one is living under the dominion of some single motive, some ruling principle or predominating passion, which gives concentration of purpose and a well-defined shape to human life. With them existence has a plan and an object, and towards the goal in view each one passes on with the bearing of a hero. These ascendant motives, these principles of action, are various in moral complexion. Patriotism, burning intensely as a furnace with self-consuming flame, ardently striving to secure the freedom of men. Ambition goading on until the possessed subject is ready to wade through rivers and oceans of blood, to attain the cold and solitary eminence beyond-ready to sink the pillars of a despotic empire among the ashes of millions-the ruins of the race. Philanthropy going forth as a ministering angel through hovels of sin and suffering, where the unfortunate, the diseased, the guilty, and the miserable languish out life in company, and seek death in communion of prayer. Avarice, a yellow, smoke-dried, withered fiend, as grasping as the grave, and more revolting, shutting up the bowels of mercy, and turning into stone the heart of the worshipper. But however diversified the motives, whether the parties be travelling in the direction of heaven or hell, they stride onward with solid steps, for each one has a domineering purpose and a principle of action which will not give repose till the object be secured. The great passion absorbs and subordinates to itself all other feelings and plans, transforming them into auxiliaries. The aspect of such men is exceedingly imposing, whether they be nearing the shores of ruin, or approaching the city of God. We can now explain what gives Christianity its immense superiority over all other systems. It consists in furnishing a centre principle of life and power, a sublime motive of transcendent energy, which awakens all the sleeping faculties, and keeps all the moral machinery in full play. There is not much originality in the morals, or merely perceptive part of Christianity-nothing so marked as to explain its peculiar and sovereign power. There was morality almost as fine in the books of the ancient sages, but it was only in books. There was abundant precept, but a destitution of power to make them live in action. So Satan ruled his slaves with an iron rod, and bound them in the Pagan dungeon with cold and heavy chains. Christianity comes near with the purple robe of dominion on, breaks open, in thunder, the massy door of the dungeon, and the prisoners rush into liberty and life. But its liberating power lies in new principles rather than in original precepts. It points men to Calvary, where God opens to man his divine heart, and reveals the infinity of his love. In that part of Palestine to which our eyes are directed, darkness broods over the land in supernatural gloom. Through that awful dusk may be seen gleaming the fierce faces of Jewish priests and Roman soldiers, with theological rancour and military pride inflamed into madness, yet tormented by fear, through the mysteries of the tragedy enfolding them. The central figure is a pale man, with thornwounded brow, who has been attired in purple mockingly, and now hangs in infamy on the blood-stained cross. His expiring throes have tremendous power. The veil of the temple is rent in twain; the rocks are instinct with strange life, and crush asunder in convulsion; the dead cannot rest in their graves; while the angel of the sun spreads out his overshadowing wings to hide his own emotion, and to shroud that deeper passion consummating below. "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." Yes, Lord, when we reflect upon thy love, we are drawn to Christ and to God, and Calvary is the mountain from which we ascend. God forbid that we should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto us, and we unto the world. Some cold and sinful souls had accused the Apostle Paul of madness and fanaticism. He nobly declares, in reply, "Whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God, or whether we be sober, it is for your cause. For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live might not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him who died for them and rose again." Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away, behold all things are become new. Yes, the life and inspiration, the power and glory of a new moral creation, begun and maintained by the astonishing force and grandeur of the great principle, the godlike motive, love to Christ the Redeemer. He saved us from perishing eternally when all other help was vain, by dire humiliation and extremity of woe, and he shall sit on the throne of our hearts without a rival. 