period. And he could only be the more offended when such men as Ammon, who were farther separated from the old orthodoxy than himself, gave their unconditional assent to the Harmsian theses. The affair brought keen definitions and discussions, and did not end without bitterness. One result of this thesis battle was that a livelier interest arose in matters of Church life, and the strife between the Rationalistic faith and that of the Bible, which since the time of Reinhard had been mostly an affair of the theological schools, now became a question about which, in the interests of their own salvation, the Churches, the heads of families, and individuals, began to trouble themselves. It now became less a proof of weakmindedness than it had been for ten or twenty years past, for a man to be more concerned about Christian affairs than about the news of the day. Conversation began to turn more than formerly upon religion.

If the mind of Schleiermacher everywhere influenced the most important ecclesiastical events, it was that same mind also which, in his twofold position of learned theologian and preacher, wrought so instructively and edifyingly and decisively upon the religious conviction. His Dogmatic, (Glaubenslehre,) first printed in 1821, was designed as a dogmatic for the evangelical, that is, the united Church, and was meant to meet alike the religious and scientific demands of the period. We cannot here enter into a detailed exhibition and estimate of it, but must be content with its fundamental features. What most of all distinguishes the Dogmatic of Schleiermacher from the earlier treatises of the kind, is that his book is indeed a dogmatic, an exposition of that which ought to be, and is believed; not the product of a philosophical school. Schleiermacher himself, in the noblest sense philosophically cultivated, and as an author distinguished in the sphere of philosophy, still set himself in earnest opposition to all attempts to mingle philosophy with theology.* With him theology does not stand or fall with any philosophical system whatever; it stands and falls, according to him, only with religion and the Church. Where

* Speculation and faith are often viewed as standing in relations of hostility to each other; but it was the peculiarity of this man to unite them most cordially, without prejudice to the freedom and depth of the one or to the simplicity of the other.

FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XIII.-27

there is no religion there is no theology; and where there is no experience in divine things such things cannot be understood, no matter how rich and extensive the philosophical knowledge. Religion, indeed, is not in the first place a matter of knowledge, but of innermost self-consciousness, of the feeling, our feeling of dependence on God. Upon this feeling of dependence Schleiermacher founds his whole theology. Not what God is in himself, but what he is in his relation to this pious feeling of ours, that is the problem which a dogmatic (Glaubenslehre) has to solve. Inasmuch, however, as this pious feeling is only developed in communion, a Christian dogmatic must also represent this common Christian feeling as it lives in the Church. The Christian Church, according to Schleiermacher, however, is not a crude mass of people of every variety of opinion, accidentally brought together; but a religious organism, that body of which Christ is the head. Christ the Redeemer, not merely an ideal thought-image, but the real historical Christ, as he once lived personally in history, and as he now lives a spiritual personality, and continues to work in the Church, is, according to him, the very center of Christian theology. He knows nothing of a doctrine of Jesus which can be conceived of and represented merely as doctrine, apart from his person; but only by coming into life-communion with the Redeemer can we become partakers of Christianity according to its true nature. He proclaimed everywhere, in the pulpit and in his writings, with the greatest earnestness, that with Christ begins an entireJy new era, both in the history of the world and in the life of the individual; that with him the sinless One, the sole dominion of nature, the dominion of sin, first ceases, and the kingdom of grace, the sovereign rule of the Divine Spirit, commences and spreads, and that thus out of Christ and without him there is no salvation; and in this way he brought theology back to the faith from which it had departed. This with him was the great aim. The man who in everything was elevated above the letter, and who from his very nature was compelled to conceive profoundly and spiritually of whatever he touched, could not desire to establish a timid, slavish faith in the letter. While, therefore, with his distinct faith in Christ, from which he would not abate an iota, he might appear on the one side to many as a mystic, as a philosophizing Moravian, who with

his dialectics could make even nonsense appear plausible; on the other side, he did not fail to give offense by the free-thinking style in which he expressed himself respecting particular doctrines, as well as individual books of Holy Scripture, and their relation to the whole; for with him the essence of Christianity depended on none of these, but only on the free grace of God in Christ.

ART. V.-REV. ENOCH MUDGE.

