more so than to a sectarian age. Nor can they be very welcome to this. For this age, though not a little liberalized, is still sufficiently pharisaical to deprecate the innovation of awakening religious thought.

You will perceive, that I am here merely illustrating a principle; a principle equally involved in the ordinary and extraordinary cases of theological agitation; from the earthquake of the Reformation, all the way down to the slight tremor which may, possibly, to some mind, result from these unpretending letters;-a principle, which, I pray you always to bear in mind, nor fear that truth and religion can suffer under the agitation of free enquiry. Let us leave that fear to the Romanist. For truth always feels humiliated, when its holders are afraid to have it freely grapple with error. It dreads agitation no more than Lebanon dreads the mountain tempest which expurgates its shaggy top of withered foliage and dead limbs. Jehovah's moral pathway is ever marked by agitation - revolution. When he moves, it is often "tempestuous round about him," but never destructive of good. Though the sea "roar and be troubled," Jehovah is there to assure the hearts of his children, with his, "Fear not for I am with thee, be not dismayed, for I am thy God."

Enough on this subject; perhaps you will say too

much. But when I see the many who hold the truth, (as they suppose) as if they thought contact with error would smash it, I am sad. For I say, either they doubt whether they have the truth, or else, confident of having it, they have no faith in it. If the former is the case, they ought to court discussion-agitation. If the latter, they surely need not shun it. For the agitation of free discussion is, to the truth, what fire is to gold, or the polishing wheel to steel. Otherwise the gospel, that great fountain of deepest agitation, though planned in heaven, were an ill-devised expedient for saving the world.

Yours truly.

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Creeds should be shed when outgrown-When dangerous-Farcical confession of-Good for life-Cause of "dead orthodoxy Why worn patiently-An accidental property-Resisted at peril — Persecution not outward - Fear to examine - Are you afraid ? Self-conviction.

DEAR BROTHER, —

In my last letter, I incidentally spoke of the bondage of creeds. Against creeds, however, we have nothing to say, provided the church will shed them as fast as she outgrows them. They have their legitimate uses. It is their misuse that is mischievous. Tradition was well enough in the Jewish church, till it began to "make the commandments of God of none effect." So are creeds well enough in the Christian church, till they begin to trench upon the Scriptures, assume their authority, and fetter free enquiry. But when this occurs, as you know it often does, then are they to be deprecated as a tyranny. Then their imposition upon the young mind, as it crosses the threshold of the

church, is an imposition indeed; the Chinese shoe, applied to the immortal mind. How many poor souls are wearing it to day, God only knows!

Creeds, written or unwritten, are, perhaps, well enough, till their blind devotees become afraid of them, or of the power that is entrenched behind them; that is, till they clothe them with an awful sacredness with which they dread to meddle, or till they see, behind them, an ecclesiastical power which they dare not offend. But when this is the case, and when they become mental labor-saving machines, superseding the necessity of old plodding methods of reaching truth,- when men reason by saying, not, "For thus it is written in the prophets," but thus it is written in the creed; not, "thus saith the Lord," but thus saith the church, then are creeds of the very essence of evil,— dumb idols, fit only for the iconoclast.

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And this truth is not without its application. For what multitudes of even Protestant Christians of to day, test their theology by their creed, whether written or oral, rather than their creed by the Scriptures. Witness the farce of children and young people, and even ignorant old people, confessing a system of faith at the baptismal fount. Have these persons thoroughly examined the Scriptures, that they should know all about "trinity" and "unity, "perseverance" and "depravity," "heaven" and

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“hell,”—doctrines about which profound theologians have stumbled and differed for ages! Surely, we may well wonder at them, as did the Jews when they asked concerning Jesus, "How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?" while in our case, unlike theirs, nothing of miracle is apparent, that our wonder should be allayed. But these confessors have read a creed, or heard it from the pulpit, assumed its truth, and are, therefore, ready prayerfully to subscribe to it! Whereas had they chanced to have fallen in with a different one, very likely they could have assumed and subscribed that as freely. Why, brother, you know how all this is, and need only look at it to be impressed with its absurdity. Had John Wesley been blessed with a hundred sons, who questions but they would have nearly all been Methodists? and that the complexion of most persons' credal theology depends on the circumstances under which they were born, bred, or converted? Again, I say, you know how all this is; and that a creed, once subscribed, is thenceforth sacred to the subscriber. Once taken, however ignorantly, it is ordinarily, thenceforth, good for life.

When creeds become popular, nothing else is so popular. They are then spoken against, only at a great peril. And as their holders, though somewhat suspicious of them, dare not speak against them, so