66 Talk they of morals? Oh! thou bleeding Lamb, The grand morality is love of thee! 3. Here is a man placed in the midst of a large and opulent estate. The forests are dark with the shadow of patriarchal trees, rising in a virgin soil. Rich valleys are spread out wild in luxuriance, profusely adorned with tropical vegetation. Rivers run through in stately pride, and fountains are plashing in the shade. Mountains midway leave the storm, and cascades are leaping down in sheets and jets of molten silver. Yet in this noble property there is much barren ground which appears accursed --and many swamps where ague is born and miasma gathers head. In the rank luxuriance of parts, death hovers too near the confines of life, and corruption steals into the embrace of beauty. Vast labour is demanded in cutting down, digging-up roots, draining marshes, dyking, directing irrigation, forming walks, tempering the soil, planting, sowing, building, weeding, and coping with mildew, caterpillar, and northern blast. But if the present proprietor holds the property by an uncertain tenure, will he gird himself to the labour? If he has reason to fear that, in the midst of his mighty toil, or at the conclusion of his labour, he may be driven from the property, and a stranger take possession of his wealth and glory, will not such uncertitude, doubt, and fear, leave him in despairing indolence? He will rather seize with eagerness all which savage nature spontaneously yields, but the cultivated Eden will never bloom around him. He may fiercely drive through the wilderness after beasts not more ferocious than himself, striving to forget himself in stormy excitement; but he will never cause that wilderness to rejoice like Paradise, or the garden of God. But secure to him the estate by proper documents and seals, fix him securely there with the majesty of law for a safeguard, and the spirit of life will become strong and generous within him. The matted trees will let in sunlight and the cerulean; the marshes will strike covenant with the rivers; the soft green meadows will be spangled with the purple crocus, and pansies will breathe out fragrance in every valley. The fields will wave with golden grain, and the voices of husbandmen and damsels sound free and happy in the hall and in the harvest field. So with man in the heathen ages. The property within was rich as our own. estate was ample; the capacity of the spirit lofty as now. Suppose one speaking to a heathen in this manner: "Do not suffer those great energies of passion and power to run riot, and waste themselves like rivers that run down into barren sand. Cultivate thy soul until it springs approvingly towards all things pure and virtuous The as the proper aliment. Bring into subjection every unholy desire, and rise above the animal. Avoid the haunts of buffoon merriment, gladiatorial cruelty, and unnatural infamy." To all which, he could understand, the Pagan might have gloomily replied: "And for what purpose, oh sage, shall I proceed on this desperate adventure of morality and mortification? Should the lamp of my life burn with ever such pure and radiant lustre, it must all be quenched in the depths of a remorseless grave. Why rear, with infinite toil, a magnificent pile, which the lightning of heaven is sure to smite into ashes? or give immense time and labor to a temple which the earthquake is sure to engulph? I am not prepared to decorate with such costly ornaments a scape-goat, which the angel of oblivion and darkness will lead into a waste land—a desert black and silent for ever." who could not swear by a greater, has in the divine strength and glory of the motive which rules in the new man, and in the solemn assurance of immortality and eternal life. G. GREENWELL. "God is love," 1 John iv. 8. "We love God, because he first loved us," 1 John iv. 19. It is here that Christianity comes to man in full majesty, fixing assurance upon a Rock of ages. "I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and he that liveth and believeth in me shall never die." THE LOVE OF GOD.-No. II. "Because I live, ye shall live also." Oh! marvellous, life-creating voice! It is not a scribe, or a Rabbi, or a philosopher we hear. No such tones of power, no such resurrection blast could peal from synagogue, academy, grove, or temple. It is the voice of a God who has majesty and mercy, authority and pity. Almighty strength, united with deeper than woman's love, has come to our relief. No longer is immortality a conjecture, a dream, a guess, or a fear. No longer we sink into empty shades of despair, with dizziness and horror, 1st. "God so loved the world, that or rise like weary eagles screaming he gave his only begotten Son, that against the thunder cloud. Here whosoever believeth on him might eternal life is embodied in visible not perish, but have everlasting life," mastery over death, and we are John iii. 16. The love here expresscomplete in Him who is the head ed is as extensive as the human race; To convince the perishing that they are objects of the Divine favour, that Jesus bore their sins in his own body on the tree, and that the Deity wills their individual salvation, is the reason assigned in our motto for the love of man to his Maker. I shall, therefore, endeavour to prove what many deny, that the love of God induced him to give his Son for the whole human race; and over all principality and power. Heet, in the narrowness of their theo But the objector will be apt you have not met my arguLet the Spirit of God grapple 2 Pet. ii. 1, "But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction." These are bought and destroyed. No comment is necessary. But does he not assert in John x. 66 only" in Read it carefully, and you may easily perceive that Jesus here draws a striking contrast betwixt the thieves, the robbers, and the hirelings, and himself, by which his love shines forth in bright refulgence. 