with it as a joint condition of the remission of sins and receiving the Holy Ghost, so that without baptism there is no promise, and baptism itself must be accepted as the requisite for forgiveness and eternal life." The literalism is here manifest, which fails to see that it is not the rite as such, but the rite as a symbol of the confession of Christ before men which gives it any moral worth. Moreover, it also fails to observe that the confession of Christ as an act is of no moral significance except as it is a token of the reality and energy of love, or of the new moral life.

We do not wonder that Mr. Campbell was led by a sense of consistency to go a step further; so far that, through his anxiety not to complicate either faith, or the confession of it, with any renewal of character, he made Baptism to be the regeneration of the New Testament, and a pre-condition of the renewal by the Holy Ghost. The observance of the Lord's Day and the Lord's Supper were in like manner insisted on with a certain protesting freedom from Jewish notions, but with a literal formalism, that observed what was required simply because it was required.

In the same way, the protest against the sectarian churches became itself sectarian in insisting that no one could be regarded as a New Testament believer, who had not submitted to immersion, in what was regarded as the New Testament mode and with the New Testament significance.

More generally conceived and described, the system of Campbellism is the result of an attempt to go back to primitive Christianity on the simple basis of the New Testament when interpreted without "the historic sense." The letter is adhered to, but the import of the letter, when it is explained in the light of the circumstances under which it was uttered and written, is overlooked, or rather there is manifest a blind and superstitious dread of using these circumstances in order to gain the needed illumination and explanation. To believe that Jesus was the Son of God, and to be baptised in His name, signified, in apostolic times, a definite knowledge of some spiritual truth, and a practical subjection to that truth of the feelings, the principles, and the character. The Campbells were altogether right, as many reformers and thinkers,

before and since, have been in being scandalized at the metaphysical creeds which were presented as a condition of fellowship in the Christian church. They were reasonably disgusted at the narrow spirit with which the several Christian sects prosecute their separate interests and contend against their rivals, whom they ought to cherish as fellow workers in the Kingdom of the Master. Their aims were catholic and noble, but the expedient to which they resorted, of making a historic faith and immersion the sole conditions of Christian fellowship, was unsound and narrow in its conception. That it in fact proved inconvenient in its working should not be surprising. That it should be difficult to draw the line between what the Scriptures expressly declare and what may fairly be inferred from their teachings, would surprise no one who has known anything of the history of religious discussions and interpretations. The memoir of Campbell's life contains not a few revelations of the inconvenient workings of his system. It not unfrequently occurred that a teacher in this connection was charged with rejecting the divinity of our Lord, or was reported to be unsound on some other point deemed essential to the Christian faith. In such cases it became the duty of Mr. Campbell to call the offender to an explanation, or to use his personal influence for the correction of his error. In a similar way occasional breaches of morality, either real or imagined, would occur, and the application of discipline in some form became necessary. In other words there was an unwritten creed that was actually taught and received in this rapidly increasing and widely spread communion, and which was made a test in some sort of fellowship and brotherhood. Thus grew up an unwritten code of ethical and religious rules, that were tests of the Christian life, and applied in the way of discipline.

It would be interesting to many of our readers should we describe minutely the career of this remarkable preacher to its termination. His conviction of the necessity of a new translation of the New Testament, and the courage with which he ventured upon introducing one into popular acceptance in his churches; his energy in sustaining for so many years a vigorous periodical; the courage, versatility, and ability which he ex

hibited in public debates with a great variety of prominent champions of faiths and opinions diverse from his own, are all instructively described in these volumes by Mr. Campbell's biographer.

The story of the progress of this anti-sectarian sect, this "anti-party" party, is also recorded with great spirit. That among a population such as then inhabited western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, etc., the doctines of Campbell should have been very attractive is not in the least surprising. The broad-minded and independent farmers of these districts could not but admire the catholic promises and the large hearted principles of Mr. Campbell and his associates. They could not but be disgusted with the bigotry and narrowness of many of the sects which abounded among them. The scholastic creeds, the hair-splitting distinctions, the abstract psychological tests of character which were made the conditions of admission to the church and the Kingdom of Heaven, could not but contrast unfavorably with the simple requisitions and the definite acts which were imposed by the so called New Testament Christianity of the new preachers. The general freedom and liberality of spirit in respect to conduct which was allowed, had its good as well as its dangerous side.

