possible latitude of interpretation, be made to extend to it. The duty of forbearance, then, is antecedent to all considerations respecting the condition of man; aud whether he be under the protection of laws or not, the duty of forbearance is imposed. tions, even moderately accurate, between defensive war and war for other purposes. Supposing, the Christian Scriptures had said, An army may fight in its own defence, but not for any other purpose.-Whoever will attempt to apply this rule in practice, will find that he has a very wide The only truth which appears to be elicited by the present argument is, that the difficulty of obey-range of justifiable warfare; a range that will em ing the forbearing rules of Christianity, is greater in the case of nations than in the case of individuals: The obligation to obey them is the same in both. Nor let any one urge the difficulty of obedience in opposition to the duty; for he who does this, has yet to learn one of the most awful rules of his religion-a rule that was enforced by the precepts, and more especially by the final example, of Christ, of apostles and of martyrs-the rule which requires that we should be "obedient even unto death." Let it not, however, be supposed that we believe the difficulty of forbearance would be great in practice as it is great in theory. Our interests are commonly promoted by the fulfilment of our duties; and we hope hereafter to show, that the fulfilment of the duty of forbearance forms no exception to the applicability of the rule. The intelligent reader will have perceived that the "War" of which we speak is all war, without reference to its objects, whether offensive or defensive. In truth, respecting any other than defensive war, it is scarcely worth while to entertain a question, since no one with whom we are concerned to reason will advocate its opposite. Some persons indeed talk with much complacency of their reprobation of offensive war. Yet to reprobate no more than this, is only to condemn that which wickedness itself is not wont to justify. Even those who practise offensive war, affect to veil its nature by calling it by another name. In conformity with this, we find that it is to defence that the peaceable precepts of Christianity are directed. Offence appears not to have even suggested itself. It is, "Resist not evil :" it is, "Overcome evil with good:" it is, "Do good to them that hate you:" it is, "Love your enemies: "it is, "Render not evil for evil" it is, "Unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek." All this supposes previous offence, or injury, or violence; and it is then that forbearance is enjoined. It is common with those who justify defensive war, to identify the question with that of individual self-defence; and although the questions are in practice sufficiently dissimilar, it has been seen that we object not to their being regarded as identical. The Rights of Self-Defence have already been discussed, and the conclusions to which the Moral Law appears to lead, afford no support to the advocate of war. We say the questions are practically dissimilar; so that if we had a right to kill a man in self-defence, very few wars would be shown to be lawful. Of the wars which are prosecuted, some are simply wars of aggression; some are for the maintenance of a balance of power; some are in assertion of technical rights; and some, undoubtedly, to repel invasion. The last are perhaps the fewest; and of these only it can be said that they bear any analogy whatever to the case which is supposed; and even in these, the analogy is seldom complete. It has rarely indeed happened that wars have been undertaken simply for the preservation of life, and that no other alternative has remained to a people than to kill, or to be killed. And let it be remembered, that unless this alternative alone remains, the case of individual selfdefence is irrelevant: it applies not, practically, to the subject. But indeed you cannot in practice make distinc brace many more wars, than moralists, laxer than we shall suppose him to be, are willing to defend. If an army may fight in defence of their own lives, they may, and they must fight in defence of the lives of others: if they may fight in defence of the lives of others, they will fight in defence of their property: if in defence of property, they will fight in defence of political rights: if in defence of rights, they will fight in promotion of interests: if in promotion of interests, they will fight in promotion of their glory and their crimes. Now let any man of honesty look over the gradations by which we arrive at this climax, and I believe he will find that, in practice, no curb can be placed upon the conduct of an army until they reach that climax. There is, indeed, a wide distance between fighting in defence of life, and fighting in furtherance of our crimes; but the steps which lead from one to the other will follow in inevitable succession. I know that the letter of our rule excludes it, but I know that the rule will be a letter only. It is very easy for us to sit in our studies, and to point the commas, and semicolons, and periods of the soldier's career: it is very easy for us to say, he shall stop at defence of life, or at protection of property, or at the support of rights; but armies will never listen to us: we shall be only the Xerxes of morality, throwing our idle chains into the tempestuous ocean of slaughter. What is the testimony of experience? When nations are mutually exasperated, and armies are levied, and battles are fought, does not every one know that with whatever motives of defence one party may have begun the contest, both, in turn, become aggressors? In the fury of slaughter, soldiers do not attend, they cannot attend, to questions of aggression. Their business is destruction, and their business they will perform. If the army of defence obtains success, it soon becomes an army of aggression. Having repelled the invader, it begins to punish him. If a war has once begun, it is vain to think of distinctions of aggression and defence. Moralists may talk of distinctions, but soldiers will make none; and none can be made; it is without the limits of possibility. Indeed, some of the definitions of defensive or of just war which are proposed by moralists, indicate how impossible it is to confine warfare within any assignable limits. "The objects of just war," says Paley, are precaution, defence, or reparation."Every just war supposes an injury perpetrated, attempted, or feared." 