those acts of the understanding which lead to choice or preference, and which, as we have seen, not only precede, but are usually separated by a conscious interval of time, from the action of the Will.

Analyze such statistical evidence as has been collected by Quetelet and other observers, and the correctness of these observations will be apparent. The events which are thus proved to recur, year after year, in nearly the same degree of frequency, maintaining almost an equal proportion to the whole number of people, will be found complex in nature, alike only in outward aspect, springing from different motives, and carried out by very dissimilar means. Thus, the number of homicides, suicides, robberies, petty thefts, cases of intemperance, and the like, that occur annually in a given population, are cited as proving the reign of law where it would be least expected. But how unlike is one case of homicide or suicide to another unlike in the passions which produced them, the circumstances which excited these passions, the quickness with which the determination was carried out, and the means by which the crowning act was perpetrated! The lawyers, after a very imperfect analysis, distinguish at least half a dozen kinds of killing. One jumps overboard because crossed in love; a clerk or trustee hangs himself because detected in embezzlement; a gambler throws away life after fortune; a sentenced criminal escapes the shame of a public execution; the prosperous man destroys himself in a fit of insanity. Statistics which lump together so dissimilar acts as these prove nothing as to the uniform sequence between volitions and their moral antecedents. To hunt through the history of the world for one human act perfectly resembling another, not only in itself, but in the motives which produced it, would be as bootless an undertaking as to take up the challenge of Leibnitz, and seek on an oak tree for two leaves which should be exact counterparts of each other. And yet Mr. Mill claims uniformity of sequence between motives and volitions as "a truth of experience !"

Mr. Mill denies "that we are conscious of being able to act in opposition to the strongest present desire or aversion."

ART. II. THE WANT OF MORAL FORCE IN CHRISTENDOM. By RAY PALMER, D. D., New York.

It is the distinctly declared purpose of God, that this world shall be thoroughly subdued to Christ. The redemption which he wrought out by his mission and sacrificial death, is a redemption whose benefits are equally available for all. The moral forces of his kingdom are adequate to the attainment of an ultimate triumph over all opposition. Though the Prince of Darkness has so long had the ascendancy, and the whole creation under his sway has groaned and travailed in pain together until now, it is as sure as the eternal veracity and power of Almighty God can make it, that the dominion of righteousness and truth shall be established in the earth, and that every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father..

We further understand that this result is not to be brought about by miracle. Those who have themselves believed, the marshalled host of Christian disciples, are charged with the responsibility of pressing the contest between good and evil to an issue, in the power of divine truth and of the Spirit who attends it. None of us liveth to himself. Ye are the

salt of the earth. Ye are the light of the world. Go ye and disciple all nations. It is by the agency of his faithful followers that Christ will set up that kingdom whose essence is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. All this we accept as very familiar truth.

Yet we can not but acknowledge that the work of subjecting the world to the transforming power of the Christian religion has advanced but slowly. It is advancing but slowly now, in comparison with what is possible. It does not advance according to the benevolent wishes of the Saviour, and of those who cordially sympathize with him. It is certainly to be admitted, it is a matter of gratitude and of rejoicing, that in these last days there has appeared somewhat extensively a more vigorous Christian life, and a greater energy of Christian action, than has been seen in previous centuries.

Yet, after all, when we compare what has been done with the numbers and resources of the avowed friends of Christ, we are obliged to own that it seems comparatively little. The forces of the God of this world are also more thoroughly alive and more effectively at work than ever. The reign of sin, it is plain, is not to be surrendered without a desperate resistance at all points. It is impossible to shut one's eyes against the truth, that modern Christendom does greatly need for the work now on its hands a vast increase of moral power. It is on this need that we now propose to dwell.

If the apostle Paul were to-day upon the earth, we can not but conceive that he would pour out all the ardor of his burning soul in asking, for all who are professedly the followers of Christ, that which he asked so fervently for the saints and faithful at Colossi-that they might be filled with the knowledge of Christ's will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; and might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; and might be strengthened with all might according to his glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness. We can not but conceive, in other words, that he would lift up his voice to summon the evangelical church catholic to awake to the grandeur and solemnity of her position, and to rise to an intelligent, practical, progressive and exulting Christian energy.