It is difficult for us at the East to form any judgment in regard to the general character of this communion. It would be wrong to express such a judgment if we had formed one, without either documents or testimony. We shall have discharged our duty when we have called the attention of our readers to this very interesting personal memoir, this instructive chapter in American Ecclesiastical History. But what is much more important, in these days of ecclesiastical reconstruction and of more or less vague aspirations after the church of the future, we advise our seekers after the comprehensive and unsectarian church which is to be, to read the story of Alexander Campbell's gropings and struggles in the same direction. Perhaps the record of his experience will increase the catholicity, while it will not diminish the caution of those who are looking for a simple, yet comprehensive, symbol of Christian faith and bond of Christian fellowship.

ARTICLE V.-CHRISTIANITY A UNIVERSAL

RELIGION.

THE religion of the Old Testament had two unlike faces. If you looked at it on the one side, it was narrow, local, exclusive; if you looked at it on the other side, it was broad, free, intended for mankind. The hedge of national and formal obser vances, which gave it an uninviting aspect, was designed for the protection of its absolute and universal doctrines, until in the fulness of time, having impressed themselves on the mind of one people, they could pass the more readily over the human race. It was like a blossom of surpassing beauty, hid in a thorny calyx until the sun burst it open and displayed it to the eyes of men. The calyx, having done its work, dropped, but the blossom shone in perpetual glory.

Meanwhile from within the pale of this narrow, national, and ceremonial religion, voices of the noblest and truest men reach us, showing that they beheld in the future a spread and a glory for the worship of Jehovah, which nothing in the past justified. Let us listen to some of these voices.

First, we may notice, scattered through the ancient scriptures, a conviction of the greatness of Jehovah, as the universa! creator and Lord, and of the nothingness of gods worshipped by the heathen. "The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens." Next we perceive the expectation of proselytes coming to worship at Jerusalem, and of whole nations joining themselves to the God of Israel. At the dedication of the temple, Solomon spoke of the stranger who was not of God's people, but should come out of a far country for his name's sake. For they shall hear," says he, "of thy great name, and of thy strong hand, and of thy stretched out arm," and he prays that the prayer of the stranger may be heard when he shall come and pray towards the house of God, so that all the people of the earth may know God's name and fear him, as do his people Israel. So in one of the Psalms,

(lxviii, 31) it is said that "Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands to God," that is, either in prayer or to offer gifts; and in the prophets that "Israel shall be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the land, whom the Lord shall bless, saying blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance." In another place the eunuch, whom the law of Moses shut out from the blessings of the congregation, and the sons of the stranger, who complained that they were separated from the Lord's people, had the promise made to them that they should be joyful in God's house of prayer, and should be accepted in their burnt offerings and sacrifices, "for my house," saith God, "shall be called a house of prayer for all people." Thus out of Zion was the law to go forth, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem, or as the prophet Zechariah says, "the Lord shall be king over all the earth; in that day there shall be one Lord and his name one."

Still more spiritual is the picture which Jeremiah gives of the worship of the future, where he says that in the coming time, "they shall no more say the ark of the covenant of the Lord, neither shall they remember it," ... "but Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord, and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem; neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart." As if the holiness of the penetrale of the temple and of the ceremonial worship should fade and grow pale, before the holiness of Jerusalem, as the gathering place of converted and purified heathens.

But especially remarkable are those places in the later chapters of Isaiah, where the servant of Jehovah is spoken of in connexion with a spread of religion over all lands. That servant or messenger at first, owing to his marred form and visage, shall cause many to be astonished, but afterwards he shall cause many nations to rejoice in himself,-for so what is rendered "he shall sprinkle" ought probably to be translated. "He is mine elect," saith God," in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him, and he shall bring forth judg ment to the Gentiles,"" he shall not fail nor be discouraged till he have set judgment in the earth, and the isles (or coasts)