the receptacle of much that is evil and some that is good, long after the exciting scenes and hardy spirits among whom it arose, have retired from the stage of life. Such is the growth of those diversified organizations, which are at this moment arrogating to themselves, it is to be feared, more of the labor of pious men, than the advance of holiness and the salvation of a perishing world.

Facts in the history of reform seem to be conclusive in this, that little advantage to the moral power of the church, can accrue from increasing the number of our ecclesiastical organizations. It may, indeed, be difficult to prevent it, in the present state of human nature. The bare fact of having in those that now exist, men of great force of intellect or peculiarity of genius, may endanger this result. Ambition may stir up this class of minds to head a party; or they may be driven to it against their will, by the proscriptive policy of those who act against them. The determination of those who live to vindicate present organizations, not to suffer them to be convicted of wrong, or to force their dogmas, unmitigated and unmollified, upon all who chance to fall under their supervision, serves greatly to inflame the tendency to schism. And in most cases, they are more to blame, than those who would bring about a different order of things.

These causes, together with others, are likely to make our own age as remarkable for schism, as any of its predecessors. Nor would this be a cause of regret, provided our nurselings gave promise of growing into more just proportions, than those which have gone before, or of adding essentially to the power of Christianity over the moral decisions of mankind. But it is cause of deep regret,-God knows how much so to the writer of these pages,-that they give little promise of such a result. As to the Disciples and the Latter-day-saints, who have their seat in the valley of the Mississippi, we are sorry to say, neither of them began in any remarkable outpouring of the Spirit, such as originated Methodism; nor in any such conflict of great principles as aroused the genius of Luther; but the one is the offspring of litigation on minor points, while the other is the result of a fraud and chicanery, almost without a parallel in the history of party. And though we concede to the Oberlin friends in Northern Ohio, to the Unionists in central New York and to kindred parties, the merit of a sincere desire to improve the piety and power of the church, yet, the dogmas or principles for which they are contending, are just as susceptible of being seized by a selfish heart, and turned to the advantage of building up a worldly institution, as those in which any other party took its rise. The pros

pect is, that some of these parties will exist, long after the piety of their founders shall have been utterly extinguished from their altars.

We must not be understood to intimate, that the creation of a new party is never admissible; for this would impeach the conduct of our Saviour and his apostles, as also that of the reformers, who have wrought so glorious a work for mankind. But it is questionable whether it can be justified in the present state of Protestant Christianity; for it is far from being so deplorable, as that of the Jewish and Gentile nations in the time of Christ, or of the Romish church in the time of Luther. The leaders of existing organizations ought to have sense and piety enough to consider, that they were framed in a darker period than our own, and by men who had hardly yet shaken off the slumbers of a thousand year's night in the deep superstitions of Romanism; that they took their peculiar form and characteristics from circumstances that have ceased to exist; that in some cases their piety has deteriorated since their formation, and that therefore, they need to pass under the hand of an enlightened Christian reform. Why then repel such a process, and drive those who attempt it into schism?

Besides, brethren whose light is in advance of their age, should do their utmost to scatter it

abroad, in a way to make it as diffusive as possible. Would it not be infinitely better to diffuse it among all God's children, than to leave it as the exclusive property of a sect? Do they not all need it? Is not a tendency to schism among the most serious obstructions to the moral power of the church? Shall we then indulge it? Let us rather seek for peace and things wherewith one may edify another.

CHAPTER IX.

ON AN ELEMENTARY AND CRITICAL VIEW OF THE WORK TO BE ACCOMPLISHED, IN ITS CONSUMMATION AND IN THE SEVERAL STAGES OF ITS PROGRESS, AS A MEANS OF INCREASING OUR POWER FOR ITS ACCOMPLISHMENT.

WITHOUT clear ideas of what we have to do, how can we acquire efficiency in doing it? We have spoken of our work in the general terms, of making men good, converting them to holiness, building up holiness in the world; as a regeneration, a sanctification and final salvation. But as Lord Bacon observes, "syllogisms consist of propositions, propositions of words, words are signs of notions; if therefore our notions are confused and do not answer to things all our reasonings are baseless." The thing itself in its specific elements, which the Bible makes essential to salvation, or the analytical properties of that change without which our adorable Saviour would fail to see the travail of his soul, must be understood, both as a security against fallacious reasoning and as a guide to our proceeding in the