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once saw a Syrian peasant ploughing on Mt. Sion, it certainly did not look like the literal rebuilding of the walls of Sion. Jerusalem is badly situated for a great modern city. It has no water to depend upon but the rain of heaven. The flinty mountains that surround it must be leveled to make a free communication to it from any quarter. It has a barren, volcanic region immediately about it, the Dead Sea within sight of it, and the Arabian desert stretching east and south of it. It will never be a large city again, unless God has decreed it, and will turn, not figuratively but absolutely, the rocks into springs of water and the desert into a garden. But we need not be pressed to such conclusions. Doubtless many things cluster about this spot. Jerusalem is the center of the earth in its high associations, and will always be so. With multitudes of other pilgrims from all parts of the world, the writer of this walked with bare and bowed head, and emotions not to be described, within its gate. He yields to none in feelings of reverrence toward the soil once trodden by the sacred feet of Jesus. Without donbt, great numbers of Jews will return to the Holy Land, as great numbers have already done (and a most interesting class of Jews are some of those now dwelling in Jerusalem, for they are the enthusiasts of their faith, who go there to to count the stones, to read the law in the shadow of the holy mount, to mingle their dust with the holy soil), who will carry with them great wealth and the means of restoring the fertility of the land, and of rebuilding the old cities; but even according to the prophecy, something greater is to come than was ever in the past; the prophecy looks to a greater consummation than any material prosperity, or any moral development that has yet taken place, viz: to the restoration of a spiritural theocracy, the establishment of a universal kingdom in the hearts of men, and in every individual heart that is a subject of it, of which the Hebrew theocracy was a type; and here the national or the governmental, form which the old Hebrew faith assumed, becomes again highly significant and pregnant with meaning. This long-obscured, long-buried seed of the ancient Abrahamic and Hebraic faith in a true kingdom of God, in the real reign of God on the earth, will sometime burst forth into universal beauty and bloom, and fill the whole world with its

heavenly fruitage. Into this universal kingdom of righteousness and peace, of reason, light, and love, of which God himself is the prime head.-in this united brotherhood of man in the one great family of God-the seed of Abraham, the true "children of the kingdom," whether Jew or Gentile, shall be gathered. "I will call that which was not my people, my people, and she who was not beloved, beloved." Gathered in one in Christ, they shall "rejoice together in the heights of Zion;" and we cannot doubt but that the Jew, with his tenacity of purpose, industry, genius and skill, and his wonderful devotion to the religious idea, will have an important part in the final upbuilding and beautifying of this new kingdom and city of God. At home in all nations and all the world, representing a universal principle, he may become the leaven that shall quickly leaven the whole.

We would desire to say to our Jewish brethren, do not yield up your birthright in the promises, and hold fast to this grand truth which you have taught the nations, of the kingdom of God, of the real and universal reign of God on earth. Strive to be yourselves the subjects of this kingdom in spirit and in truth, for those who would share in this outward and realized kingdom of God must be its subjects inwardly and in spirit. Be willing to candidly examine the Scriptures of the New Testament, and see what there is in them of rich development and fulfillment of promises made to the fathers, and of spiritual blessings yet in store for the children. Think whether those things which you aim after, knowledge, true science, the reign of reason and the overthrow of superstition, the triumph of the universal principle, and of living for the universal good, the unity of humanity in the recognized unity of God, the freeing of the race so that it may walk on the high planes of reason, righte ousness and light, have not been attained, or are not being approximately attained, far better and surer, through the silent agency of true Christianity-the gentle but powerful forces of its teaching and spirit-the enthusiam of its humanity—the largeness of its reason-the energy of its self-sacrificing goodnessthe divine power of its love-the perfect union of its human and divine elements,-than by any other known system, or by any philosophic system yet invented, or to be invented? In rais

ing the one great temple of God, into which you would bring the whole human race in unity, freedom, virtue and light, refuse not the true "corner-stone."

