history of his sufferings. As the submissive love of Jesus was obedient to the death of the cross, for the life of the world, so it did not disdain to cleanse the already purified disciples from the stains still cleaving to them; and as the cross, the lifting up from the earth, united the scattered children of God, so his example here was designed to keep his own bound together, in an humble and mutually forgiving love. But the betrayer, too, had his feet washed, and remained to the last insensible to the Saviour's love; so that what was to the other disciples a gracious means of purification, was to him the occasion of greater obduracy. With the secession of Judas from the circle of disciples, the death of Jesus was outwardly, as before, by the entire submission of his will to the will of his Father, it was inwardly, (ch. xii, 27,) decided; the world wills his death, and he and the Father will it too. He is already dead to the world, and will no more reveal himself to it, (ch. xiv, 17,) and for it will not pray, (ch. xvii, 9.) He lives now altogether in his own; to strengthen and console them by the promise of the Holy Ghost, and its mighty illumination, to encourage them to the closest union with him and each other, to the true keeping of his commandments, to confession under ignominy and trial; and, finally, to offer for them an earnest, importunate prayer, in which he opens the abyss of his heart.' With this prayer, his life upon the earth is completed; he enters upon the path of suffering, which in a few hours finishes his work, and lifts him to the glory with the Father, which he had before the world

was.

Verse 1. Now before the feast of the Passover.] John speaks here of the point of time immediately before the Passover. It seems as if then the fervent love of Jesus for his own, gathered itself together for its last, richest outpouring. Thence John proceeds to narrate what occurred during the last meal, by which he undoubtedly means the proper paschal feast, the same in which the holy supper was instituted.

He loved them unto the end.] That is, as he had continually given them proofs of his love, so he gave such proofs now, in a pre-eminent degree, to the very end. These words form probably the superscription not only of the following account of the washing of their feet, but also of all that stands in connexion therewith, to the end of ch. xvii. John views all this as a rich outpouring of the divine love of the Saviour.

Verse 2. And supper being ended.] Gr. When the supper was ready.' As is the custom in warm countries, every one bathed himself at the close of the day; especially before the holy paschal meal. But it is moreover the custom, before the chief repast, to have the feet washed: this was the office either of slaves, or of the lowest of the company. Luke relates, (ch. xxii, 24, ff.,) that during this supper there was a contention among the disciples who should be greatest; and that Jesus showed them that such a one must be their servant. Accordingly, the occurrence may be thus conceived:-the feet were cleansed while they reclined; Jesus had first reclined at the table, and with him those disciples who considered themselves the greatest; during the washing the contention arose, and Jesus composed it by rising again, and beginning himself to wash their feet. The words of Luke show plainly that there the same meal is meant as here.

The devil having now put into the heart of Judas-to betray him.] John mentions this, in order to call attention partly to the time of the occurrence, partly to the immense opposition between the love and patience of Jesus and the obstinate perversity of Judas, and to show us how the calm, loving, feeling Jesus remained nevertheless undisturbed.

Verse 3. And that he was come from God and went to God.] What Jesus now did, he did with the clearest consciousness of the glory which he had with the Father before the world was, (ch. xvii, 5,) and of that which now awaited him. The Godhead of Jesus is indicated in these words, in distinction from his humanity, by means of the two expressions: he was of divine origin, and

he went again to the Father; that is, he entered now as a man into the possession of his own eternal, divine glory.

Verse 6. Then cometh he to Simon Peter.] 'It may be asked why no one of the others refused; why Peter alone showed such love and reverence? Perhaps Jesus first washed the feet of the betrayer, and then came to Peter, through whom the others received the needed information. Though Peter was chief, yet it was not to be wondered at that the presumptuous betrayer should recline before the first of the apostles; since he afterward showed his audacity, in taking the morsel from his Master without trembling.'-Chry

sostom.

Verse 6. Lord, dost thou wash my feet?] The word " Thou" has great emphasis; he could say nothing stronger than Thou: it means, with the hands with which Thou hast opened the eyes of the blind, hast cleansed the leprous, and raised the dead.'-Chrysostom.