66 I shall acknowledge, that if these be justifying motives to war, I see very little purpose in talking of morality upon the subject. It is in vain to expatiate on moral obligations, if we are at liberty to declare war whenever an “injury is feared:"- an injury, without limit to its insignificance! a fear, without stipulation for its reasonableness! The judges, also, of the reasonableness of fear, are to be they who are under its influence; and who so likely to judge amiss as those who are afraid? Sounder philosophy than this has told us, that "he who has to reason upon his duty when the temptation to transgress it is before him, is almost sure to reason himself into an error.' Violence, and Rapine, and Ambition, are not to be restrained by morality like this. It may serve for the speculations of a study; but we will venture te affirm, that mankind will never be controlled by it. Moral rules are useless, if, from their own nature they cannot be, or will not be applied. Who believes that if kings and conquerors may fight when they have fears, they will not fight when they have them not? The morality allows too much latitude to the passions, to retain any practical restraint upon them. And a morality that will not be practised, I had almost said, that cannot be practised, is an useless morality. It is a theory of morals. We want clearer and more exclusive rules; we want more obvious and immediate sanctions. It were in vain for a philosopher to say to a general who was burning for glory," You are at liberty to engage in the war provided you have suffered, or fear you will suffer an injury-otherwise Christianity prohibits it." He will tell him of twenty injuries that have been suffered, of a hundred that have been attempted, and of a thousand that he fears. And what answer can the philosopher make to him? If these are the proper standards of just war, there will be little difficulty in proving any war to be just, except, indeed, that of simple aggression; and by the rules of this morality, the aggressor is difficult of discovery, for he whom we choose to "fear," may say that he had previous "fear" of vs, and that his "fear" prompted the hostile symptoms which made us "fear" again. The truth is, that to attempt to make any distinctions upon the subject is vain. War must be wholly forbidden, or allowed without restriction to defence; for no definitions of lawful and unlawful war, will be, or can be attended to. If the principles of Christianity, in any case, or for any purpose, allow armies to meet and to slaughter one another, her principles will never conduct us to the period which prophecy has assured us they shall produce. There is no hope of an eradication of war, but by an absolute and total abandonment of it. OF THE PROBABLE PRACTICAL EFFECTS OF ADHERING TO THE MORAL LAW IN RESPECT TO WAR. We have seen that the duties of the religion which God has imparted to mankind require irresistance; and surely it is reasonable to hope, even without a reference to experience, that he will make our irresistance subservient to our interests: that if, for the purpose of conforming to his will, we subject ourselves to difficulty or danger, he will protect us in our obedience, and direct it to our benefit: that if he requires us not to be concerned in war, he will preserve us in peace: that he will not desert those who have no other protection, and who have abandoned all other protection because they confide in His alone. This we may reverently hope; yet it is never to be forgotten that our apparent interests in the present life are sometimes, in the economy of God, made subordinate to our interests in futurity. Yet, even in reference only to the present state of existence, I believe we shall find that the testimony of experience is, that forbearance is most conducive to our interests. There is practical truth in the position, that "When a man's ways please the Lord," he "maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him." The reader of American history will recollect, that in the beginning of the last century a desultory and most dreadful warfare was carried on by the natives against the European settlers; a warfare that was provoked-as such warfare has almost always originally been-by the injuries and violence 66 of the Christians. The mode of destruction was secret and sudden. The barbarians sometimes lay in wait for those who might come within their reach, on the highway or in the fields, and shot them without warning: and sometimes they attacked the Europeans in their houses, scalping some, and knocking out the brains of others." From this horrible warfare the inhabitants sought safety by abandoning their homes, and retiring to fortified places, or to the neighbourhood of garrisons; and those whom necessity still compelled to pass beyond the limits of such protection, provided themselves with arms for their defence. But amidst this dreadful desolation and universal terror, the Society of Friends, who were a considerable