Neander, whose spirit is now with that Lord whom like the beloved disciple he so much loved, and to whom he came from Philo and Plato as a child runs from its teacher's to its mother's arms, has set a bright example to his Jewish kinsmen in the flesh, the world over, of the glorious purity, humility, elevation and new power of the mind into which Christianity in all its fullness and life, has been received in the spirit of a little child. We quote his words, which since his death, have acquired new force and solemnity, and which, it is to be remembered, are the words of a Jew:-"Through strifes and storms, the Holy Spirit -the Holy Spirit going out from faith in Christ, who was crucified for the sins of men, who truly rose from the dead and ascended to heaven-the Holy Spirit that has proved itself the same since the first Christian Pentecost, at all times, among all people, learned or unlearned-the Holy Spirit is preparing a new creation in the Church of God."

V. THE RESOURCES OF THE CHURCH AGAINST RATIONALISM.

THE universal Church is stirred to its depths by the inroads of Rationalism. Germany, having recovered in great part her clergy from the tone of skeptical criticism, now finds that her people have too well learned the lessons of their early apostacy to be willing to hear a Gospel of myths. France has called forth her ablest champions in both Protestant and Roman Catholic literature, to contest the influence of Comte and Renan. Italy finds herself liberated from Jesuitism only to be overrun with Infidelity. England has contended with pamphlets, lectures, reviews, Bishops' charges and Church courts against Rationalism in Church and University. And in the United States, the College, the Lyceum, the Pulpit and the Press, have been enlisted vigorously upon either side of this new controversy of Christianity with Unbelief. One good promised by the unaccomplished Ecumenical Council at New York was, a survey of the whole field of this discussion through the reports of competent observers from every part of Christendom; and it is earnestly to be hoped that the facts and inferences upon the Rationalistic controversy which have been gathered with such pains-taking ability, will be given to the public without waiting for a meeting of the Alliance in the now doubtful and perhaps distant future.

In advance, however, of these materials for a detailed review of this controversy, we may glance at the principles involved in it, and the methods by which it has been conducted, with a view to revise the errors of some and to fortify the faith of others. In some quarters the mistake has been made of meeting the spirit of Rationalism with a more intensified Ecclesiasticism or a more extreme Ritualism. We do the Pope the credit of believing that in so much of the Syllabus, now made dogmatic, as had respect to the prevalence of unbelief, he devoutly thought that the evils of skepticism grow out of liberty of conscience, and must be checked by a revival of ec

clesiastical authority and discipline. Many an earnest Anglican has the same conviction, while differing as to the seat of ecclesiastical control; and so sincere and intelligent a pastor as Dr. Morgan Dix, of New York, though he openly avows his distaste for "extremes in ritualism," and refuses "to be identified with anything inconsistent with the system of the Bible as his Church has received it," nevertheless regards the exercise of private judgment in the interpretation of the Scriptures as the source alike of sectarianism and of skepticism, and would remedy these evils by a true Church authority.*

Others again have sought to oppose Rationalism by the moral force of Christian union in testimony and in action. The Evangelical Alliance and the Pan-Anglican Council, are examples of this; and no doubt the tendency toward PanPresbyterianism has been greatly stimulated by the desire to unite the Church against her foes. But a union within the pale of Ecclesiasticism and upon an ecclesiastical basis, tends to intensify the spirit of sectarian aggrandizement at the expense of moral union and co-operation with the whole body of Christ. This is already foreshadowed in the action of the Presbyterian Church withdrawing its support from the American Board, and for no fault or change in the Board iɛself, terminating the coöperation of more than fifty years. Neither Pan-Anglicanism, nor Pan-Presbyterianism, nor Pan-Evangelicism can bring out fully and fairly the resources of the Church against the unbelief of the times. Those resources lie in other directions, and call for recognition and use, rather than for development through organization. A study of the facts in the case in the light of Biblical principles and precedents, will show that however new phases of unbelief may awaken the sense of danger, they should excite no dis trust of the strength of the Faith or of its final victory.

The present are simply new phases of the spirit of unbelief, so often vanquished under other forms. When Paul began to preach Christ he encountered this same spirit in the Ritualism of the Pharisees and the Rationalism of the Sadducees; and

* See Dr. Dix's letter of Se t. 2, 1870, on the St. Sacrament Mission, and his Sermon on Christian Union preached in the Broadway Tabernacle Church, March 13th, 1864.

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