no

munity with the Apostolic times, but for more; but above all, they want their wounds healed by a Christianity showing a life-renewing vitality allied to reason and conscience, and ready and able to reform the social relations of life, beginning with the domestic and culminating with the political. They want no negations, but positive reconstruction conventionality, but an honest bonâ fide foundation, deep as the human mind, and a structure free and organic as nature. In the meantime let no national form be urged as identical with divine truth, let no dogmatic formula oppress conscience and reason, and let no corporation of priests, no set of dogmatists, sow discord and hatred in the sacred communities of domestic and national life. This view cannot be obtained without national efforts, Christian education, free institutions, and social reforms. Then no zeal will be called Christian which is not hallowed by charity,no faith Christian which is not sanctioned by reason. Hippolitus.

66

Any author who in our time treats theological and ecclesiastical subjects frankly, and therefore with reference to the problems of the age, must expect to be ignored, and if that cannot be done, abused and reviled."

The same is true of moral subjects on which strong prejudices (or shall I say strong convictions?) exist in minds not very strong.

It is not perhaps of so much consequence what we believe, as it is important that we believe; that we do not affect to believe, and so belie our own souls. Belief is not always in our power, but truth is.

IT

12.

T seems an arbitrary limitation of the design of Christianity to assume, as Priestley does, that "it consists solely in the revelation of a future life con firmed by the bodily resurrection of Christ." This is truly a very material view of Christianity. If I were to be sure of annihilation I should not be less certain of the truth of Christianity as a system of morals exquisitely adapted for the improvement and happiness of man as an individual; and equally adapted to conduce to the amelioration and progressive happiness of mankind as a species.

Gs.

NOTES FROM VARIOUS SERMONS,

MADE ON THE SPOT;

SHOWING SOME THINGS IN WHICH ALL GOOD MEN ARE AGREED.

I.

From a Roman Catholic Sermon.

HEN travelling in Ireland, I stayed over one

WH

Sunday in a certain town in the north, and rambled out early in the morning. It was cold and wet, the streets empty and quiet, but the sound of voices drew me in one direction, down a court where was a Roman Catholic chapel. It was so crowded that many of the congregation stood round the door. I remarked among them a number of soldiers and most miserable-looking women. All made way for me with true national courtesy, and I entered at the moment the priest was finishing mass, and about to begin his sermon. There was no pulpit, and he

stood on the step of the altar; a fine-looking man, with a bright face, a sonorous voice, and a very strong Irish accent. His text was from Matt. v. 43, 44.

He began by explaining what Christ really meant by the words "Love thy neighbour." Then drew a picture in contrast of hatred and dissension, commencing with dissension in families, between kindred, and between husband and wife. Then made a most touching appeal in behalf of children brought up in an atmosphere of contention where no love is. "God help them! God pity them! small chance for them of being either good or happy! for their young hearts are saddened and soured with strife, and they eat their bread in bitterness!"

Then he preached patience to the wives, indulgence to the husbands, and denounced scolds and quarrelsome women in a manner that seemed to glance at recent events: "When ye are found in the streets vilifying and slandering one another, ay, and fighting and tearing each other's hair, do ye think ye're women? no, ye're not! ye're devils incarnate, and ye'll go where the devils will be fit companions for ye!" &c. (Here some women near me, with long black hair streaming down, fell upon their knees, sobbing with contrition.) He then went on, in the same strain of homely eloquence, to the evils of political and religious hatred, and quoted the

went on,

text, "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.” "I'm a Catholic," he "and I believe in the truth of my own religion above all others. I'm convinced, by long study and observation, it's the best that is; but what then? Do ye think I hate my neighbour because he thinks differently? Do ye think I mane to force my religion down other people's throats? If I were to preach such uncharity to ye, my people, you wouldn't listen to me, ye oughtn't to listen to me. Did Jesus Christ force His religion down other people's throats? Not He! He endured all, He was kind to all, even to the wicked Jews that afterwards crucified Him." "If you say you can't love your neighbour because he's your enemy, and has injured you, what does that mane? ye can't! ye can't!' as if that excuse will serve God? hav'n't ye done more and worse against Him? and didn't He send His only Son into the world to redeem ye? My good people, you're all sprung from one stock, all sons of Adam, all related to one another. When God created Eve, mightn't He have made her out of any thing, a stock or a stone, or out of nothing at all, at all? but He took one of Adam's ribs and moulded her out of that, and gave her to him, just to show that we're all from one original, all related together, men and women, Catholics and Protestants, Jews and Turks and Christians; all bone of one bone, and