us," all that will be of no avail in the matter of our salvation, unless we have fled for refuge to "what can put away sin, and save the sinner from the doom he deserves." Then we are told this is "blood.” For, we are further told, "without shedding of blood is no remission." The tract from which the foregoing thought is taken is designed to show that sin cannot by any possibility be "taken away," except by "the blood of Jesus Christ-once slain on Calvary." And “so perfectly," it is added, "does His blood do this, that God esteems those who trust it as made fit for His own holy presence !”

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Thus, as may be seen, what are commonly called the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel," occupy as prominent a place as ever in the popular theology of the day. And its ethical teachings, as embodied in the "Sermon on the Mount," which, be it said by the way, has at least as good a claim to be regarded as part and parcel of the Gospel as these "peculiar doctrines," its ethical teachings are relegated to a subordinate place, and made to play a non-essential part in the matter of human salvation: while all attempts to restore them to their rightful place in Christian theology, and to reunite them to the doctrine which can alone give them vitality, that, namely, of the Divine Unity as centred in the Divine-Human of the Lord, are cast aside with seeming horror as attempts thus to introduce deadly heresies into the Church, and to undermine "the faith once delivered unto the saints." It is plain, therefore, that the hortatory modes of expression commonly employed when entreating sinners to "flee from the wrath to come, and to bring forth fruits meet for repentance," will be of no avail in entreating the adherents of any system of religious doctrine whatever to forsake it for another; particularly when that other has been misrepresented and misunderstood, and when that from which it is sought to detach its adherents has been so glossed over by rhetorical artifice and the admixture of a modicum of truth, that any truthful representation of it will seem to its adherents to be but a grossly exaggerated caricature of it, and will by them be indignantly rejected as such. What, then, in this case, must be done? Must New Church advocates, with criminal complaisance, and in a spirit of spurious charity, stand forth and say to these adherents of the existing system, "You are not so far wrong after all; your system is not nearly so bad as some of us, doubtless through misunderstanding it, have represented it to be. And a few mutual concessions will greatly tend to show how little of real difference exists between us!" Does any one in his senses for a moment imagine that such a compromise would be accepted by those to whom it is offered that the doctrine of Substitution, the doctrine of Justification by faith alone, the doctrine of utter human impotence in the matter of human salvation, together with a host of others of like tendency, would be given up in the way of compromise for any concessions we might offer? The folly would be to expect it. It is well known that the Christian world at large grudge the New Church the title of Christian; that its official organ, while giving insertion to

reports of meetings of the "Unitarian" body, has studiously, and, it would appear, systematically, omitted all mention of New Church meetings, of New Church anniversaries, of everything in short connected with New Church proceedings or New Church work. What, then, does this plainly show? Why, that the Christian world, socalled, is determined to carry on the controversy with the New Church to the bitter end. Nor can it, in the nature of things, possibly be otherwise. Let the receiver of the doctrines of the New Church read and attentively ponder the proposition stated and developed at 647 to 649 of the T. C. R., and then let him ask himself honestly whether the largest, the most comprehensive charity, could lend its sanction to the slightest compromise between the faith and imputation of the New Church and the faith and imputation of the former Church. The adherents of the latter clearly see that no such compromise can be effected; and therefore it is that they stand in an attitude of such determined hostility against the New Church.

What, then, remains for us to do? Must we persist in holding out the right hand of fellowship to those who persist in scornfully rejecting it, while they regard us in the light of a mushroom but antichristian sect, endeavouring to disseminate doctrines of so dangerous a tendency, that no effort should be spared, no means left untried, to put them down? To us it appears that our bounden duty is to be honest, to tell those whom we are seeking to detach from their erroneous views, as gently as may be, but candidly, what we think of those views. Let us by all means avoid needless offence; but let us not, while so doing, shrink from inflicting necessary pain. Many, no doubt, will feel acute pain when they hear doctrines to which they had clung as to their souls' sheet-anchor, characterized as delusive and dangerous; but will our refraining from so characterizing them destroy, or in any way modify, their delusive and dangerous character? Again, we say, let us be honest. Nothing will be gained to the cause of truth by what is commonly called mincing matters." And, should controversy inevitably follow, it will become our evident duty to accept it as a means of spreading abroad the Truth placed in our hands by Divine Providence.

