on this phase of the subject; it is at once too manifest and too repulsive for much remark. Is there a catholic-minded man among us who does not see it and deplore it? Is there a sect among us which does not show it? Not only does its moral ugliness deform sects as public bodies, but it often marks characteristically their individual members, and men of habitual intercourse with the various denominations find it not very difficult, now-a-days, to discern the sectarian relations of a man by indications entirely personal. Such is the penetrating, the assimilating power of class sentiments-those sentiments which the good sense of the world has characterized as prejudices in contradistinction to generous and universal truths-that they modify often the subtlest habits of thought, the features, the very tones.

Truth is great, and it must prevail, says the old Roman maxim; but error has a quicker, if not a more durable power, over human nature than truth. It finds in the corruption of human nature a readier susceptibility than truth finds in its reason and conscience. False religions always have a stronger hold on the people than those which are comparatively pure. The

Papist is more devotional, if he is not more devout, than the Protestant. Petty errors mixed with great truths will thus often work out a more characteristic effect on men than the great truths themselves; the latter may be comparatively neutralized by perverse incidental accompaniments. Popery has every essential truth of Christianity in its theology, but scarcely one of them in its ecclesiastical life. Let us be thankful that there is so much genuine piety among our numerous sects; but let not this be a reason why that piety should be marred and distorted by bigotry for secondary opinions. It is well that the Protestant world should consider the question whether a larger exhibition of evangelical charity would not be more valuable to the truth than the sectarian maintenance of the dearest of these opinions.

We mention but one more of the many disadvantages of our prevalent sectarianism, and that is the occasion it affords to infidel scorners-and not to them only; for it must be admitted that the egregious character of the evil has become loathsome to many honest minds, and repels them to the opposite extreme of irreligious liberalism, and a practical disregard, if not denial, of Christianity. This is their error, but we give the provocative to it. It is unreasonable, to be sure; for Christianity, as presented in its revelations, and also as extant amid the infirmities of the Church, transcendently distinguishes itself above these incidental detractions, and the many good men who, in all sects, exemplify its power, even while trammeled by such defects, may, pointing to its living substantive truth in their midst, say, “Behold, ye despisers, and wonder and perish,”—but is that a reason why we should afford an occasion, however fallacious, for such offense? On the contrary, is there not ground here for deep humiliation before God, and for most earnest amendment before the world?

These times, we insist, require a reform throughout Protestant Christendom in this respect. The internal condition of the Church requires it. Its external relations to Popery, and the growing infidelity of the day, and the general sentiment of the civilized world, require it. There is not a good instinct in our own hearts, as Christian men, that does not demand it. We may apologize for it, and hypothesize about its possible advantages, or its un

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But what is the remedy? The question, we are aware, has beset the reader through all these paragraphs. It is one, however, that, we confess, troubles us very little, and we shall not here perpetrate the folly of proposing any original scheme of reform, or of indorsing any old. one.* Great ameliorations, like that needed in this case, seldom or never take place, with any permanence, in either Church or State, suddenly or by any unique mechanism of means. The creation of a right public sentiment, not the contrivance of schemes, is the task of the true reformer. Such a sentiment is all we are concerned about in these articles. Is the evil we have discussed real? Can Christian men be made to see and feel it as such? That is all we now care about. Any other question we thrust aside as irrelevant to the moment. Create such a public sentiment, and you have done "the duty nearest to you," and, according to the Goethean maxim, all others will reveal themselves in due order. Such a sentiment, without perhaps the slightest outline of a scheme, would work its effects by a thousand subtile and gradual processes, which in due time would consummate themselves in an aggregate and conclusive result. The most inexorable evils of history have thus given way before the progressive power of public sentiment. The Torture, the Duel, Feudalism, the absurdities of Astrology, Witchcraft, and Knight-errantry, have melted and disappeared under its light,

It must not be inferred from this remark that we give our humble verdict against the the movement of the World's Convention Christian Alliance; on the contrary, we look upon it as an indication full of good import. Had it adopted a less cumbersome machinery, and especially had it been more hopefully approved by the Protestant world, its results might have been more appreciable. It was at least a memorable proof of the conviction felt by good men in all parts of Protestant Christendom, that our sectarian variances need reform, and the beginning, we trust, of further efforts toward it.

