Does any

composed of educated men, who deny all revelation. thoughtful person question that the strifes of the clergy have exercised a ruinous influence in confirming their unbelief? or that the mutual charges of fellow-christians have made a fatal impression?. We have, perhaps, enjoyed a triumph over our opponents on some all but indifferent matter, careless meanwhile how perilous an advantage we have afforded to the enemy of all faith. There is another and perhaps still larger class,, who are not unbelievers, and yet have but feeble hold on Christian truth; the day-spring has just dawned upon them; they are still under the faint gray light of the morning; it would be a grievous offence if we should drive them back into the darkness: and yet, if they find among so-called Christians, narrowness, and and exaggeration, and harsh judgment, who can wonder if they fail to separate the human element from the divine, and are alienated from the Gospel itself through the inconsistency of its professors? It is a very wise tenderness with which St. Paul charges us, Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations."

Controversy, however feeble on the affirmative side, is very strong in its power of negation; and it happens, more frequently than we are aware, that our words have weighed with opponents, not indeed for enforcing our views, but for discrediting their own. We have taught them to despise what they once believed trustworthy; but while we have been proving to them how much they have been deceived, we have at the same time led them into the worst forms of infidelity, which is the disbelief of all that is good and true. There are a great many of our fellow-countrymen who are deeply influenced by the scepticism of the age; not scoffers, but in a certain sense earnest-minded men, clinging in a half-hopeless way to the form of belief in which they were educated; catching, as it were, at some help to keep them from falling into the depth of utter unbelief. Their last foothold is failing and trembling in the balance; a breath almost would suffice to loosen it. Is there truth in what they have heard about the Gospel, and the Church, the Providence of God, and His revealed Word? How can they be persuaded that there is, when they find Christians, and Churchmen, nay, fellow-ministers, speaking of each other in terms which ought to be reserved for infidels and evil-doers? Their conclusion may be utterly illogical; they ought of course to distinguish between heavenly truth and the imperfection of its human advocates; and yet we shall certainly not escape blame if we have been hinderers instead of helpers, and have put fresh stumbling-blocks in their way, instead of trying to remove their existing difficulties.

A dangerous effect is meanwhile produced on our standard of morals. Party spirit enables us to dispose of! questions of right and wrong, by a coarse but convenient system, which dispenses with all minute investigation; judging of persons and opinions in the gross, by a rude classification, and dispensing praise and blame in strict accordance with it. We are tempted to receive eagerly the adherence of a partisan who brings powerful help in defending a doc

trine, while we overlook the want of harmony between his profession and his life; as if zeal for a party might be accepted as a compensation for some laxity of conduct. On account of partial agreement, and in order to retain a reliable champion, we make too large a sacrifice, and come gradually to allow crippled and imperfect statements of moral duty. And we are thus led, on the other hand, to under value the self-denial and steadfast holiness of those whose theology runs in a somewhat different line from our own. It would be incredible, if the fact were not too clear, that we could think and speak disparagingly about many of whom the world is in the greatest need; who are gifted with the very qualities of head and heart which are in chief request, and against whom we have nothing to allege, except that they do not pronounce their shibboleth exactly in our fashion. While good and earnest men are thus separated from those with whom they are in the main agreed, they come to be ranged side by side with others to whom, in all the great points of principle and character, they are essentially opposed.

