ness of the glory of God, and the express image of his person;' and Christianity differs from other religions by all the difference between the revelation which God has made of himself in Christ and any thing else that claims to be a revelation."

5. It is implied in what has just been said, but requires separate mention, that assent to a creed is not properly a confession of faith. It may or may not be an assent to what is included in "the faith once delivered to the saints," but it is not a confession of the faith which makes a man a Christian, or which is an evidence that he is one. The ambiguity here is unfortunate, as it has doubtless contributed not a little to displace the person of Christ from its proper central position as the bond of union among Christians. This is the bond, and the only bond; and union through creeds, except as a creed is involved in believing on Christ-that is, in the acceptance of him as a Saviour, and the commitment of ourselves to him in love and obedience-is out of the question. If we suppose a Christian to have accepted Christ in all that he offers himself to him for-that is, in all his offices -such acceptance will involve certain beliefs, as when it is said: "He that cometh to God must believe that he is." These beliefs, whatever they are, are essential. They should be clearly seen and firmly held. Between truth and life the connection is vital. For full growth all revealed truth is needed, and in its place every point of the faith once delivered to the saints is to be earnestly contended for.. Still, only those points which are implied in what is really a confession of faith are to be insisted on when the question respects not induction into the ministry, but Christian fellowship. But such beliefs may be imperfectly stated, or they may be mixed with others that are not essential; and it is unnecessary, unfortunate, wrong, when either of these is so done as to be a ground of division among those who believe on Christ, and love him. Suppose a man to say truly, "I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and trust in him wholly for my salvation; I love him more than father or mother, more than son or daughter, more than life, and I give myself to him in loyal and joyful obedience, to labor for the cause which he died to establish and lives to carry forward"-that would be a confession of faith; and no belief not necessarily implied in such a confession ought to come

between him and full Christian brotherhood and communion in any church that is a church of Christ. It is in this direction that our hope of union lies; and except as they are in this direction the present movements with that in view will have little value, and will have no permanence. There will be no elimination of the priestly and ambitious element in the clergy, or of the sectarian element in the laity; churches will still tend to be merely social clubs, and work will continue to be for organizations rather than for Christ. But knowing Christ and loving him, selfishness and hate, theological hate even (the odium theologicum), will be displaced; artificial barriers, ecclesiastical and social, will give way, and Christians will come to know and love each other. So will the prayer of Christ, that his followers may "all be one," be answered. So will the purpose of God as declared by the apostle be visibly in the way of its accomplishment-" That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in CHRIST, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in HIM."

It only remains to say a word in reference to the authorization of faith in connection with what is claimed in these days in regard to special answers to prayer, the healing of the sick, and such cases as that of Mr. Müller.

And here it is to be said, first, that as the chief object of God is the sanctification and salvation of men, and as his Word is the great means of sanctification, we should naturally expect that the agency of the Spirit of God would be chiefly for that end, and in connection with the Word. And so it has been. In connection with the Word the Spirit has been abroad in the earth, awakening, enlightening, and sanctifying men; but in general his operations on the mind have not been distinguishable from that of the truth. We know of them by their fruits, as "love, joy, peace," etc. These, according to the prayer of Christ, are produced by the Spirit through the truth. "Sanctify them through thy truth." Whoever, then, in the faithful truth of God's Word, asks the aid of his Spirit that he may so understand and apply it as to produce the fruits of the Spirit, is authorized to expect it. The promise is explicit and the fulfilment sure.

It is to be said, second, that claims to direct and conscious communication with the Spirit of God or with invisible beings

have been among the most fruitful sources of evil, and of appalling evil, that the world has known. Such claims have often been in close affinity with fanaticism and cruelty, as in Mohammedanism; with asceticism and the rejection of marriage, as among the monastic orders and the Shakers; and with license and free-love, as among the Mormons and in the Oneida Community. In connection with such claims the danger is imminent that some form of hallucination, some suggestion of an ambitious or an erotic imagination, will be taken for a divine voice; and there is also opportunity for those mixtures of self-deception and fraud the results of which are often so puzzling. The moment, therefore, any one supposes himself to receive supernatural or divine communications other than from the Word of God and for the purpose of sanctification, he passes on to ground requiring great caution. He is to understand, too, that communications thus given, unless substantiated by a miracle, can have no authority except for him who receives them.

But, third, it must be conceded, at least by those who believe in a spiritual world, that there is in such communication nothing absurd or improbable in itself; and also, unless we deny the Bible, that such communications have been made. But God is the same now as formerly-just as present and just as ready to give needed aid according to the exigencies of the dispensation, of which he only can judge. The Spirit of God is just as able to say to a man now that he shall build an orphan asylum as he was to command Philip to join himself to the chariot of the Ethiopian eunuch. God is as able to heal men now by a word or by the laying on of hands as in the days of the apostles. The question is, Does he authorize any one to expect that he will do these things? And here all that can be said is, that every man must be left to his own judgment, and that, in the view of others, no authorization is possible except by a miracle, or by the result. So it was of old. How did Peter know that the lame man who lay at the gate of the temple which was called Beautiful would rise and walk at his bidding? I do not know precisely how, but he knew, and was justified by the result. And so it is now. If an impulse or a voice come to a man, it comes to him, and he alone can judge of it. He may test it as he chooses, even as Gideon did; but if he thinks he has sufficient

evidence that it is from God, he is to go forward. If it command him to build an orphan asylum, he is to do that; if to say to a lame man, "Rise up and walk," he is to do that; and if there was really a command from God, he will be justified by the result. This, however, is a field in which there will be tares; but they cannot be rooted up without danger to the wheat, and they must "both grow together until the harvest.

MARK HOPKINS.

THE POLITICAL OUTLOOK IN FRANCE.

HUMAN prophecies are sufficiently vain, and never more

so than when attempting to cast the political horoscope of so mercurial a people as the French. It would baffle the profoundest statesmanship of Europe to foretell what is to happen to the French Government and nation when President MacMahon's term of office shall expire; or, indeed, what may occur at any moment during the remainder of his incumbency. That lively French writer, M. Edmond About, draws this graphic picture: "To anybody who knows a little about centralization—that formidable machine, with its driving shafts and bands, its sharp, thickly-set, angry teeth and cogs-the French people will seem like a workman caught by his blouse, whirled up, shaken, dashed round to every corner of the building, and saved by miracle after one eternal minute of agony. He finds himself standing upright on his feet, intact in every limb, and as sound as ever he was. The accident which ninety times out of a hundred would have killed him, or at least torn and crushed him (and surely any other man but a Frenchman) has only taken, God knows why, a small piece out of his breeches. This is what we are to-day."

The 16th of May and the 14th of October, 1877, are days which index some of the most important events in the annals of modern France. Upon the former, the President, supported by the Senate and instigated by the Ultramontanists, dissolved the Chamber of Deputies and ordered a new election. Upon the latter, the people made their emphatic response to the President's call. The five intervening months between the dissolution and election were of not greater anxiety to France than of watchful interest to the other nations of Europe and to the