country through the dangers of the present. The ruin of ancient Greece was the prevalence of the doctrine of State Rights over the sentiment of nationality. The cry of the demagogue, appealing to the local and the sectional, drowned the calm voice of the statesman and patriot pleading for Union. Hence arose secessions, convulsions, anarchies, destruction. Terrible and monitory, indeed, is the picture history draws of the universal chaos of passion and blood into which the most civilized spot on the globe was plunged by the fire-eaters and destructives of that day. Such an anarchy did the secessionists of 1860 anticipate when they drew upon our maps their programme of the various republics into which we were to break. The correspondent purpose of our northern Copperheads (for no epithet is too bad for such a "generation of vipers ") is well illustrated by the Mayor's message of Fernando Wood, proposing that the city of New York should secede and declare herself independent.

Few minds in our country are able to bring the lessons of classic ages and of Platonic philosophy to bear upon the practic affairs of our day with a subtler skill or profounder wisdom th Dr. Lewis. Mr. Greeley has said that his genius will be bette appreciated by the future than by his cotemporaries. But w have cause to know that both in England and America there is an increasing number who realize the originality of his thought and the beauty of his style. We cannot, however, agree with him in naming Daniel Webster as the type of a true conservatism.

ARTICLES DECLINED.—We are obliged to say that our editorial drawer contains nearly thrice as many articles as our pages can accommodate. Many must therefore be, to our regret, excluded, not from their own unfitness, but from an arithmetical impossibility of finding room. Writers must not, therefore, consider exclusion as synonymous with condemnation; nor must impatience be indulged by others at delay of insertion. The only remedy for the difficulty is the enlarging our Quarterly to double its present size, which we promise shall be done as soon as our subscription list can be doubled. The way to accomplish this is for its friends at the coming Annual Conferences to take measures for obtaining twice as many subscribers as each conference now affords. Shall it be done?

THE

METHODIST QUARTERLY REVIEW.

JULY, 1865.

ART. I. THE GREEK CHURCH, CONSIDERED PARTICULARLY IN ITS RELATION TO THE LATIN.

[ARTICLE FIRST.]

PROTESTANTISM, as the name indicates, was necessitated by the assumptions and corruptions of Romanism. Its existence - began with a protest. During the intervening centuries it has earnestly maintained the same attitude. In consequence it has been excommunicated by the Roman Church, branded as schismatic, and persecuted. In this close and constant antagonism the Roman Church has held such prominence as to absorb the view of the West, so that Protestants have scarcely recognized the existence of the Eastern or Greek Church, and have by no means appreciated the importance of this Eastern ally, equally determined in its antagonism toward the Roman hierarchy. But now, if not hitherto, the Greek Church has reached a position that commands recognition. Retaining her ancient faith and forms, her numbers have increased, and her territory has enlarged; and she has the leadership of one of the mightiest nations in the earth. Russia is the protector and champion of the Greek Church, just at the time that another European nation, through its emperor, Louis Napoleon, has proposed to lead the Latin race in its development westward across the ocean to Mexico, and eastward into Syria and Asia, and Africa if possible, and so, with the spread of empire, propagate the Roman religion. This phrase, "Latin race,” is FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XVII.-21

intended simply to designate "those nations whose languages are derived from the Latin, and who profess the Catholic faith."

In proof of this Napoleonic proposition we have the emperor's letter of July 3, 1862, to General Forey, commander-in-chief of the French army in Mexico. And in illustration of its significance, the Vienna Presse contains a curious article on the Mexican movement, from which we make the following extracts:

The Mexican monarchy is intended not only to react against the Anglo-Saxon race and the democratic ideas of Northern America, but also against American Protestantism. Hence the immense enthusiasm with which the clerical party of both hemispheres has welcomed the advent of Maximilian I. By the erection of this throne Napoleon III. has rendered an immense service to the Church, and this service is so highly appreciated by the Court of Rome that important concessions have been made therefor to the French government.

[Among these] the Abbé Lucien Bonaparte, long a resident of Rome, and the cameriere of the pope, is to be elevated to the rank of cardinal. The Prince Lucien would then be eligible to the papacy, and upon the death of Pius IX. the conclave assembles under the protection of French bayonets. How can he help standing a very good chance for election? Pius IX. can thus await the end of his days in peace. If a Bonaparte mounts the pontifical throne, the papacy and its temporal possessions are safe.