VOL. I, No. 6.—[I*

Let us not then ask here for remedies. We begin with the legitimate remedy when we discuss the evil. Settle once the conviction of its moral enormity, its incompatibility with the best Christian sentiments, and with the good reputation of the Church among those who are without, its injurious local and financial effects-drag it out before the gaze of the Church, thus with its genuine attributes of deformity and mischief-and you will compel Christian men to think, and talk, and pray, against it; they will emancipate themselves personally from its influence; one after another of its manifestations will give way, one after another of its modes of action be denounced and abandoned, and thus might we hope that slowly but surely it would give place to an era of genuine and general catholicism.

I

MEXICAN BOA SNAKES.

STEPPED aside for a moment to admire a rich tuft of large purple flowers, my mule having plodded on about eight or ten yards ahead, when, as I turned from the flowers toward the path, a sensation as of a flash of lightning struck my sight, and I saw a brilliant and powerful snake winding its coils round the head and body of the poor mule. It was a large and magnificent boa, of a black and yellow color, and it had entwined the poor beast so firmly in its folds, that ere he had time to utter more than one feeble cry, he was crushed and dead. The perspiration broke out on my forehead as I thought of my own narrow escape; and only remaining a moment to view the movements of the monster as he began to uncoil himself, I rushed through the brushwood, and did not consider myself safe until I was entirely free of the forest.-Mason's Pictures of Mexico.

A VISIT TO "THE TIMES" OFFICE.

HAVI

TAVING obtained an order to view the printing-offices and machinery of The Times, upon arrival at the Printinghouse, at eleven o'clock in the morning, we were attended by the printer; and found that we had come just in time to witness not the least interesting part of the process which daily goes on in this wonderful establishment.

As we entered the "Lower News Room," a special messenger arrived from the Dover railway, bringing with him a paper parcel, which was immediately opened, and its manuscript contents

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our own correspondent's" budget from Paris-were in an incredibly short period published in a second edition. All was excitement, but not confusion. The compositors were summoned from the "Advertisement Room," and the copy was cut up into numerous bits, consisting of eight or ten lines each, for the purpose of being distributed among them. As one after another finished his few lines, he was supplied with another portion. The news that morning was important and lengthy. Column after column was composed, read, and corrected nearly as quick as thought. The overseer glanced at the work, and found that it extended to five columns. This was more than he had room for, as the intelligence which constituted the second edition of the day previous-and which was to be replaced by that just finished-had made scarcely half the quantity. No time was to be lost, however, in hesitation. The page of type in which the second edition was to appear was accordingly taken to pieces-the fresh "matter" made up, the less important general news being excluded to make room for the extra quantity.

Having watched this interesting operation, we followed our conductor up a handsome stone staircase, into the "New Machine Room," to witness what may well be regarded as one of the most singular and important inventions of the age -printing from forms of type in a vertical position. The Times, as every reader of that paper is aware, on being spread out, presents a surface of four pages on each side. In technical phrase, four pages make a "form;" and there being two new machines, the "outer form," consisting of the first, fourth, fifth, and eighth

pages, is placed on one; and the “inner form," pages two, three, six, and seven, on the other. The page of which we had just seen the completion, was fixed upon the center cylinder of one of the machines, along with its three companion pages, which had already done duty that morning in the first impression. The notice "all right" was speedily given, when whirl went the machine with an astonishing velocity. Round the large cylinder there are placed eight smaller, or printing, cylinders; and, as the "form" comes in contact with the printing cylinders, there are eight copies of The Times produced at every revolution. The general speed is at the rate of ten thousand copies an hour; but, when the paper is late, and the "saving of the post " to be effected, twelve thousand an hour, or two hundred a minute, are printed. The principle upon which this vast number of impressions is obtained is capable of almost indefinite extension; in fact, a sufficiently large cylinder, with corresponding apparatus, could as easily produce one hundred thousand as ten thousand copies an hour. This invention, for which the world is indebted to Mr. Applegath, has been in use upward of three years, and its complete success is placed beyond a doubt. During that period, we were given to understand, no interruption has occurred; and as many as fifty thousand impressions have been made in one day without any occasion to brush the types over. The two machines are driven by Bishop's Patent Disc Engine-also a new and important application of steam to rotary motion-the principal characteristics of which are, economy in space, simplicity of construction, and the ease with which it may be driven at from fifty to two hundred revolutions a

minute.

The circulation of The Times had, it appears, increased to such an extent that, previous to Applegath's invention, the publication was frequently not completed before eleven or twelve o'clock in the forenoon; while, with the increased circulation of the present time, it would have been still later before the printing could be finished by the old method; so that a vertical machine, or a duplicate set of types, became absolutely necessary to supply the constantly augmenting demand. The Times can now be had in the remotest corner of London as early as eight o'clock.