This habit of extenuation on the one side, and of exaggeration on the other, not only makes us in the highest degree unjust in our estimate of character, but it reacts not less injuriously upon ourselves; and in the long run we are the greatest losers, for we never do more harm to our moral nature than when we tamper with our convictions of what is right. By degrees we lose the faculty of accurate discernment, and we become our own victims. The nemesis follows; the penalty is inevitable; for unconsciously we learn to look at things dishonestly, and to cheat our own consciences. We give undue importance to that which is minor and accidental; or we are provoked into the defence of a position which in our hearts we know to be untenable on any sound principle; or we are driven by stress of argument into admissions, which, dangerous as they may be, we think that our position requires. There is a certain unreality of which most persons are conscious, when, over and above the great principles on which confessedly so much depends, they are just as vehement in defending their views on subordinate points, the value of which is derived from their party use. To hold truth in its antagonistic form may be sometimes inevitable, but it is a peril always; and it comes often to influence the whole course of conduct, giving a fixed color to our thoughts on every subject, and forming the medium through which things and persons are universally regarded; so that the clearest reasoning goes for nothing, and the most earnest exhortation is wasted, if we miss the current watch word; and the noblest efforts are viewed with suspicion, if they are unconnected with the party to which we belong. Nothing is more common than to meet with a man, passably intelligent and equitable, whose nature seems warped in one direction only; who is just toward everybody, except a theological opponent. Fairness is indeed impossible to a thorough partisan, since the judgment is unconsciously guided by the will. For the most part, we acquiesce readily, or obstinately resist, according to the direction of our wishes. When our inclination is engaged on the side of a certain conclusion, we almost outrun the arguments by which

it is advocated; we are prepared to welcome every allegation 'in its favor, and to find a reason for rejecting every counter statement; to believe mere assertions on the one side, while we refuse the clearest evidence on the other. We deal with one set of opinions as if there were no such thing as human frailty, and no imperfest knowledge; and with another as if there were little else.

The most prominent in maintaining party views are for the most part the superficial and the impulsive. Some circumstance has produced a broad change of life and thought in themselves, and henceforth their personal convictions stand in the place of clear and availing argument. They may have good purposes, but they have yet a great deal to learn. They have never really studied the question in debate. Each is a copy of a copy; the impression growing fainter and fainter, till all the sharp lines are worn out. They become teachers while they are themselves but poorly taught; plunging into controversy, eager in disputing, rash in condemning, drawing hasty conclusions, and building up a whole system of doctrine on the foundation of a doubtfully interpreted text; apparently without a suspicion that there is anything to adduce on the other side.

Nothing is more common than the familiar use of words expressive of a meaning which we have never fully mastered, nay with which we have never really grappled. The vividness of an impression is no proof of its accuracy. People often feel very deeply and reason very badly; their statements are at once very sincere and very inconclusive. Strong assertions of an opinion cannot supply the link that is wanting; it will neither remove a difficulty nor reconcile an apparent contradiction. And it is worth remembering, that violence of expression and depth of inward conviction are not convertible terms; nay, they are often unconsciously opposed to each other; as if men would put force upon themselves, and stifle, or at least hide their misgivings if possible from their own minds. And this may serve to explain the many cases in which they pass from one extreme to another.

If the best and wisest men on both sides were recognized as the exponents of doctrine and guides in conduct, there would be little ground of complaint; but seasons of controversy bring to the surface those who have the lowest title to be religious leaders, and whose pretensions are yet often inversely proportioned to their qualifications. They may be neither scholars nor hard workers in any way, but ready speakers, without diffidence or self-mistrust, presenting an unbal anced theory, or a superficial view of some truth, in place of a deeper and wider range of doctrine. Fluency of words is the infirmity and misfortune of the age. From the House of Commons down to the parish vestry, the talkers are among the chief mischief-makers, and the real hinderers of work; and their influence is never more ruinous than in the sphere of theology. Such adherents, unhappily, though they bring no real strength, and but for their party use would be a dead weight, have themselves a vested interest in religious strife. If they are not eminent as partizans, they have no other distinction within their reach. A good deal is said from time to time about the

boldness of leading controversalists, for whom a place is claimed among the confessors, nay, almost among the martyrs of the faith; and yet, with some noteworthy exceptions on both sides, it is very clear that our religious disputes have given prominence to some of the shallowest men of the age; and have helped them to advantages of social position and substantial gain, which they could have had little hope of reaching by any other road. The safe guides of religious thought and action are of a very different sort; they are such as have attained their personal convictions of divine truth by time and depth of thought; by trials, and meditations, and prayer; and who possess for their qualifications learning, especially a critical knowledge of Scripture, which opens broader views, experience which teaches charity, and judgment which makes men deliberate, and keeps them from endorsing a rash conclusion however popular. The best men to teach and bless us by their example are not those who come chafed and excited from the strife of religious party, but the diligent and hard working, the self-denying and the peaceful. The temper of such men is like a healing branch cast into the bitter waters. They do not so much persuade us, as compel us by the force of their character and life to walk with them. Under such influence controversy dies out, and we lose even the wish to put life into it again

Christian Union.