THE city of Lynn, the oldest and one of the principal seats of the extensive shoe manufacture of the United States, is situated in Essex county, Massachusetts, ten miles east of Boston. The larger portion of it stands on a plain, skirted on the north by a range of wooded hills. On the west stretch away between that place and Chelsea immense salt marshes, intersected by numerous rivers, in the midst of which is a beautiful wooded island, the location of "the Half-way House," which rises out of the marsh like an oasis in the desert. On the east the city rises into high ground, a portion of which is rocky eminences. On the south is its spacious, but shallow harbor, while beyond are the "beaches," one of which is two miles in length, washed on both sides by the sea, and at the end of which is the rocky promontory of Nahant, the great watering place of Boston and its vicinity, which stretches out into the waters of the bay. South of the great beach "Egg Rock," with its light-house, and the solitary dwelling of its keeper, rises up out of the Atlantic, constituting no unimportant feature in this enchanting scenery. The whole view from the high hills, either on the north or east, affords one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world, and especially is not to be exceeded by its vast affluence of variety. This spot Bishop Asbury, no mean judge in such matters, after having seen some of the finest scenery in Great Britain and the United States, at his first visit in 1791, pronounced, as did the psalmist Mount Zion, "the perfection of beauty."

Here, on the 28th of June, 1776, within sight of where

the Bunker Hill monument now raises its tall form, was born Enoch, the second son of Enoch and Lydia Mudge. This was at the time of some of the most interesting events in our national history, as well as in the immediate vicinity of their

occurrence.

Lynn was settled in 1629, and is therefore one of the oldest cities in the United States; and Mr. Mudge, on the maternal side, was descended from one of its earliest white settlers. His parents were members of the Congregational Church, claimed to be the oldest in the Massachusetts Colony, and were persons who truly feared God, according to the light which they had; but at that time were ignorant of the interior Christian life, and destitute of the riches of an inward religious experience. But as far as their own religious life went they instructed him in the fear and in the knowledge of God, a course which was not without its wholesome influence upon his subsequent life and

career.

The "Old Tunnel" Church, of which his parents were members, and where he first listened to the word of God, at the time of the "Great Awakening" in 1745, was under the pastoral care of the Rev. Nathaniel Hinchman, who was a violent opponent of the revival, and wrote a letter against Mr. Whitefield, its chief promoter and representative, addressed to the Rev. Mr. Chase, of Lynnfield, then a portion of the town. Fifty years later, this Church, then under the pastoral care of the Rev. Thomas C. Thatcher, showed lamentable signs of the fruits of the violent anti-evangelism, and so it did even for many subsequent years. Indeed, it was nearly a century before it fully recovered from the sad effects of Mr. Hinchman's doctrines and measures.

From a conference held in the city of New York in May, 1789, Bishop Asbury sent the Rev. Jesse Lee into New England for the first time. Lee, at this time, was a comparatively young man, but pious and zealous, possessing a courage which knew no fear, an indomitable energy which never quailed in the presence of difficulties, a most genial humor and an executive ability in ecclesiastical matters which has rarely been surpassed in this country. Commencing at Norwalk, Connecticut, he immediately formed a large circuit in the southwest corner of the state, principally in the county of Fairfield. Messrs.

Brush, Smith, and Roberts being sent to his assistance from the South in the course of the following winter, he at once formed another circuit, extending along the post road from Milford on Long Island Sound, to the city of Hartford; and in the spring, still a third, including both banks of the Connecticut, and reaching from the city of Middletown, now the seat of the Wesleyan University, to Wilbraham in Massachusetts. The following summer he also made explorations for future operations in the states of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire.

At the conference held in the city of New York, October 4, 1790, Mr. Lee was stationed in Boston, to attempt to plant Methodism in that capital of the Puritans. Boston was now just beginning to recover from those political and financial troubles which had alike depressed its business and drained it of its wealth and of its population, during the three wars from which it had so fearfully suffered in the course of the half century which had just elapsed, and in which three of its original Churches had become extinct, and the general interests of religion had suffered in common with its other concerns. Catholicism and Universalism had just before been introduced into Boston, the former in 1788, and the latter in 1785, while Unitarianism was beginning to take that distinct form which it subsequently assumed.

Mr. Lee did not take his station till the 13th of November, when the autumn leaves had begun to fall, and the forests of the north to put on those varied and resplendent hues of the season for which they are distinguished. His usual success as a pioneer did not here immediately attend his efforts, but hinderances and discouragements of a most painful character, and which now strangely contrast with the present flourishing condition of Methodism in that city, but by which we are reminded that great and important results often have the most humble and unpromising beginnings.

But in the midst of these discouragements he received a letter from Mr. Benjamin Johnson, a prominent citizen of Lynn, inviting him to that ancient town. Accepting this invitation, he immediately repaired thither, and met with a most cordial welcome. He was treated with a true Christian hospitality, which greatly revived the spirits of our worn evan