Verse 8. Thou shalt never wash my feet.] This would have been a praiseworthy humility, if obedience did not stand higher with God than every service and honour which man can pay him; nay, if the unerring sign of true humility were not the submission of all the thoughts and feelings to God's will; so that, without opposing, we count as good whatever he makes known to us as his pleasure.-Calvin.

Verse 9. Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.] Peter was vehement in his refusal, in his submission still more so; yet both proceeded from love. But why did not Jesus tell him the reason of his doing it? why did he rather add a warning? Because Peter would not then have yielded. Had Christ said to him, "Suffer it, for thus will I teach you humility," he would have promised a thousand times to be humble, that his Lord only might not wash his feet.'-Chrysostom.

Verse 10. He that is washed, needeth not save to wash his feet.] Jesus continues his figurative discourse. The obvious outward meaning of his language is this: Ye all have already bathed, hence there is need of nothing more than the washing of the feet, to cleanse off the dust which has soiled you in walking. This design of the custom of washing serves him now for a parabolic discourse. In the holy baptism, [or that which only is its efficacy, the new birth,] man is entirely washed, not with the exception of the feet, but altogether. When, however, afterward we mingle in the affairs of the world, we traverse the earth with our feet, our human feelings and desires-without which we cannot live in this mortal state—are like the feet on which the dust gathers; and we are so defiled by them, that if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Daily, therefore, our advocate and intercessor washes our feet, and daily do we confess that we need to have them cleansed, when we say in the Lord's Prayer, Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And when we thus confess our sins, he who washed his disciples' feet is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.'-Augustine."

These extracts will suffice to show the spirit and tone of the work. We should be glad to see it, with some modifications, in the hands of our German membership; who, unfortunately, have access neither to the stores of Fatherland, nor to those of English literature. It is our duty to furnish them with wholesome reading in their own language; a duty, we are happy to say, recognized fully by our Church, which has perhaps done more in this way, as well as in others, for the spiritual welfare of the Germans, than any other religious denomination. It has been mentioned to us that a brief,

pointed, but spiritual Commentary on the Scriptures is very much needed among them, and that the great leaders of the German movement among us are looking out for such a work. We venture to suggest Von Gerlach's Commentary to their attention. It could easily be weeded of any views inconsistent with those of our Church, and such additions as are necessary to fit it for the precise purpose for which it is needed could readily be made. The accomplished editor of the Apologist is amply competent to the task: may we ask him to address himself to it?

ART. VIII.—THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH.

History of the Organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South; comprehending all the Official Proceedings of the General Conference, and the General Convention, with such other matters as are necessary to a right understanding of the case. Nashville: compiled and published by the Editors and Publishers of the South Western Christian Advocate, for the Methodist Episcopal Church, South; by order of the Louisville Convention. WILLIAM CAMERON, Printer: 1845.

WE find, in the volume before us, much to commend and little to blame. Taking into consideration the exciting circumstances in which it originated, and the strictly party relations of the writers, the work is characterized by a commendable spirit and temper, and is written with, perhaps, as much fairness and impartiality as could have been reasonably expected. To complain that authors, personally implicated in the transactions they record, and feeling an individual interest in justifying the proceedings they narrate, do not always present the stronger and more unmanageable positions and arguments of their opponents, would be captious, if not querulous. It must be allowed to writers under such circumstances to assume the attitude of advocates, not of historians. Yet there is much of real history in this book. Besides the proceedings of the Louisville Convention itself, it contains papers of no ordinary importance in regard to the previous proceedings of the Annual Conferences represented in the Convention, and of the General Conference of 1844; all which will be necessary to the historian, who shall be favoured to write after the actors in the present excitements, and those excitements themselves, shall have passed away.