BISHOP POTTER AND HIS OFFENDING CLERGY.

The Right Rev. Horatio Potter has recently sent a pastoral letter to the clergy of his diocese, in which he mildly rebukes several of them for certain acts on the side of christian liberality, but against the canons of the Church. The letter is written in a finished style of decorum, and, in that respect, is a faultless model. We should have nothing to say of it if the subject, itself, concerned no one outside of the Protestant Episcopal Church. But when Bishop Potter, in very polished language, tells his brethren and the world that he acknowledges no ministry not episcopally ordained, in the HighChurch sense, he invites animadversion from every organ of every non-episcopal church in the land.

We have no wish to renew the controversy on the figment of apostolical succession; but, as the occasion demands, we direct attention to the bigotry which lies in the doctrine, and reveals itself in the exclusiveness of those who hold it. If it does not find a man a bigot, it is morally sure to make him one. Bigotry may be, and often is, merely incidental to a man's ecclesiastical or theological training, though there may be nothing, either in his theology or church polity, that has any logical connection with it. But this notion of prelatical succession is, itself, the very essence of bigotry. If the doctrine has anything to do with a man's feelings, as every doctrine which is earnestly believed has, he becomes, by the inexorable logic of the

case, a successor, not of the Apostles of the Pentecost, but of their narrow-mindedness, which rebuked others because they followed not them, and was in turn rebuked by their Master. If none are ministers of Christ but such as have received Episcopal ordination, then, of course, their ministries, however successful, are invalid; the sacraments they administer are vitiated, for want of authority; their churches are no churches at all; and the whole mass of the presbyterial bodies of the land must take their chance for the uncovenanted mercies of God; though he would be a rare specimen of temerity or ignorance, or both, who would place their christian piety below that of Episcopalians.

We nevertheless concede to Bishop Potter, in this procedure, the credit of consistency with both the doctrine and canons of his Church. The canons, themselves, are the logical result of the doctrine; and all who hold the doctrine are fairly bound by the law which so well accords with it. We certainly do not blame the bishop, as an administrator of discipline, for seeking to enforce it in this instance, for neither the doctrine or the law has become obsolete. It sometimes happens in the State, that an antiquated statute is suffered to sleep, undisturbed, on the upper shelf, until some foolish magistrate astonishes the neighborhood by reviving and enforcing the long-forgotten absurdity. For the sake of the Episcopal Church, we wish that this canon were equally obsolete, or if revived at all, that it might be by some one less a christian, and much less a gentleman, than Horatio Potter.

If Dr. Muhlenberg and others of that Church have allowed their better sense and christian charity to disregard a law which is alike an offence to them and the great body of christians outside of their communion, we certainly sympathize with their unfortunate position, for the law is clearly against them, and the bishop is as clearly disposed to enforce it. The difference between them and their diocesan is just this; the bishop is consistent with the canon, on the side of bigotry, while they are inconsistent with the same, on the side of charity. The bishop, with the highest esteem for many ministers of other denominations for their christian virtues, talents and learning, still refuses to acknowledge them save as laymen, and laymen who have usurped the sacred office. Dr. Muhlenberg and others esteem these same men as not only wise, and learned, and good, but true ministers of Christ-worthy to fill their pulpits, despite the Church canon at the pulpit door. Here, then, is a conflict between bigotry, armed with the authority of law on one side, and the spirit of christian charity, with the New Testament and common sense on the other. We await the issue with interest and hope.

It is an easy matter to say of these men, that if they are not satisfied with the laws and order of their Church, they should quit her communion, and go where they can be better suited. This a very cool, and not often very successful mode of treating such cases; for true men who, on the whole, prefer their Church to any other, are not to be got rid of by this slip-shod way of talking. It would be just as easy to retort by saying-and with infinitely better reason--that if