mere knowledge has no missionaries. And what, with the barbarian, is the entering and efficacious force? Those, who alone have a right to testify, answer: The moral power of Christianity. If this be true, the disseminating power of civilization belongs to it through Christianity.

Not less is progress, in any given community, chiefly due to this same agent. Take the issues of the day; are they not chiefly moral? Liberty, the right relation between subject and subject, and between these and the ruler, must rest on equality, and this can only be found in our moral constitution, and the independent service due to ourselves and to God. If we are not made to glorify and enjoy Him, we may be made to glorify, and be enjoyed by, our fellow-men.

The restraints laid upon war rest principally on moral grounds. Self-interest alone will not prevent a conflict between nations. Plunder was never thought to result in the advantage of all parties. But that does not hinder the stronger from finding his immediate gain in it. Prudence presents too weak and remote a motive to check the love of conquest, and must have the support of morality. In the past, a false glory, made possible by the immorality of the times, has been more than sufficient to prevail over prudence.

Above all, within society itself the submission of class to class, the slavery of class under class, has only been, and can only be, successfully resisted on the grounds of Christianity. Without such resistance, all civilization must miscarry. The restless element beneath will force its way up, and, through the open fissure, pour forth its lava stream. This juncture, when the Bible is invoked to sanction one of the worst forms of this evil, may seem an unfortunate moment to urge, in this regard, the claims of Christianity. Not at all. This is what has been seen from the beginning; the spirit and the letter are in conflict; and this, like other struggles, will be settled by the inherent force of religious truth. The cerements of the grave will be loosened at the word of Christ, and a new man, nay, a new race, be let go in the world.

If the moral impulse belongs to the constitution of man, it is evidently there as a supreme law. This it claims to be, and,

this claim denied, its authority is utterly overthrown. If we heed, therefore, the voice of our own constitution, we shall be prepared to expect the highest individual development only in connection with the moral element, only in connection with the religious element which is its fullness and life. Experience certainly confirms this expectation, and the world is chiefly indebted to that talent which has been subject to moral law. Simple, scientific and mechanical problems may, indeed, be solved aside from morality, but the moment men have become more personal in their influence, have begun to work in and on society, the moral relations of their actions have risen into chief importance, and these have furnished the just balance in which character has been weighed. But if the highest individual good involves religion, will not the highest social good also include it? What are we to think of a civilization, or expect from it, which does not make the best estate of the individual, one of its premises? All the magnanimity and greatness of character which religion has developed become a most significant fact in seeking for the conditions of a high social state. The great men in philanthropic effort, and they alone, reveal the force which is to make society philanthropic, that is, truly social.

There are one or two lessons which religious men, and especially the clergy, may well gather from the treatment which religious questions receive at the present time. The period of successful bigotry has completely passed. Religion is, and must be, amenable to reason, not to a low, caviling reason, but to instructed, liberal thought. The very effort to expel reason from this province, if of any avail, is itself an appeal to reason. This assertion by no means implies an ability, on our part, to explain all that revelation may offer, but only that its subject matter, its authority, its effects, are, in all their branches, of right open to reason; and that its deepest mysteries, like those of nature, are pointed out, and girt about, by knowledge. Revelation is as rational in what it withholds as in what it gives, in the inexplicable remainder of truths as in its primary principles. It is a sad thing for men to reason against divine truth, ignorantly, unfairly, or malignantly, but a bigoted adherence to irrational

dogma is neither a defense or a remedy. Blind bigoty and defiant skepticism are the natural complements of each other, and the first must provoke the last. There are many things among men which we may regret more even than an unfair discussion of truth. It is through this skepticism that the noblest victories of religion are often achieved. Religious philosophy-for philosophy is most direct in its religious bearings-was greatly renovated by the skepticism of Hume. A new attack is a new opportunity, and, with a quickened intellect, before a quickened audience, we are called to the promulgation and defense of the truth.

Science has done much for religion in forcing it from an illiberal, dogmatic interpretation, and in giving breadth and volume to thought. Fortunate is it for us, if we can suffer our creeds to be shattered, and preserve our faith entire. Every anathema, every cry of heresy, assumes the weakness of the truth, and implies that we are now about to retire from fair inquiry and cogent presentation. If, defeated in the plain, we hide in the fortress, this will not long defend us. When reason has failed, authority takes up its weapons to little purpose. Religion is rational, and has nothing to fear from all right reason; if her champions were equally rational, her victories would be sooner won. We know in part: the assumption, therefore, that we have treasured in our creeds the whole of doctrine is most immediately destructive to our own progress, and very fatal to the religious spirit, when an inquisitive and unscrupulous science presses in upon us on every side.

The second and more recent volume of Mr. Buckle's History, though possessed of much interest, is less valuable than the first, and more open in its attack on religion. In this, as in the earlier part of the work, the clergy still suffer the chief onset, now directed against the Spanish priesthood and Scotch ministry. The marginal references, by which the text is supported in its most bitter and unjust assault on the latter body, when fairly interpreted, fail to render the needed proof. Buckle here shows himself wholly unable to understand the religious spirit. All the misrepresentations, misapprehensions, and gross caricatures with which Calvinistic doctrine has again and again been met, are here re

peated with much the same blindness and passion as hitherto. So much has this feeling gained ground in the present volume that it often departs from its appropriate theme, shaping its argument for the ever-returning attack on religion and those who minister in its name. All that man regards most sacred, is to the author deadly and gross superstition. Religion, under whatever name it may appear, Protestant or Catholic, Episcopal or Presbyterian, is ever the same, calling for the contempt of philosophy, and the indignant rejection of intelligent men. The second volume renders at least one service; the battery is completely unmasked, and we see that our new enemy is but one of the old army of infidelity.

The attack is made on the side of natural law, and the claims of a science that recognizes no Providence in nature are everywhere sternly insisted on. If these are granted, if we recognize nothing but "universal, eternal, unchangeable law" in the world of external facts and forces, it will not be easy to withstand similar affirmations in the domain of spirit, and all that is personal in the character and governmeut of God will be lost. This is the conflict between reason and faith, science and religion.

ARTICLE II.-CONGRESS AND THE TERRITORIES.

Benton's Thirty Years' View; or a History of the Working of the American Government, for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850. 2 Vols. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

So much of the difficulty, under which the Nation is now laboring, has arisen out of the different views of the origin and extent of the power of Congress over the territories of the United States, and the manner of its exercise, that it seems proper that the subject should be discussed otherwise than in law reports and Congressional debates. It is well known that the United States has had the ownership and possession of territories, and has regulated and governed them, and their inhabitants, from a period anterior to the formation of the present Constitution to this present time. The first Ordinance for the government and regulation of such territories, said to have been drawn by Mr. Jefferson, was made April 23, 1784, and applied to all the "territory ceded or to be ceded by individual States to the United States," when the Indian title was extinguished, &c. It provided for the division of the territory into States, and their admission, at a proper time, into the Union, with separate Republican Constitutions, and for their temporary government

in the meantime.

This Ordinance remained in force till it was superseded and repealed by the more elaborate and well considered Ordinance of July 13, 1787, drawn by that eminent statesman, Mr. Dane, which has formed the basis of all our territorial governments to this day. These Ordinances were said by Mr. Madison to be unconstitutional, by which he probably meant nothing more than that there was no express grant of power in the old Confederation, which could be considered as an authority for such enactments. Nevertheless it was known that, from the nature of the case, the United States were liable to become, as they had become, the owners and possessors of