of thoroughly trained young men, to mold the public sentiment and manners, to fill the offices of Church and State, to be legislators and judges, presidents and professors, throughout the land and the world.

We have our two theological seminaries, furnishing men to be pastors, or missionaries, or to fill any station where the Lord has need of them. And though we have no female college, we have schools of great excellence for the higher education of young ladies.

If we could obtain accurate statistics of the churches from 1776 to 1800, I am sure we should have no occasion to inquire why "the former days were better than these." From the number of members of several churches in some part of that period, obtained from half-century sermons, church manuals, and other sources, I believe the members of the Congregational churches of Connecticut at the present time are in greater proportion to the population than in that former period. And then, besides several Presbyterian churches, there is the large increase in the Episcopal church, and in the Baptist churches, and the whole membership in the Methodist churches, which have all come into being within the century. Including the members of all the evangelical churches in the State, the proportion to the population must have largely increased. The Episcopalians have their Trinity College and Divinity School, and the Methodists their Wesleyan University, each doing good service.

In the whole country, as stated by Prof. Diman, "while the population has multiplied eleven fold, the churches have multiplied nearly thirty-seven fold." A gentleman, on whom I rely as authority, informs me that a few years ago he made an investigation, with this general result: that in the last quarter of the last century, the number of church members in the United States was as one to eighteen of the population, and he thinks that now it will not vary much from one to

seven.

There can be little doubt that the standard of piety in the churches, and of morals in society, is higher than it was a century ago. There is, indeed, more open desecration of the

Sabbath, which is to be lamented, but perhaps as good use of the day is made by active Christians. Pastorates are shorter, but this in part may be the result of things not altogether evil. Ministers have less of authority, but more of reasonable influence, and are regarded rather with affection than fear. Christian activity is altogether in advance. One hundred years ago there was not a Bible society, nor tract society, nor missionary society, nor temperance society in all the land. The organized charities of the present day were unknown. The era of prayer-meetings, and Sabbath-schools, and Young Men's Christian Associations, and conventions of Christian workers, and the employment of woman's mighty influence in the ministries of the church, had not begun. The great world of paganism and superstition was practically closed to Christian benevolence.

What a marvelous change has God wrought? Now, the moral condition of the world is explored. There is access to every nation. Scores of missionary societies, and associations for every Christian object, are organized and in working order. Missionaries are abroad, churches have sprung up in heathen lands, and native converts are preaching the gospel to their benighted countrymen. The channels of benevolence are all open, and every servant of Christ can send up his prayers to Heaven, and his contributions to swell the streams of evangelizing influence. At home, in Sabbathschools, and in the various agencies for the spread of the gospel, and the conversion of souls, there is work for all who are willing to do it, both men and women. And the vastly increased power of the religious press, and to a great extent of the secular also, is exerted in favor of truth and right

eousness.

God has brought this nation, which he established, safely through the first century of its existence, having delivered it from the greatest perils. He has made it a great nationgreat in resources, great in the general intelligence of the people, in their inventive and industrial achievements, and in their power to conceive and execute the grandest enterprises.

And he has given to us the treasures of his word, and opened before us the nations of the earth, that we may impart to them the riches we have so largely and freely received.

And now, by his declared purpose to make the reign of his Son glorious and universal among men, by the quickening of his people into such general activity, and permitting them to witness so much of his mighty working through their efforts, by the multiplied agencies and instrumentalities by which his work may be accomplished, and by all he has shown us of his faithfulness in the history of our own churches, he calls us to renewed faith, and consecration, and energy. Let there be a true and intelligent consecration to Christ of life, and property, and talents, in all the ministers and members of our churches; let our own field be made and kept like "the garden of the Lord;" let all parts of our land be thoroughly evangelized, and let the foreign work be vigororously prosecuted,-in a word, let Christ's service be the first aim in the working of our mighty energies, and let the same spirit prevail throughout Christendom,-and this second century of our nation's life, which has opened so auspiciously, may witness the song of triumph, "The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever."

THE GROWTH OF A CHRISTIAN LITERATURE.

An Address delivered in the Center Church, New Haven, before the General Conference of the Congregational Churches of Connecticut, Thursday evening, November 16, 1876.

BY JOSEPH ANDERSON.

[The following address is laid before the readers of this volume in the precise form in which it was delivered. It was prepared without any reference to publication, and hardly deserved admission to these pages without being re-written and enlarged. After one or two futile attempts at reconstructing it, I concluded that I must either develop it into an extended essay, or let it stand as originally written. Finding the former course impracticable, I have published it without alteration, adding merely a few references in foot-notes. Although the title is expressed in the most general terms, being conformed to the wording of the topic as assigned beforehand, my field of view in the address was New England, and, for the most part, Connecticut only.-J. A.]

In the city of New York, during the present week, and in fact at this very hour, an auction-sale is taking place, which will result in breaking up and scattering to all quarters of the land the large and costly library of an industrious collector of books. In the elegantly printed Catalogue, which embraces a list of several thousand volumes, I find the following title, numbered 514, under the name of John Davenport:

1 The library referred to was that of Mr. William Menzies of New York. The sale took place at the sale-rooms of Messrs. George A. Leavitt & Co., on Monday, November 13, and following days.

2 "Catalogue of the Books, Manuscripts, and Engravings belonging to William Menzies of New York. Prepared by Joseph Sabin. New York: 1875." Pp. xix, 473.

"A Discourse about Civil Government in a New Plantation whose Design is Religion. Written many years since, by that Reverend and Worthy Minister of the Gospel, John Cotton, B. D., and now Published by some Undertakers of a new Plantation for General Direction and Information. Cambridge: Printed by Samuel Green and Marmaduke Johnson. MDCLXIII."

I find also the following title, numbered 452:

"A Confession of Faith Owned and Consented to by the Elders and Messengers of the Churches in the Colony of Connecticut in New England, Assembled by Delegation at Say-Brook, September 9th, 1708. New London in N. E. Printed by Thomas Short. 1710."

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These volumes-the latter numbering 116 small pages, the former numbering only 24-are bound (so the Catalogue informs us) in Levant morocco, at an expense which would have surprised and grieved the good men who wrote them, and at yesterday's sale brought prices which any one but a book-collector would consider exorbitant and absurd. How are these things explained? I answer, By the fact that these books are very rare. Davenport's Discourse (ascribed by mistake on the title-page to John Cotton) is not only one of the earliest books printed in this country, having been issued thirty years before New York had a printing press, but is so scarce that this is "the only copy known to have been offered for sale in forty years." The Confession of Faith is the first book printed in Connecticut, and is “so rare," says the compiler of the Catalogue, "that we are unable to record the public sale of a copy." 5

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From a multitude of similar productions enumerated in this Catalogue-most of them rare, some of them unique copies I select these two works for obvious reasons as representing the New England literature of the early Colonial period. The works of which that literature is composed, whether treatises, sermons, pamphlets, or poems, are counted

* The Confession sold for sixty dollars; Davenport's Discourse for fortyfive dollars.

* Mr. J. Sabin, in his preface to the Menzies Catalogue, p. iv. 5 Catalogue, p. 91.