tionalism; while if the religious influence of Harvard be worthy of a name, it is already Pantheistic. A feeble attempt has indeed been made by one of its doctors to save the modicum of faith which he retains, and for which he fights, like an Athanasius; but there is not a straw's worth of difference between Pantheism and his own Ism, in the estimation of a Catholic. So true it is that even unbelievers love to imagine themselves Abdiels, and that-as our historical tract has noticed-they who all their lives have promoted the issues from which they shrink at last, will die in the last ditch, for the shadows of truth, to whose standards they profess to cling. But we will not embarrass our own position by undertaking for the future. It may be that none of the seven Isms will ever win the day: the Truth may be graciously allowed to prevail. We are content to speak of the present. What actually is-is bad enough. RATIONALISM, in its broad comprehensiveness, is already the distinctive religion of New England. We appeal to the tracts we are reviewing; we appeal to the movements of the day; we appeal to the eyesight of every educated and pious man in the Six States. Again, we appeal to every New England Churchman, and we beg him to ask himself where is the remedy, if not in the religion of which he is a professor? Where else is the New Testament fully preached and fully believed? We look then to Churchmen to show their colors, and "to speak the truth in love." Let a firm, consistent front be maintained; let us know ourselves, and show our antagonists that we know them. And, by knowing ourselves, we mean knowing what are truly the "distinctive principles" of our religion, as it exists among heresies so various and so flagrant. Episcopacy and the Apostolical succession may be regarded as matters of course. Our ritual system should be less commended, and more thoroughly carried out for merely to talk about Lent and Ember-days is pharisaism, while the keeping of them, in unobtrusive sincerity and truth, would be letting our light shine before men. But our distinctive principles are THE CREEDS. The Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, Regeneration, Justification, and the Resurrection of the dead-these doctrines, and those which are inseparable from them, as they are revealed in the Gospel, and as they were originally believed in the Church-are, in short, confessed, in our own Communion, and nowhere else in New England. This is a truth which every day is making more and more apparent ; but as there are many persons involved in the spreading degeneracy, who do not suspect it, it is our duty to give them

warning, in the spirit of frankness and charity. Having no standards of doctrine, they cannot see whither they are drifting, nor how far they have already floated from the anchorage which they intended to hold. Let us then light up the beacon fires of Truth and Love. Let us lift up the Cross. Let us claim that as our great principle. To such an appeal, many an ear will be open, that closes like a bivalve at the first syllable about Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. We have depended too much upon cold logic and dry history; we have felt that the plain matter-of-fact doctrines of the Succession and the Apostleship were enough to persuade men. And so they would be, if men were ordinarily capable of seeing the bearing of these things, and of feeling their necessity. In our Church's feeblest day, and while she but lisped these alphabetic verities, amid scorn and contempt, their force was felt. Yale has never forgotten the searchings of heart, the hubbub and the havoc, that were made among her doctors a century ago, by the few stubborn things discovered in her library, by her own sons, ere yet habitual imperception had blinded their moral vision. To the merest outside truths, which we preach, the head and front of Puritanism bowed down in 1722. Yale never had a President of whom she has more reason to be proud, than of Rector Cutler, who leaving all she gave, came out from Puritanism, to join a feeble handful of Churchmen, because among them only he could find and exercise a valid ministry. Let her remember too her Johnson, and others with him, who made themselves martyrs for the same constraining truths; and let her not affect to sneer at doctrines which, however elementary, she has been made to feel so deeply, and to which she has paid such tribute! Yet we repeat it, these triumphs were gained upon a giant, with the sling and pebble-stones of our youth. We cannot do the feat again, for the simple reason that truth felt, and yet resisted, is less forcibly felt another time. The blow made all New England reel: but when Puritanism recovered itself, and found that it had retained here and there an important name, it could say to her youth, the worst is over, and we are yet alive." This single assumption has been its preservation. It has taken for granted that the Church had no more to say, and has always represented the contest as one about forms, to which, sound minds refused to listen. This we have too much encouraged by consenting to make no advances, and by fighting the battle over, on the old fields. But it must be so no longThe true issues now, are more serious, and by GoD's good providence we have grown strong. A hundred Churches

er.