portion of the whole population, were steadfast to their principles. They would neither retire to garrisons, nor provide themselves with arms. They remained openly in the country, whilst the rest were flying to the forts. They still pursued their occupations in the fields or at their homes, without a weapon either for annoyance or defence. And what was their fate? lived in security and quiet. The habitation which, to his armed neighbour, was the scene of murder and of the scalping-knife, was to the unarmed Quaker a place of safety and of peace. They Thre of the Society were however killed. And who were they? They were three who abandoned their principles. Two of these victims were men who, in the simple language of the narrator, “used to go to their labour without any weapons, and trusted to the Almighty, and depended on His providence to protect them, (it being their principle not to use weapons of war to offend others, or to defend themselves;) but a spirit of distrust taking place in their minds, they took weapons of war to defend themselves, and the Indians, who had seen them several times without them and let them alone, saying they were peaceable men and hurt nobody, therefore they would not hurt them-now seeing them have guns, and supposing they designed to kill the Indians, they therefore shot the men dead." The third whose life was sacrificed was a woman, who" had remained in her habitation," not thinking herself warranted in going " to a fortified place for preservation, neither she, her son, nor daughter, nor to take thither the little ones; but the poor woman after some time began to let in a slavish fear, and advised her children to go with her to a fort not far from their dwelling." She went ;—and shortly afterwards "the bloody, cruel Indians, lay by the way, and killed her."* The fate of the Quakers during the Rebellion in Ireland was nearly similar. It is well known that the Rebellion was a time not only of open war but of cold-blooded murder; of the utmost fury of bigotry, and the utmost exasperation of revenge. Yet the Quakers were preserved even to a proverb; and when strangers passed through streets of ruin and observed a house standing uninjured and alone, they would sometimes point, and say," That, doubtless, is the house of a Quaker.”+ So complete indeed was the preservation which these people experienced, that in an official document of the Society they say, "no member of our society fell a sacrifice but one young man;"-and that young man had assumed regimentals and arms.‡ It were to no purpose to say, in opposition to the evidence of these facts, that they form an exception to a general rule.-The exception to the rule con • See Select Anecdotes, &c. by John Barclay, pages 71, 79. The Moravians, whose principles upon the subject of war are similar to those of the Quakers, experienced also similar preservation. See Hancock's Principles of Peace Exemplified. sists in the trial of the experiment of non-resistance, not in its success. Neither were it to any purpose to say, that the savages of America or the desperadoes of Ireland, spared the Quakers because they were previously known to be an unoffending people, or because the Quakers had previously gained the love of these by forbearance or good offices :-we concede all this; it is the very argument which we maintain. We say, that an uniform, undeviating regard to the peaceable obligations of Christianity, becomes the safeguard of those who practise it. We venture to maintain, that no reason whatever can be assigned, why the fate of the Quakers would not be the fate of all who should adopt their conduct. No reason can be assigned why, if their number had been multiplied tenfold or a hundred-fold, they would not have been preserved. If there be such a reason, let us hear it. The American and Irish Quakers were, to the rest of the community, what one nation is to a continent. And we must require the advo vages who knew they were unarmed. If easiness of conquest, or incapability of defence, could subject them to outrage, the Pennsylvanians might have been the very sport of violence. Plunderers might have robbed them without retaliation, and armies might have slaughtered them without resistance. If they did not give a temptation to outrage, no temptation could be given. But these were the people who possessed their country in security, whilst those around them were trembling for their existence. This was a land of peace, whilst every other was a land of war. The conclusion is inevitable, although it is extraordinary: they were in no need of arms, because they would not use them. These Indians were sufficiently ready to commit outrages upon other States, and often visited them with desolation and slaughter; with that sort of desolation, and that sort of slaughter, which might be expected from men whom civilization had not reclaimed from cruelty, and whom religion had not awed into forbearance. "But whatever the quarrels of the Pennsylvanian Indians were with others, they uniformly respected and held as it were sacred, the territories of William Penn.* The Pennsylvanians never lost man, woman, or child by them; which neither the colony of Maryland, nor that of Virginia could say, no more than the great colony of New England."