Now Russia competes with France in power and policy, and so the Greek Church confronts the Latin with renewed vigor, and with an advantage which she has never before possessed. If the Greek Church has been believed to be effete and despoiled of influence, it is time to understand, on the contrary, that it is one of the great religious powers of the world, possessing a membership of nearly 100,000,000, surpassing in extent of territory the Protestant Churches combined, and rivaling even Rome itself, spreading over a large portion of Europe, and into Asia, and Africa, and North America, and the islands of the Eastern Seas, extending from the frozen regions to the tropics, from Kamschatka to Abyssinia, and from the Adriatic Gulf to Southern India.

If it has been supposed to be identical with the papacy it is time to correct the error, for with the intensity of its whole life it discards popery. And while Protestantism is threatened by the tide of Romanism setting westward, from the east there is a mighty counter tide breaking against the barriers of Rome.

This great Eastern Church, claiming orthodoxy, possessing points of sympathy with Protestantism, awaking as it is from its past lethargy, "can hardly fail," as has been well said by a careful observer, "to occupy a very large portion of the territory of Asia, and to become the predominant Church in all Northern and Western, and perhaps the larger portion of Central Asia."

As late even as 1863 the northern and the southern powers of Europe were contending in Greece for this specific prize, ecclesiastical control, the success of the Western or the Eastern Church, the Latin or the Greek. And in the war of the Crimea Russia and France were especial champions of the Church, never losing sight of ecclesiastical interest, as hostile in their religious as their political policy, fighting not so much for Turkey or the Crimea as for the command of the Holy Sepulcher and its related influences. This incident, or rather ground of the contest, though often misunderstood, is full of importance. But to this point we may refer hereafter.

The recent war in Poland turned upon this very issue. It was only the revival of the long contest between Catholic Poland and Orthodox Russia. In this instance the Roman hierarchy, by a shrewd but unusual policy, arrayed itself with the people against the Russian government. From the earliest defeat of Poland the priests have encouraged the hopes of a final restoration of a Catholic Poland, and urged secession from heretical Russia, and fanned the embers of revolt. Poland, as is well known, was converted to Christianity by a Roman mission, while Russia was the convert of the Greek Church. Poland, pushed on by aggressive Catholicism, strove to subdue Russia, and well nigh succeeded. And ever since her grand idea has been, "Restoration to her ancient limits; a great swaying Catholic Poland."

The antagonism of the Eastern Church unflinchingly resisted the ambitious encroachment of the West, and Russia was rescued from the grasp of the papacy. It was a crisis in the life of the Christian Church, and the providence is one of the most marked in history. Had Rome gained Russia Romanism would have overspread the world. If, then, the papal assumption of God's vicegerency is antichrist-an assumption against which we protest and contend-then we owe a debt to the Eastern Church

which we have been slow to appreciate or even acknowledge. The Eastern Church has rendered another important service. It refutes the papal assumption that "the Roman is the true and only apostolic Church." Hitherto, before the Eastern had become distinctively Greek and the Western Church Roman, the East and the West were united in one communion. The councils, although Eastern and occasioned by Eastern heresies, were general. Their decisions were received in the West as readily as in the East. The antiquity of the Eastern Church is more than venerable; it is really and unquestionably apostolic. Made the depositary of the Gospel which the apostles wrote, not in Latin, but in Greek, which was the language of Christendom; in the midst of the very Churches which they had founded, the Eastern Church transmitted the light from Asia to Europe. "The early Roman Church was but a colony of Christian or Grecised Jews." The very birthplace, growth, and history of Christianity furnish a perpetual witness that the Western is the offspring rather than the parent Church. Armies of martyrs and noble confessors from the Eastern Church had consecrated their lives to planting the Gospel in Egypt, and Syria, and Asia Minor, and along the Levantine Sea, and westward in Europe, and building up the Church of Christ east and west as true apostolic successors; yet nowhere had any portion of the Church east or west arrogated to itself the claim of exclusive apostolic succession. Indeed the claim of Rome was only an afterthought. Jerusalem and not Rome was the parent Church. James and not Peter ministered to this mother of the Churches. If Rome ever enjoyed the presence of Peter, which is extremely doubtful, Jerusalem, Antioch, and other Churches enjoyed the presence of all the apostles. Even when John the Faster, Patriarch of Constantinople in the sixth century, assumed the title of universal bishop, the first Gregory, Bishop of Rome, utterly condemned the arrogance in another and disclaimed it for himself. When Eulogius, Patriarch of Alexandria, in his letter to Gregory, declared that he had refused to address the Patriarch of Constantinople by the title of universal bishop, adding, "as you ordered me," Gregory thus wrote in return: "I pray you to use the term ordered no more. I know who I am and who you are, my brother in position, my father in character. I ordered nothing,