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We readily admit that controversy is not in itself a desirable thing. Still, in the development and elucidation of Truth it cannot always be avoided; and it is sometimes well even to carry the war into the enemy's camp. For,

Let New Churchmen never forget it-in the controversy we hold with the former Church our object is partly aggressive; it is one not merely of defence, but of re-conquest. We are commissioned, as a Church, to re-conquer for the Lord those domains of which He has so long been despoiled by the Prince of this world, and which have likewise subsequently been unrighteously withheld from Him by those who should have been the first to hail Him as their rightful heir, instead of saying, as they have done, "This is the heir, come, let us kill Him, that the inheritance may be ours!" It is our bounden duty,

harsh as the phrase may sound, to assist in "miserably destroying those wicked men," to enrol ourselves in the King's armies, and to assist in "destroying those murderers, and burning up their city" (Matt. xxi. 41, xxii. 7). But let it be known that not the persons, but principles of men are the objects of Christian opposition; and that love for their souls constrains the true disciple to strive to deliver men from errors that would destroy them. And this may be done, nay, must be done, in a spirit of the purest charity; in such a spirit as will show the misguided votaries of existing systems that, so far from misrepresenting or caricaturing the beliefs to which they so tenaciously cling, we only present them with a faithful and unexaggerated picture of those beliefs, that they may contemplate them as what they really are, namely, refuges of lies.

There can, therefore, be no breach of charity in employing the forms of controversy for such a purpose and in such a spirit. And, however harsh our expressions may seem to those who, having ticklish ears, are not accustomed to hear a spade called a spade, they will eventually be seen not to be harsher than the occasion really called for; and will then be found to be nothing more than part and parcel of that Christian plain dealing which the apostle has so beautifully characterterized as "speaking the truth in love." Then will the spirit of controversy be for ever banished from its forms, and it will become what it should never have ceased to be, a valuable auxiliary in the investigation and elucidation of Truth. F. D.

STOKE NEWINGTON, Oct. 13, 1875.

CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGION AND SCIENCE.

II.

THE magnificence and culture of the great Persian Empire was not lost upon the Greeks. They returned from the campaigns of Alexander enriched with fresh knowledge of nature and humanity. They had been brought in contact with a religious system founded on a basis widely different from their own. Persia recognised "one universal intelligence, the creator, preserver, and governor of all things, the most holy essence of truth, the giver of all good." Greece worshipped Jupiter at Dodona, Apollo at Delphi, and in every city subordinate deities. Here was a contrast striking and suggestive. The doctrines of Zoroaster were far in advance of the heterogeneous faiths that prevailed in the cities and amongst the mountains of Greece. But the most memorable result of the impetus imparted to the Greek mind through the conquest of Alexander was the establishment of the celebrated museum of that city. Ptolemy Soter had the honour of founding that institution. It became the great centre of intellectual activity. The Aristotelian philosophy was its corner-stone. The doctrines of the Stoics found a home within its walls. There mathematical science

was

was vigorously cultivated. Euclid, a supposed native of Alexandria, gave to the world his celebrated monument of exact reasoning ; in his noted elements of geometry he demonstrated clearly and accurately the laws governing form, and proved the possibility of discovering absolute truth. Another great mathematician Archimedes, who calculated the volume of the sphere, and discovered the laws of specific gravity. To these and other great geometers, mathematicians and physicists, we owe the origin of the exact sciences. The old superstitions were unable to stand before this great awakening of science, and, gradually receding, lingered only amongst the multitude. They had performed their work, and to supply their place new truths from the Divine descended into minds adapted to receive and bring them forth in their most useful forms. He in whose sight a thousand years are as nothing was laying the foundation upon which a greater, nobler, and still more enlightened world should raise a grand temple of science, from whose shrine temporal blessings unspeakable might descend to the human family. While Greece was in the zenith of her power, Rome was slowly gathering strength. And when the Greece of Demosthenes and Plato, of Pericles and Xenophon, was no more, the City of the Seven Hills had planted her standards from the pillars of Hercules to the shores of the Caspian, from the mountains of Caledonia to the banks of the Nile. By her great system of military organization and her extensive conquests she prepared the way for the pioneers of a new faith-a faith which, when Rome is forgotten, shall bring consolation and peace to all the inhabitants of the earth. Το the shepherds watching their flocks in the stillness of night on the mountains of Judæa, an angel proclaimed the birth of the Saviour: "Fear not, for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord.” Tidings of great joy to all people! Herculaneum and Pompeii, Athens and Alexandria, are buried beneath the dust of ages, but that message lives, and when generations of generations shall have breathed and passed away, its divine eloquence will speak to the people who shall be.