† cate of war to produce (that which has never yet been produced) a reason for believing, that although individuals exposed to destruction were preserved, a nation exposed to destruction would be destroyed. We do not however say, that if a people, in the customary state of men's passions, should be assailed by an invader, and should, on a sudden, choose to declare that they would try whether Providence would protect them-of such a people, we do not say that The security and quiet of Pennsylvania was not they would experience protection, and that none of a transient freedom from war, such as might acci. them would be killed: but we say, that the evidence dentally happen to any nation. She continued to of experience is, that a people who habitually regard enjoy it" for more than seventy years," and "subthe obligations of Christianity in their conduct to- sisted in the midst of six Indian nations, without so wards other men, and who steadfastly refuse, through much as a militia for her defence. §" "The Pennwhatever consequences, to engage in acts of hosti-sylvanians became armed, though without arms lity, will experience protection in their peacefulness: -And it matters nothing to the argument, whether we refer that protection to the immediate agency of Providence, or to the influence of such conduct upon the minds of men." Such has been the experience of the unoffending and unresisting, in individual life. A National ex. ample of a refusal to bear arms, has only once been exhibited to the world: but that one example has proved, so far as its political circumstances enabled it to prove, all that humanity could desire and all that scepticism could demand, in favour of our argu ment. It has been the ordinary practice of those who have colonized distant countries, to force a footing, or to maintain it, with the sword. One of the first objects has been to build a fort and to provide a military. The adventurers became soldiers, and the colony was a garrison. Pennsylvania was however colonized by men who believed that war was absolutely incompatible with Christianity, and who therefore resolved not to practise it. Having determined not to fight, they maintained no soldiers and possessed no arms. They planted themselves in a country that was surrounded by savages, and by sa • Ramond, in his "Travels in the Pyrenees," fell in from time to time with those desperate marauders who infest the boundaries of Spain and Italy-men who are familiar with danger and robbery and blood. What did experience teach him was the most efficient means of preserving himself from injury? To go unarmed." He found that he had "little to apprehend, from men whom we inspire with no distrust or envy, and every thing to expect in those from whom we claim only what is due from man to man. The laws of nature still exist for those who have long shaken off the law of civil government." ."-" The assassin has been my guide in the defiles of the boundaries of Italy; the smuggler of the Pyrenees has received me with a welcome in his secret paths. Armed, I should have been the enemy of both: unarmed, they have alike respected me. In such expectation I have long since laid aside all menacing apparatus whatever. Arms irritate the wicked and in. timidate the simple: the man of peace amongst mankind has a much more sacred defence-his character." | they became strong, though without strength; they became safe, without the ordinary means of safety. The constable's staff was the only instrument of authority amongst them for the greater part of a century, and never, during the administration of Penn, or that of his proper successors, was there a quarrel or a war." || I cannot wonder that these people were not molested-extraordinary and unexampled as their security was. There is something so noble in this perfect confidence in the Supreme Protector, in this utter exclusion of "slavish fear," in this voluntary relinquishment of the means of injury or of defence, that I do not wonder that even ferocity could be disarmed by such virtue. A people, generously living without arms, amidst nations of warriors! would attack a people such as this?. There are few men so abandoned as not to respect such confidence. It were a peculiar and an unusual intensity of wickedness that would not even revere it. Who amidst surrounding broils and slaughter, was selected as a land of security and peace. The only national opportunity which the virtue of the Christian world has afforded us, of ascertaining the safety of relying upon God for defence, has determined that it is safe. If the evidence which we possess do not satisfy us of the expediency of confiding in God, what evidence do we ask, or what can we receive? We have his promise that he will protect those who abandon their seeming interests in the performance of his will; and we have the testimony of those who have confided in him, that he has protected them. Can the advocate of war produce one single instance in the history of man, of a person who had given an unconditional obedience to the will of Heaven, and who did not find that his conduct was wise as well as virtuous, that it accorded with his interests as well as with his duty. We ask the same question in relation to the peculiar obligations to irresistance. Where is the man who regrets, that, in observance of the forbearing duties of Christianity, he consigned his preservation to the superintendence of God?