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in Connecticut alone; six Bishops, where once there seemed no prospect of one; and a College baptized into the Trinal Name, and capable of being made an armory and a fortress of the Faith,-these are our sinews; and for our strength-the Lord of Hosts is with us; He teacheth our hands to war and our fingers to fight! Now then, let us quit ourselves like men. We no longer dispute for outposts; it is the citadel which is attacked, and which we must defend. In plain words, we are not contending for Episcopacy, but for the Faith once delivered to the Saints.

CHURCH MISSIONS AND CHURCH EXTENSION. Edial Editivial ART. VI.-Thirteenth Annual Report of the Domestic Committee, presented at the Annual Meeting of the Board of Missions, at Providence, Rhode Island, June 20th, 1848. Fourth Triennial Report of the Board of Missions, to the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, held in New York, in October, 1847.

THE Conviction has become general among us, that in the Missionary work, as now conducted by our Branch of the Church Catholic, there is something wrong. This feeling is exhibited in reiterated complaints; in a withdrawal of confidence and coöperation on the part of many important parishes already, and in the certainty of more of this hereafter; and in the adoption of extraneous methods and policies for the disbursement of missionary funds. As to the question, what is the real difficulty, in our present Missionary system, there is probably much diversity of opinion. Some, suppose it to center in a want of the "missionary heart," or in a prevailing apathy on Missionary subjects. Others, regard the difficulty as organic, and as growing naturally, and necessarily, out of our present system, which they deem unwieldy, expensive, untrustworthy, and inadequate to develop the capacities and energies of the Church, or to meet the wants of the world.

In offering a few suggestions upon this most important subject, we are not, we think, going out of our province as Church Reviewers. We shall speak as one wholly disconnected with our present Missionary organization; and yet with no indistinct view of existing facts; and not altogether unmindful of their present and prospective importance.

It is evident enough, that to the successful prosecution of the Missionary work on the part of the Church, two things only are necessary: first, the vigorous existence of a true missionary spirit; and, second, a suitable instrumentality, or agency, by which that spirit may act. Hence, the best methods for the production of such a spirit, and the ascertaining such an instrumentality, are the only important objects of inquiry.

În examining both these points, we shall reverse the order in which they have been named.

It seems to us, that the question, what is the proper agency or instrumentality for carrying on the work of Missions? is

The missionary

not left for the first time now to be raised. work, or, in other words, to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature, baptizing them into the name of the FATHER, and of the Son, and of the HOLY GHOST, is a work imposed by HIM who is HIMSELF the AUTHOR of the scheme, as a distinct and imperative duty, upon a distinct Body or Organization of men. And He added thereto His own promise, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Churchmen, who see in that commission the appointment of an Order of men, perpetual and unchanging until the end of time, cannot but see in it, also, the imposition upon that Order, of a specific duty; the committal of a special and unchanging trust. The Apostolic Commission must be as special and binding, in its duties and trusts, as in its persons; and the Church may, with equal propriety, discuss the expediency of dispensing with one as another part of that Commission. Hence it necessarily follows, that the Church of CHRIST, is herself CHRIST's own chosen appointed instrumentality for spreading the Gospel; and instead of stopping to raise the question of the Church's adaptedness to such a work, she would do better to leave that question with her Master, looking in a spirit of docility and obedience unto Him who is the Author and Finisher of her Faith. This view, simple as it is, was that upon which all the early missions of the Church were conducted, and her triumphs achieved. The early Church was a Missionary Church. The Apostles were themselves Missionaries. St. Paul was eminently a foreign Missionary. St. Peter was eminently a home Missionary. Nor did the leaders of the Church then dream of divorcing the Church from her work, much less of organizing a society to do it for her. Such an alternative has been left to modern times, and is, we think, one of the bitter fruits of defective views of her nature, design, and true glory. The Church has come to be viewed as something that is merely external and formal; as having, to be sure, authority and power, but not as God's chosen instrumentality of grace and blessing. She thus "assumes the austerity of a Sabine mother, rather than the affectionate, loving-kindness of the daughter of Zion." But this is far from answering to that specialty of trust, which CHRIST, the Head, imposed upon the members of his own Body; and it is far enough from that spirit, in which the lofty eloquence of Isaiah, and the descriptive strains of the Psalmist, speak of her mission and victories.

We do not deny that there may be circumstances, under which the Church may be obliged to do her work indirectly