It is a remarkable fact that, when Christ came into the world, the Roman Empire enjoyed an almost unbroken peace, it was a period, which, as Mosheim says, "may be justly styled the pacific age." This condition of things enabled the disciples of Christianity to diffuse its doctrines throughout extensive countries. The church which was strengthened and animated by Paul was remarkable for a while by the uprightness and brotherly unity of its members; but when worldly-minded and ambitious men, in the time of its prosperity, used Christianity for political schemes and ends, its original beauty was marred. Then gradually advanced that traffic in pagan rites and absurd superstitions, which, after the lapse of eighteen centuries, is still carried on in the Catholic Church.

Speaking of this serious cause of corruption and decay, which laid

fast hold of the Christian Church, the writer says,-"Heathen rites were adopted, a pompous and splendid ritual, gorgeous robes, mitres, tiaras, wax tapers, processional services, lustrations, gold and silver vases were introduced. The Roman lituus, the chief ensign of the augurs, became the crozier. Churches were built over the tombs of martyrs, and consecrated with rites borrowed from the ancient laws of the pontiffs. Festivals and commemorations of martyrs multiplied with the numberless discoveries of their remains. Fasting became the grand mass of repelling the devil and appeasing God; celibacy the greatest of virtues. Pilgrimages were made to Palestine and the tombs of martyrs. Quantities of dust and earth were brought from the Holy Land and sold at enormous prices as antidotes against devils. . . . The worship of images, of fragments of the Cross, or bones, nails and other relics-a true fetich worship was cultivated. Two arguments were relied on for the authenticity of these objects, the authority of the Church and the working of miracles. Even the worn-out clothing of saints and the earth of their graves were venerated. From Palestine were brought what were affirmed to be the skeletons of St. Mark and St. James, and other ancient worthies. The apotheosis of the old Roman times was replaced by canonization; tutelary saints succeeded to local mythological divinities. Then came the mystery of transubstantiation, or the conversion of bread and wine by the priest into the flesh and blood of Christ. As centuries passed the paganization became more and more complete. Festivals sacred to the memory of the lance with which the Saviour's side was pierced, the nails that fastened Him to the Cross, and the crown of thorns were instituted. Then there were several abbeys that possessed this peerless relic; no one dared to say that it was impossible they could all be authentic." Thus had degenerated the Christian Church. But while common sense was shocked, and the virgin purity of the new dispensation violated, intellectual development received a check from the diffusion of the doctrine, "that all knowledge is to be found in the Scriptures and in the traditions of the Church; that in the written revelation, God had not only given a criterion of truth, but had furnished all that He intended us to know." This is not a doctrine of God, but of man-a doctrine which bears unmistakeable indications of the cunning and selfishness that prompted it. While the Church-no longer the Church of Christ, but the Church of Rome-led astray the mind of the multitude by mummeries, superstitions, and saint worship, it desired to establish itself as the guardian and repository of all knowledge, human and divine. Were, then, the labours of the Greek philosophers, of the Alexandrian mathematicians, of the Chaldæan astronomers, mere aëry fabrics, worthless and unprofitable? Were, then, the sublime faculties of man to be circumscribed by the decrees of councils? The very Church which was the author of this absurd dogma soon afforded proof of its incapacity to restrain the expansive power of the human intellect. For doctors differed respecting various cardinal points formulated in the doctrines of the Church. The unscriptural canon of three Persons in