-And the solitary national example that is before us, confirms the testimony of private life; for there is sufficient reason for believing, that no nation, in modern ages, has possessed so large a portion of virtue or of happiness, as Pennsylvania before it had seen human blood. I would therefore repeat the question-What evidence do we ask or can we receive? This is the point from which we wander :-WE DO NOT BELIEVE IN THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD. When this statement is formally made to us, we think, perhaps that it is not true; but our practice is an evidence of its truth; for if we did believe, we should also confide in it, and should be willing to stake upon it the consequences of our obedience. We can talk with sufficient fluency of "trusting in Providence ;" but in the application of it to our conduct in life, we know wonderfully little. Who is it that confides in Providence, and for what does he trust him? Does his confidence induce him to set aside his own views of interest and safety, and simply to obey precepts which appear inexpedient and unsafe? This is the confidence that is of value, and of which we know so little. There are many who believe that war is disallowed by Christianity, and who would rejoice that it were for ever abolished; but there are few who are willing to maintain an undaunted and unyielding stand against it. They can talk of the loveliness of peace, ay, and argue against the lawfulness of war; but when difficulty or suffering would be the consequence, they will not refuse to do what they know to be unlawful, they will not practise the peacefulness which they say they admire. Those who are ready to sustain the consequences of undeviating obedience, are the supporters of whom Christianity stands in need. She wants men who are willing to suffer for her principles. The positions, then, which we have endeavoured to establish are these I. That those considerations which operate as general Causes of War, are commonly such as Christianity condemns: II. That the Effects of War are, to a very great extent, prejudicial to the moral character of a people, and to their social and political welfare: III. That the General Character of Christianity is wholly incongruous with war, and that its General Duties are incompatible with it: "The dread of being destroyed by our enemies if we do not go to war with them, is a plain and unequivocal proof of our disbelief in the superintendence of Divine Providence."The Lawfulness of Defensive War impartially considered. By a Member of the Church of England. IV. That some of the express Precepts and Declarations of the Christian Scriptures virtually forbid it : V. That the Primitive Christians believed that Christ had forbidden War: and that some of them suffered death in affirmance of this belief: VI. That God has declared, in Prophecy, that it is His will that war should eventually be eradicated from the earth; and that this eradication will be effected by Christianity, by the influence of its present Principles: VII. That those who have refused to engage in War, in consequence of their belief of its inconsistency with Christianity, have found that Providence has protected them. Now, we think that the establishment of any considerable number of these positions is sufficient for our argument. The establishment of the whole forms a body of Evidence, to which I am not able to believe that an enquirer, to whom the subject was new, would be able to withhold his assent. But siuce such an enquirer cannot be found, I would invite the reader to lay prepossession aside, to suppose himself to have now first heard of battles and slaughter, and dispassionately to examine whether the evidence in favour of Peace be not very great, and whether the objections to it bear any proportion to the evidence itself. But whatever may be the determination upon this question, surely it is reasonable to try the experiment, whether security cannot be maintained without slaughter. Whatever be the reasons for war, it is certain that it produces enormous mischief. Even waiving the obligations of Christianity, we have to choose between evils that are certain and evils that are doubtful; between the actual endurance of a great calamity, and the possibility of a less. It certainly cannot be proved, that Peace would not be the best policy; and since we know that the present system is bad, it were reasonable and wise to try whether the other is not better. In reality I can scarcely conceive the possibility of a greater evil than that which mankind now endure; an evil, moral and physical, of far wider extent, and far greater intensity, than our familiarity with it allows us to suppose. If a system of Peace be not productive of less evil than the system of war, its consequences must indeed be enormously bad; that it would produce such consequences, we have no warrant for believing, either from reason or from practice-either from the principles of the moral government of God, or from the experience of mankind. Whenever a people shall pursue, steadily and uniformly, the pacific morality of the gospel, and shall do this from the pure motive of obedience, there is no reason to fear for the consequences: there is no reason to fear that they would experience any evils such as we now endure, or that they would not find that Christianity understands their interest better than themselves; and that the surest, and the only rule of wisdom, of safety, and of expediency, is to maintain her spirit in every circumstance of life. and "There is reason to expect," says Dr Johnson, "that as the world is more enlightened, policy and morality will at last be reconciled." When this enlightened period shall arrive, we shall be approaching, and we shall not till then approach, that era of purity and of peace, when "violence shall no more be heard in our land-wasting nor destruction within our borders;"-that era in which God has promised that "they shall not hurt nor destroy in all • Falkland's Islands. his holy mountain." That a period like this will come, I am not able to doubt: I believe it, because it is not credible that he will always endure the butchery of man by man; because he has declared that he will not endure it; and because I think there is a perceptible approach of that period in which ho will say " It is enough." In this belief the Christian may rejoice; he may rejoice that the number is increasing of those who are asking"Shall the sword devour for ever?" and of those who, whatever be the opinions or the practice of others, are openly saying, "I