But in order that we may more definitely understand by what sort of effort, and in what particular manner, this great and most necessary attainment may be made, it may be useful to specify some particular things which it must needs involve.

First of all there is plainly demanded, as an element of augmented power in Christendom-I use the word to denote the collective followers of Christ-a return to apostolic faith. With so much of wealth and learning and popular favor, with so many of the young and gifted and vigorous in the service of the Christian church, or at least embraced in her communion, and with such facilities of all sorts as are now at her command, why is it that the Christian host-the entire bro

therhood of Christ's disciples-is working no more efficiently, and with no larger measure of success? If this question should be put to several intelligent Christians who had bestowed no special attention on the subject, one very probably would answer: For want of Christian unity. Another: For want of higher views of Christian obligation. A third: For want of a better knowledge of the necessities of the world. A fourth: Because of the reign of worldliness in the hearts of Christians. A fifth: Because of the inconsistencies that mar the beauty of Christian example in the church, and neutralize her influence.

But is it not quite evident that these and similar answers by no means go to the bottom of the matter? There is something back of all these things; something that underlies them all. Such specific evils which exist among the professed disciples of Jesus have all one common ground in a far deeper and more generic evil-the evil, we mean, of an unbelieving spirit. In this, undoubtedly, we have the primary cause of moral feebleness. We do not speak, of course, of a positive disbelief, for we are referring now to those who do practically receive Christianity-to truly renewed men. We intend, by an unbelieving spirit, a distrustful, dubious, half-believing temper, to which the vast and solemn realities which Christianity unvails seem more like dreams and shadows than like substantial things; a habit of mind, in regard to the invisible and supernatural, so hesitating, so wanting in strength of apprehension and positiveness of assurance, that it prevents the true impression of divine revelation, and neutralizes, in a measure, the peculiar spiritual influences connected with it. If one will see and feel the sun, there must be no dark clonds to intercept his rays; and the light and the power of the gospel of God's grace lose half their vitalizing efficacy if they must reach the soul through the murky vapors of distrust.

That an almost Sadducean spirit is, outside the church, a special distemper of our time, will be readily admitted. It has existed, indeed, in all times; for it is a characteristic of the natural heart. But there is an instructive history of unbelief in connection with the progress of Christianity; a his

tory which clearly demonstrates the necessity of a certain definite adjustment of faith and reason to each other, in order to the development of a healthful and energetic piety. When faith has disowned reason, and dissevered herself from sound religious knowledge, as in the darkest centuries, she has become transformed into dreamy superstition. When reason has disowned faith, and has refused to recognize the moral instincts and intuitions of the soul, she has ended, as has been seen in our own day, in cutting off humanity from all contact with the supernatural and divine.

The unbelieving spirit, which, within the last half century, has expressed itself in the two forms of a critical and naturalistic rationalism, and a pratically atheistic speculative philosophy, is the most unnatural result of a powerful reaction of the commonsense of mankind against the absurdities and falsehoods of the previous superstition; a reign that literally

"bred

Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,
Gorgons, and Hydras, and chimeras dire!"

Superstition had penetrated the entire mass of mankind; and had infused its spirit, to a greater or less degree, into even those who were most enlightened.

So in its turn the spirit of unbelief has reached, and very sensibly affected, those who profess, and that, too, very sincerely, to receive divine revelation, along with those who question or deny its claims. Compared with the true ideal of what enlightened Christian faith should be; with what that of Paul and John of the primitive Christian martyrs, or even of Huss and Luther actually was, the faith of Christendom to-day is undeniably faltering and weak. It is deficient both in insight and in tenacity of hold. The evil were comparatively slight, were it confined to those who, in part or in whole, are rejectors of Christianity. But is it not, unhappily, too plain, that even the church and the ministry do feel, to a very injurious extent, the influence of the enervating and enfeebling moral atmosphere with which a profoundly unbelieving age surrounds them? This influence, quite likely, in the case of many, is unnoticed. It is too subtle to attract attention to itself.