With the above palliating remarks, we hope it may not be offensive to say, that the reader must look over the first hundred pages of this History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, as a jury is expected to listen to the pleadings of an advocate. His citations of

legal authorities are not suspected to be absolutely spurious, but, on the other hand, they are not to be taken as containing all that the legal decision or authority he cites may import, much less all that may be cited on the other side. These hundred pages of abstracts from the Journal and Debates of the General Conference in the cases of Mr. Harding and Bishop Andrew,-extracts chosen for the purpose of justifying the proceedings of the Louisville Convention in severing the Annual Conferences in the slave-holding States from the Methodist Episcopal Church,-are given in direct view of the end to be answered. The same may be said, too, of the hasty sketch of the history of General Conference action on the subject of slavery from 1780 down to 1844. An opponent would find it easy to show, by simply enlarging the passages cited, that the arguments made to rest upon them stand on a very sandy foundation. We do not purpose, however, to review these abstracts or arguments, in detail. The first may be readily corrected by the reader himself, by reference to the Journal and Debates of the General Conference of 1844, published at the Methodist Episcopal Book-Concern, New-York; and for the rest, the value of the assumptions and arguments based upon and intermingled with these partial citations, will be determined by the reader when he shall have made himself acquainted with the veritable records, published by the order, and under the supervision, of both parties, before the occasion arose for writing the History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

The remainder of the volume under review is chiefly made up of the preliminary proceedings of the Annual Conferences in the slaveholding States preparatory to the Louisville Convention, the doings of the Convention itself, and a chapter "embracing events subsequent to the adjournment of the Louisville Convention." To the last there are prefixed some general remarks on the state of things in the Church in general, and some severe animadversions on opposing editors, conferences, &c., which we can afford to pass over without reply or rejoinder.

Passing over, then, whatever is merely incidental to the narrative, we propose to review the historical statements only, which the diligent committee of the Louisville Convention have laid before the public; and these will be found of no ordinary interest to the Christian reader. A Church, containing more than a million of souls, and affording the ministry of the word of life, statedly, to five times that number of persons, efficient beyond all parallel in modern times in its organization, and successful beyond all example in carrying out the benign purposes of the gospel, especially to the poor, has been violently rent and divided by geographical lines; yet movable lines, according to

the interpretation of the seceders-a line upon wheels, to be pushed north or south as strength or address may prevail. All this has been done, too, under a manifestation of ill feeling, and angry temper, which proclaims a deep sense of injury and wrong done to the seceders. Indeed, the manifesto of the Louisville Convention, a paper drawn up with great ability by a committee, and adopted by the Convention with great unanimity, speaks of violated rights and highhanded injustice, and that too in a tone of indignation and rebuke, as if something had been suffered which outraged all the obligations of religion and even the duties of social life. Yet whoever inquires impartially for the causes which produced these complaints and the secession to which they led, will find, when he has stripped them of all adventitious covering, that the separatists do not themselves allege that any new articles of religious belief had been added to the creed of the Church, or anything expunged therefrom; nor do they intimate that anything whatever had been done which pressed hardly upon their consciences. On the contrary, they adopted, for the new church, both the doctrines and discipline of the old one, without alteration or abridgment, except such verbal changes as were necessary to adapt the whole to a new ecclesiastical organization.

What, then, it may be asked, has produced this sudden and violent dismemberment? What has so excited the feelings, and heated the passions, of Christian men, that they can no longer dwell together in unity with brethren, so long beloved, endeared to them not only by a common faith, but also by the fellowship of common sufferings and common success in the effort "to spread Scriptural holiness over these lands?" The answer, and the only answer which can be inferred from the proceedings of the Louisville Convention, is, that the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church had taken action which gave strong indications that a bishop holding slaves would not be tolerated in the church. For sixty years-that is, from the time of its organization-the Conference had, of set purpose, avoided the election of a slave-holder to the episcopacy; and now that one of those who had been elevated to the office of bishop, or general superintendent, had voluntarily become the owner of slaves, the Conference had voted it as the "sense" of the body, that he should cease to exercise his episcopal functions until the impediment was removed. This was the wound for which there was found no remedy, even in the fulness of Christian charity. It was not to be borne that the slaveholding ministers of the South should be cut off from all hope of reaching the episcopal dignity without parting with their property in their fellow-men, It was denounced as fanaticism, madness, reck