ray of the light which he brought into the world. And when we take a broad view of Christendom, we discern, under all the superficial dissent from the schemes of divinity that the churches maintain, an underlying unity of moral sentiment among the unchurched as well as church members. And that fundamental unity of moral sentiment plainly subsists in the Christ of the Gospels; recognizes him as the authoritative exponent of divine grace and truth; accepts, amid all failures in practice, his ideas of human duty, and divine providence, and the life to come; and is carrying on a work of moral renovation in the suppression of the evils to which he is hostile.

This general unity of moral sentiment in Christian lands, despite religious dissensions, is the true criterion of the present situation. Religion is worthless except as expressing itself in the maintenance of righteousness, and truth, and charity. Christ reckons all who seek this as on his side, for this was his interest. "He that is not against us," said he as he cast out devils, "is on our part." The dissent that inspires the multitudes outside the churches, is not dissent from Christ, so much as dissent from dogma and ritual that claim his authority, although he announced no dogma, established no ritual. Much as there is of Christly living in the churches, it is still only a minority who show any marked philanthropical interest beyond what is common in the community. On the one hand, moreover, the average morality of church members is not con. spicuously above the average standard among respectable men and women. On the other hand, the conspicuous difference

between the church and the world is still manifested in some form of creed or of rite; as by the dogma of the Calvinist, that human nature, as such, is odious and abominable to God; or by the pretensions of the high churchman, that there is no true church of Christ but his, and no true ministry of Christ, but under the priestly robes of his sect; or by the intolerance of the close-communionist, who repels from the Lord's table all who have not gone under the water of a baptismal bath. Multitudes consent, as President Lincoln did, to Christ's law of love to God and man, who refuse to submit their intelligence to what they deem unchristian ideas of God presented in the popular theology, and seek to preserve their self-respect and

candor by testifying outside of the churches that accept such ideas. It is a fact nevertheless, though they do not seem to know it, that the churches are all the while receiving such as they, on the ground of life and spirit, rather than of form and dogma. The cherished creeds, however, create an impression to the contrary. But it can hardly be doubted that there are multitudes, who will not so much as attend the worship offered in churches that are organized on points of disagreement in theology and ritual, and who seem to take sides in no way with one religious ism against another, whose life is regulated by a general moral purpose in harmony with that of Christ, although lacking the moral power that is found in personal fellowship with him.

And so it is a false issue that is raised by the melancholy show of statistics concerning the large number who neglect the churches, and the small number who join the professed membership. The theological pessimism which declares the condition of the world hopeless, till Christ shall come in visible glory to right all things, fails to see the plainest fact, that it is not the Christ, but the Antichrist, in the churches, that repels men, the paganism that still survives in theology, and the various other forms of the falsity of professed Christians to their Master's ideal. It fails to see that despite the rubbish, very slowly being cleared away, that blocks up the church doors, the moral heart of society beats ever in wider response to Christ's teaching; that a practical, as distinct from an ecclesiastical Christianity, is ever spreading, and Christian principles leavening the community with a more effective power in repressing the evils and casting out the devils in the world. The theological pessimism which regards the world as a wreck and the church as the ark, and raises the cry that orthodoxy is in danger when any one touches its idols, is blind to the fact, that were Christ to come as once he came, in the fullness of divine compassion for the needs of men, among those who would be quickest drawn to him there would be now, as then, the multitudes outside of the religious organizations of the day, in which they have found little sympathy or provision for their peculiar needs. In short, we should see a fulfillment of those words of his, which our study of the situation may 29

VOL. VII.

help us better to understand: "Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and they shall become one flock, one shepherd."

Every day, as the last words of friendship are said over the clay of some one who never claimed the name of a Christian, we shall hear his Christian traits and principles-his unconscious but practical Christianity-recognized by preachers of rigid creeds in the sympathetic tribute of a man to true human worth. This unconscious but practical Christianity ought to find recognition elsewhere than at the open grave. It is for the churches to inquire what there is in their theology, and what in their attitude to each other, that creates needless antagonisms in minds which revere the Christ of the Gospels;what they can do to give a better opportunity of expression to the moral unity in the fundamental truths of Christ, which, already reaching far beyond church lines, is waiting for its time of manifestation.

