INTRODUCTION. No higher question can be offered to the human intellect, than that of the method of salvation by Jesus Christ. Its unmeasured importance is obvious to us, whenever in contemplative mood we open the pages of the New Testament, and find that a splendid apparatus of means has been provided; for we know that this would not have been done unless momentous interests were at issue. These two questions, What are we? and Whither do we tend? will at times press painfully upon thoughtful minds, and demand an answer. Ideals of a better state are haunting them, and producing within them unutterable longings after peace. There are three topics which cannot fail to command the interest and attention of those whose minds are revolving the great problem of life : The evil, depravity, and suffering involved in the human condition; the darkness that broods upon the earth and upon our own spirits. Conceptions of a better state; dreams of perfec tion, visions that come in shapes of unearthly beauty, floating out of a purer ether, and giving us gleams of a better world. The way that lies out of one condition into the other, out of the darkness into the light, out of storms to the haven of Happier Isles; in short, the method of salvation. These are the topics which we now approach, and we do it in the persuasion that they underlie all our business and all our theologies, and that, though they have occupied so much of human thought, yet they never pressed more urgently upon the common mind than now. The old theologies do not satisfy. They do not answer these questions. They do not so much give light, as hang in the way of it. yet, because they are gradually changing and softening like convolving clouds, and reflecting new, though ever-varying hues, they show that the light is coming, and that they are finally to break away. Meanwhile let us use the light already shining, and that will be a preparation for more. And The theme we have in hand will lead us to discuss the following topics: the state of man by nature, his spiritual capacities, his regeneration and the means of it. If any of our reasonings should seem to lie remote from our beaten paths of inquiry, or if they should not sound like the traditional utterances of denomination, we would beg the reader to consider whether they may not be just as worthy of his attention. All sects are liable to |