am for Peace."t It will perhaps be asked, what then are the duties of a subject who believes that all war is incompatible with his religion, but whose governors engage in a war and demand his service? We answer explicitly, It is his duty, mildly and temperately, yet firmly, to refuse to serve. Let such as these remember, that an honourable and an awful duty is laid upon them. It is upon their fidelity, so far as human agency is concerned, that the Cause of Peace is suspended. Let them then be willing to avow their opinions and to defend them. Neither let them be contented with words, if more than words, if suffering also, is required. It is only by the unyielding fidelity of virtue that corruption can be extirpated. If you believe that Jesus Christ has prohibited slaughter, let not the opinions or the commands of a world induce you to join in it. By this "steady and determinate pursuit of virtue," the benediction which attaches to those who hear the sayings of God and do them, will rest upon you; and the time will come when even the world will honour you, as contributors to the work of Human Reformation. CONCLUSION. THAT hope which was intimated at the commencement of this volume-that a period of greater moral purity would eventually arrive-has sometimes operated as an encouragement to the writer, in enforcing the obligations of morality to an extent which few who have written such books have ventured to advocate. In exhibiting a standard of rectitude such as that which it has been attempted to exhibit here-a standard to which not many in the present day are willing to conform, and of which many would willingly dispute the authority, some encouragement was needed; and no human encouragement could be so efficient as that which consisted in the belief, that the principles would progressively; obtain more and more of the concurrence and adop tion of mankind. Lamentations over the happiness or excellence of other times, have generally very little foundation in justice or reason. In truth they cannot be just, because they are perpetual. There has probably never been an age in which mankind have not bewailed the good times that were departed, and made mournful comparisons of them with their own. If these regrets had not been ill-founded, the world must have perpetually sunk deeper and deeper in wickedness, and retired further and further towards intellectual night. But the intellectual sun has been visibly advancing towards its noon; and I believe there never was a period in which, speaking collectively of the species, the power of religion was greater than it is now: at least there never was a period in which greater efforts were made to diffuse the influence of religion amongst mankind. Men are to be judged of by their fruits; and why should men thus more vigorously exert themselves to make others religious, if the power of religion did not possess increased influence upon their own minds! The increase of crime--even if it increased in a progression more rapid than that of populatior, and the state of society which gives rise to crime-is a very imperfect standard of judgment. Those of fences of which civil laws take cognizance, form not an hundredth part of the wickedness of the world. What multitudes are there of bad men who never yet were amenable to the laws! How extensive may be the additional purity without any diminution of legal crimes! And assuredly there is a perceptible advance in the sentiments of good men towards a higher standard of morality. The lawfulness is frequently questioned now of actions of which, a few ages ago, few or none doubted the rectitude. Nor is it to be disputed, that these questions are resulting more and more in the conviction, that this higher standard is proposed and enforced by the Moral Law of God. Who that considers these things will hastily affirm, that doctrines in morality which refer to a standard that to him is new, are unfounded in this Moral Law? Who will think it sufficient, to say that strange things are brought to his ears? Who will satisfy himself with the exclamation, These are hard sayings, who can hear them? Strange things must be brought to the cars of those who have not been accustomed to hear the truth. Hard sayings must be heard by those who have not hitherto practised the purity of morality, Such considerations, I say, have afforded encouragement in the attempt to uphold a standard which the majority of mankind have been little accustomed to contemplate ;-and now, and in time to come, they will still suffice to encourage, although that standard should be, as by many it undoubtedly will be, rejected and contemned. I am conscious of inadequacy—what if I speak the truth and say, I am conscious of unworthiness— thus to attempt to advocate the Law of God. Let no man identify the advocate with the Cause, lations with some men-respecting "human perfectability." In the sense in which this phrase is usually employed, I fear there is little hope of the perfection of man; at least there is little hope, if Christianity be true. Christianity declares that man is not perfectible except by the immediate assistance of God; and this immediate assistance the advocates of "human perfectability" are not wont to expect. The question, in the sense in which it is ordinarily exhibited, is in reality a question of the truth of Christianity. "This humour of complaining proceeds from the frailty of our natures; it being natural for man to complain of the present, and to commend the times past."-Sir Josiah Child, 1665. This was one hundred and fifty years ago. The same frailty appears to have subsisted two or three thousands of years before: "Say not thou what is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this."-Eccles. vii. 10. |