This time will come. "They shall become one flock, one shepherd." There will be different folds; there will be no such thing as one world-wide organization; but the unity of the different folds in one flock will be manifest because One will be manifest as the shepherd of all; because all hear his voice alone. Whether this is to be in our day, or whether the settled summer of Christianity has yet to wait longer for the ending of its changeful spring, the tendency is clear enough to make the issue certain, and to give encouragement to those who have grown melancholy over church arithmetic. Many a church is accomplishing a silent work recorded in no earthly statistics, and measurable by no report of professed conversions. The circle which the sun illuminates, and in which men walk by his light, is considerably larger than the circle in which his orb is seen. Below the horizon of conscious recognition as Christ may be, yet, in the high moral latitudes of Christendom, there is a far-spreading Christian twilight, in which multitudes, who have owned no formal bonds to him, walk parallel and not crosswise to those moral lines which he drew for "the way everlasting." Many such, we are constrained by the realities of character to reckon as unconscious followers, perhaps afar off, yet followers of the Redeemer of men. The evident bent

of their principle and endeavor to Christ's side against the world's evil, prompts our moral instinct to judge them as those who, when the misleading shadows shall have melted in the eternal day, will devoutly recognize the Divine shepherd of humanity, and hear his voice, though they heard the voice of no Calvin, or Wesley, or other speaker in his name.

Wherefore let us take heart. The coyness or deafness, which meets the call of the church, is by no means to be interpreted as wholly a rejection of the Master, obscured as he is to many by dogmas, or misrepresented by various falsities to his ideal. Meagre accessions to church membership may be signs of a declining ecclesiastical interest, rather than of that moral interest, which with Christ was supreme; a disinclination to churches as they are, rather than to Christ as he is; a failure of theological and sectarian Christianity, rather than of ethical and practical Christianity. There is some discussion in the public journals whether there is a gain or a falling off in church-going, but none at all whether there is a growth of interest in the good works which Christ commanded, or a development of that moral sentiment in behalf of truth and righteousness, which lies at the foundation of every life that is essentially rather than nominally Christianized. The simple fact, to be noted for encouragement-and for correction toois, that the spirit of Christianity has spread faster and farther than some of its present traditional forms.

ARTICLE X.-NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

ROBERTSON'S LIFE OF JOHN BRIGHT.*—" John Bright, in the flesh is undoubtedly an Englishman, and physically, a capital specimen of the breed; but in the spirit John Bright is essentially an American." Such was the opinion of the Tory mind in Eng. land twenty years ago; and the book here named goes far to show, that though meant for a sneer, the aforesaid remark was not far from the truth. Of how well Mr. Bright was able to sustain the allegation of being "in spirit essentially an American," let the following sentences, from a speech in Parliament at the outbreak of our civil war in 1861, bear testimony:

"I cannot see how the state of affairs in America, with regard to the United States Government, could have been different from what it is at this moment We had a heptarchy in this country, and it was thought to be a good thing to get rid of it, and have a united nation. If the thirty-three or thirty-four States of the American Union can break off whenever they like, I can see nothing but disaster and confusion throughout the whole of that continent. I say that the war, be it successful or not, be Christian or not, be it wise or not, is a war to sustain the government and to sustain the authority of a great nation; and that the people of England, if they are true to their own sympathies, to their own history, to their own great act of 1834, to which reference has been made, will have no sympathy with those who wish to build up a great empire on the perpetual bondage of millions of their fellow men."-Page 394.

Personally, publicly, politically, John Bright has always been the champion of the "masses" in preference to the "classes," and though this has earned him the spite of those who count every popular orator a "demagogue," his most honorable character and career have constantly offset the obloquy of his opponents.

The time has not come for the full record of his life; but to those who desire a clear and connected account of his public career thus far, the volume here compiled will be of practical service. The compiler is at the sources of information; and, with great minuteness, he details the movements, conflicts, speeches, and successes of Mr. Bright, first in the abolition of the corn laws, and, subsequently, in those reforms that in recent years have advanced the well-being of the British people.

* Life and Times of the Right Hon. John Bright. By WILLIAM ROBERTSON, author of "Old and New Rochdale." London, Paris, and New York: Cassell & Company. Limited.