2. Several passages of Scripture plainly teach that Jesus died for all. Take the following for an example:-11-15, that he gave his life only for his "If one died for all, then were all sheep? No, there is no dead, and that he died for all," 2 Cor. the passage. v. 14, 15. There is a blessed harmony betwixt the love of God in willing the salvation of all, and the ransom given for all in 1 Tim. ii. 4 6. God will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth, for there is one God and one mediator betwixt God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all. This portion of divine truth was written after the ransom was given. If the ransom had not been given for all, how could God have willed the salvation of all? "He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world," 1 John 2. Will any dare to oppose, or even to doubt, where evidence is so abundant? If any of your readers still hesitated to yield a hearty assent to this precious truth, let them read Heb. ii. 9, "Weed in love, they may be able to comsee Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour, that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man." The original signifies every one or all. Every sinner may gaze upon the slain Lamb, and, from the hill of Calvary, on the bottomless and shoreless ocean of Divine love, till he is constrained, by its melting power, to burst forth in rapturous joy, "He loved me, and gave himself for me." Go, says divine love, into all the world, and proclaim to every creature that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, Mark xvi. 15-16, with 1 Cor. xv. 1-4. Oh, that multitudes of our fallen family may let "Christ dwell in their hearts by faith, that being rooted and ground prehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge." In conclusion, let perishing sinners contemplate the love of God in all its varied 3. It is objected that "if Christ has and unfathomable manifestations. died for all then all must be saved, His word is the mirror in which to otherwise God's design must be frus-behold it. "Look unto me, and be trated now we know that all shall not be saved, consequently Christ did not die for all." He died for all, is the plain testimony of Him who loved us. Let us take his instructions with the utmost confidence of their ye saved all the ends of the earth." And let His children become daily more studious of the holy book. It was after being taught of Jesus that the two disciples said, "Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked in discussion any one endorsed by the Anti-Slavery Society, even Mr. Robertson himself, with one single provision. There were, as I saw while in Edinburgh, in the City Register, no less than three Rev. James Robertsons. Of one of these I had heard a bad report, and not knowing which of the three Reverends had been guilty of violating the fifth commandment, and on that account cast out of the Baptist church, I, of course, excepted that gentleman, as not being to me an acceptable antagonist. I affirmed nothing of any one of that name, only that he was the only Rev. James Robertson in Edinburgh that I would not meet, although endorsed by the Anti-Slavery Society. The Anti-Slavery Society held a meeting the next Monday after my leaving thanks to Mr. Robertson for placardEdinburgh, and passed a vote of Glasgow Prison, Sept. 11, 1847. MY DEAR CLARINDA — Having, after visiting Aberdeen, Banff, Mont rose, Dundee, Cupar, Auchtermuchty, Dumferline, Falkirk, Paisley, and Glasgow; and finding, with the ex-ing me, and for his ability in opposing ception of Aberdeen and Banff, every place filled with these placards, you may judge what difficulties I had to encounter in obtaining a candid hearing amongst a people wholly superexcited by such inflammatory productions. I, however, succeeded beyond measure, and will give you the particulars again. Meantime, the Rev. Secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, finding that the placards were losing their power and procuring me larger congregations, took the field himself, and determined to follow me from my labors while in Scotland. This being so, I excepted from my list of honorable opponents only one person whom they might endorse, as before he was, would not obtrude himself described, presuming that he, whoever himself to be the person so alluded to. upon my attention, and thus prove While at Dundee, on seeing the letter, he threatened to sue me for ruining his reputation; assuming, of course, that he was the person so alluded to. I could not think it possible that any one would be either so foolish or city to city. Accordingly he arrived wicked, under the garb of a Christian at Dundee as I was about to leave it. minister, as to make that the occasion But, finding in the old city of Dundee of stultifying himself, or of prosecuting me. But in this, it seems, I too a reception from the citizens which he little expected; and there meeting highly appreciated the sagacity and not only with a public discomfiture sincerity of the Secretary, for he in his assaults upon me, but also my that I had injured him to the amount hastens to Glasgow, and makes oath letter in the Edinburgh Weekly Jour-of £5000 sterling-some twenty-four nal, he resolved on another way of annoying me. As you will see in reading said letter, I agreed to meet Letter xv. containing the challenge and correspondence of J. Robertson and A. Campbell, at the time the latter was in Edinburgh, were published in the Christian Messenger, Sept. 1847, p. 418-428 and 452-464, to which our readers are respectfully referred. thousand dollars-and issues a fugæ warrant to prevent me from leaving Scotland unless I gave bond to abide the issue of a suit of damages claimed for my saying that I would meet any Rev. James Robertson in Edinburgh |