show him the hospitals, the orphan asylums, the houses of reformation, which are seen nowhere but on Christian soil. I would bid him mark how Christian charity has taken the poor by the hand of cordial brotherhood, has gathered the little ones of ignorance and want into the fold of Jesus, and opened the door of mercy and of hope to the outcast victims of depravity. I would carry him to the maniacs' chapel on some Sabbath morning, and show him there the hundreds redeemed from straw, and chains, and filth, sitting, like him of old, at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and, to human appearance, in their right mind, listening earnestly to the soothing accents of Christian love, uniting devoutly in prayer, and lifting in faultless melody their songs of praise to him, who commands the light to shine out of darkness, I would carry him too to the Christian death-bed and house of mourning, and there teach him what peace and triumph the gospel can shed over the closing scene, how calmly and hopefully survivors sorrow for those that sleep in Jesus. I would trace back for him every source of consolation and joy, till I reached the gospel fountain, where it took its birth. I would show him that humanity has not a want, not a sorrow, which Jesus does not meet, not a dark passage in life, which he does not make fragrant with praise and love. I would thus hold forth Christianity as the great alms-giver, burden-bearer, and peace-maker of our race. I would show him how deeply humanity needed such a faith, how full and earnest is the sympathy of the great toiling and suffering body of humanity with it. And then I would ask him whether, if heaven indeed be gracious, such a Prince and Savior should not have come. Can we look at God's throne of love, and believe that he would have left his children unaided in their conflict with guilt and woe? Can we trace the healing streams, that flow from Christ to make glad the city of our God, without feeling that they flow from the throne of everlasting love? No. Such is indeed the Savior, who, man's wants tell us, should come, nor can the fair and honest seeker look for another. 2. Again, in Christendom, among rival sects and conflicting creeds, we may know where Christ is by the same signs. And especially, we may thus ascertain, whether he is in our midst, or whether we have taken away our Lord, and set up a false Christ, an Antichrist in his place. One says, Lo, here is Christ, another, Lo, there. Here you are bidden to trace his genuine church in the purity of its doctrines, there in the sanctity of its ritual, yet elsewhere in the simple nakedness of its forms and modes. Christ may be present in either, in all, or in none of these churches; for these are not the signs of his coming. But where you see the sick healed and the unhappy soothed, men's wants supplied and their sufferings relieved, the light and truth of God's word dispensed among the poor, and sent forth to the benighted, you need look no farther, —Christ is there, he, who should come, has come in the midst of that brotherhood, whatever their name, their creed or their forms. We are saved the trouble of catechizing them, their works testify of them. This view explains to us the exclusiveness and bigotry, which prevailed in the church for so many ages. Though there has always been silently flowing from Christianity an influence, which has relieved the wants and allayed the troubles of man, the Church very early lost its actively and distinctively philanthropic character. When they that believed had all things in common, and parted of their possessions as every man had need," there were no divisions among them. They bore the impress of their Master's love; and by that impress each knew his brother. They were all missionaries of the cross, went on errands of mercy, and bore glad tidings to the poor, and in these things each beheld in every other the seal of discipleship. But soon charity became rather the incidental act, than the habit of the church. While she put on the trappings of pomp and power, the poor were neglected, the benighted were forgotten, the suffering were passed by on the other side. Nowhere, in any considerable portion of the church, could Christ's spirit be traced. And, as love waxed cold, schism and heresy grew. All parts of Christ's professed family having lost the marks of discipleship, by which they had once known each other, sectarian jealousy, partizan warfare raged. And well might Catholics and heretics alike have denied each other the Christian name; for, with here and there a solitary exception, they were all equally unworthy of it. "Is he that should come among you?" might one sect have cried to another. "Whence then in your midst those groans of unpitied suffering, those cries of the desolate and the fatherless unheard but by heaven, those unaided wants and woes, that grinding of the faces of the poor, those Macedonian calls of souls in darkness and error, thrilling in your ears without a response? Surely man's wants are left unsatisfied, his sorrows unrelieved within your pale. Therefore he, who should come, has not come among you, look ye for another." Thus for ages did the various divisions of Christendom reproach and upbraid each other, yet without taking to heart the good old proverb," Physician, heal thyself." Still God never left himself without a witness. But the true church, which yet bore its Master's lineaments, and whence his spirit might have been rekindled, was often hidden in forests and caverns, sunk in obscurity, branded by anathemas. The true church, I say; for there has always been one. The apostolic succession has been preserved. And this true church, this apostolic succession we trace not in a straight line through all the vileness and depravity of the Roman hierarchy: for, highly as we revere and cherish that outward organization and those time-hallowed and apostolic forms, which survived in the darkest times, and dimly shadowed forth a purer past and a brighter future, we cannot conceive of any spiritual gift as having resided in the bodies of a corrupt and unchristian prelacy, and having been transmitted at their fingers' ends. The true apostolic succession has followed a devious path. The true church has dwelt now among the cedars of Lebanon, and now in the fastnesses of the Apennines. It has glorified God in the fires of Smithfield, and in the martyred hosts of St. Bartholomew's Eve. It has reared its altars on the hills of Scotland, and among the primeval forests of the New World. It has worshipped in the vast cathedral, and then again in dens and caves of the earth. Its prayers have gone up in the measured cadence and holy beauty of solemn litanies, and then again in the rapt fervor of the man of God, who speaks as the spirit gives him utterance. Its praises have floated to heaven on the organ's strains and in the stately anthem, and then, without voice or sound, from the hearts of the still worshippers, who keep silence in their temple, be - cause God is there. It has been known, not by its forms and creeds, but by such works as Jesus wrought before the Baptist's disciples. It has numbered among its members those of every form and creed, who have shown their love to God by their love to man. Its only creed and covenant is love, its only ritual charity, -its only badge of priesthood a double portion of the spirit of Jesus. This church, though on the increase, is still but a little flock. And hence one chief reason, why Christians of different names are yet so slow to own each other. They do not trace in each other that full and fervent charity, which confounds the bigotry of creeds and catechisms. But so soon as the whole church assumes a decidedly philanthropic aspect, so soon as Christians will give themselves no rest, while an ignorant, degraded, suf fering fellow-man remains upon earth, then, in these Christ-like works, they will trace in each other their Master's image and superscription. Thus indeed it is even now, where Christian love has shone forth with peculiar lustre. Who thinks of questioning on sectarian grounds the Christian name and true Christian priesthood of such men as Fenelon and Penn, Oberlin and Neff, Martyn and Heber, Mayhew and Brainerd, Cheverus and Tuckerman ? Such men have borne too manifestly the signature of Jesus, even for the narrowest bigot to ask, "Whose image and superscription is this?" They have too manifestly been led by the spirit of God, and commissioned from on high, to be arraigned at the bar of human exclusiveness. They are placed by common consent above the narrow limits of sect or party. They are deemed too much Christians, to have any other name stamped upon them; and good men of every |