dispensation was in some respects a failure. Looking at it from the human standpoint, and judging it by its effect on the nation, it did not succeed in securing a general allegiance to the Most High. An undertone of sadness runs through the whole history of the Jews; in that unique example the Old Testament affords of the history of a nation narrated with exclusive reference to its relation to God, the prevailing note is one of complaint, that the favoured race were so stiffnecked as to bring on themselves repeated chastisement, and towards the close of the volume the darkness deepens, and the nation that rejects God is at last cast off by Him. The Jewish dispensation was a preparation for a higher one, "the law was our schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ," and when the only begotten Son was ushered into the world the song of angels was "Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth peace and good will to men." The era of types and ordinances had passed, and the full flood of Gospel light had dawned on mankind.

What evidence does the history of Christendom afford to the strength and purity of this new

revelation? We hear by anticipation the chorus of objections which the infidel phalanx have always urged on this score. We are reminded of the blots that disfigure the history of Christian Europe, of the corruptions of so-called Christian societies and the shameful persecuting practices of so-called Christian governments. Nothing is easier than to heap reproaches on Christianity from the inconsistent lives of its professors; nothing is easier than to draw from the history of Europe, for eighteen hundred years, a host of accusations against that holy religion it so often perverted and parodied. It is a stock subject to contrast the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the horrors of the Inquisition, the cruelties of Philip and Alva, the religious wars of Germany, or, to go further back, the waste and folly of the Crusades, with the misdeeds of heathen nations, and to pretend that the world has been none the better for Christianity; but this reasoning can only impose on the superficial, or serve as an excuse to the wilfully blind.

The writers of the New Testament never led us to expect that evil would be rooted out in these ages, or even that it would be prevented assuming

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portentous dimensions from time to time; indeed

they foretell, with prophetic fire, periods of sad apostasy, when the faith, once delivered to the saints, should be in danger of eclipse, and when outbreaks of human wickedness would overshadow the pure light of Christ; but they lead us to expect, nevertheless, that the candle of true and undefiled religion would never cease to burn, and that in the distant future, probably in a new dispensation, "the knowledge of the Lord would cover the earth as the waters cover the sea." We contend that these anticipations have been strictly fulfilled, and that Christianity has done for the world just what its author predicted it would do. It has kept up in all ages in the hearts cf many a flame of devotion to Christ; it has supplied a never-ending succession of martyrs, who have testified by their blood that they counted not their lives dear unto themselves, so that they might finish their course with joy; it has maintained a deadly struggle with all forms of national wickedness, and has often so impressed the con science of nations, that they have voluntarily relinquished great sources of profit and pleasure

Has not Christianity well-nigh extinguished slavery and polygamy in all nations among which it has come? Has it not stigmatised infanticide and prostitution, which were legalized by some of the most advanced nations of antiquity? Has it not slowly and steadily softened the cruel usages of warfare, and is it not gradually creating a current of public opinion which looks upon all war as barbarous and unchristian? There cannot be a doubt that, just as the religion of Christ has penetrated the life of a nation, it has in that degree purified its laws, and produced a higher civilization; and we maintain that those nations at the present day, in which the Bible is most revered, are exactly those in which the happiness and welfare of mankind have attained their maximum.

It

We hold that those dark crimes which disfigured the middle ages were the result, not of Christianity, but of the suppression of its divine utterance. was when a usurping priesthood proscribed the use of God's word, and substituted a system of man's device for the sacred oracles, that corruption overspread Europe like a flood, and only when the

Holy Volume was unlocked, and its teaching directly brought to bear on the common people, did a moral and spiritual reformation set in. We think modern European history conclusively testifies that Bible teaching, in its strength and integrity, is the only safeguard against widespread corruption and great national misfortunes-and yet, not completely effective-for so impetuous is the current of evil that it cannot be stemmed entirely, and even the most Christian nations invite the rod of correction; and when they will not use the surgeon's knife themselves, a higher hand must I cut out the cancer. Thus it was that slavery was wrenched from America by a bloody war, and thus, it is to be feared, some judgment will overtake us if we do not Christianise and elevate the degraded masses of our great towns. We conclude this side of our subject by the remark, that Christian civilisation, unlike that of antiquity, is essentially progressive. Wherever the good seed of Divine truth is allowed to fulfil its proper function of leavening society, there is a steady progress from age to age, and none of those deplorable relapses the heathen world exhibited.