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sary expressions? The Come-outers seem to us to be the Jacobins of the eighteenth century, the Independents and Fifth Monarchy men of the seventeenth, and the Protestants of the sixteenth.

All Christian men and women are and must needs be reformers, for, if they were not, they would not be Christians. There have always been reformers in the Church and in the State, and always will be till Christianity fails. But there are two principles of reform, or rather two different methods of seeking reform. One method is, to accept the existing order, and through it, by such modes of action as it tolerates or authorizes, to seek the correction of abuses, and a more perfect development. The other method is, to resist the existing order, to abjure its laws, and to attempt to introduce an entirely new order. The first we may term the CONSERVATIVE method of reform; the second, the REVOLUTIONARY method. Gregory the Seventh is a notable instance of the conservative reformer; Luther of the revolutionary reformer.

Which of these methods is the true one? Which is the one we have a right to adopt? Which is the most likely to be effectual? If a dozen years ago we had been asked these questions, we should have decided in favor of the revolutionary method, both on the ground of right and of expediency. Most young men, of more benevolent feeling than actual experience, and more. enthusiastic zeal than practical wisdom, we believe, are prone to decide in the same way; while, on the other hand, men, as they grow older, as they take a wider survey of things, and feel more deeply the necessity of moral obligation, of stability in institutions, and regular and determinate modes of action, are, for the most part, disposed to decide in favor of the conservative method. Hence, we frequently find the man, who in his youth was a flaming radical, a stanch conservative in his maturer years. And this is usually, in our times, urged as an accusation, and such a man is pointed at as a renegade, as having in his age forgotten the dreams of his youth, and deserted the cause of human improve

ment. The crude notions of youth are, therefore, supposed to be more worthy of our respect than the sober and chastened convictions of age! But, when we see the young radical, the youthful revolutionist, converted into the staid and stanch conservative, and for "Liberty" substituting the cry of "Order," we are not necessarily to infer that he has forgotten the dreams of his youth, that his heart has grown insensible to the wrongs and outrages of which man is the cause or the victim, or that he is less able, less willing, or less determined to sacrifice himself for the progress of his race. All that we are at liberty to infer is, that he has satisfied himself that the revolutionary method is not the true one, and that he can do more good, and more effectually realize the end contemplated in his young dreams, by adopting the conservative method.

There may be times when the old order has become corrupt, and must give place to a new order; but no man has the right, on his own individual authority, to attempt its destruction. Jesus does not even authorize his Apostles to make direct war on either Judaism or Paganism, though both were to give way to the Gospel. He authorizes them to do only what they may do, as quiet, orderly, and peaceable citizens. So the Apostles authorize no resistance to the Roman government, but command their followers to be "in subjection to the powers that be." They were to trust to the silent, but effectual, workings of the truth in the minds and hearts. of men to bring about in a regular and peaceful manner all needed political and social reforms. They were never to resist authority actively; but, if they must resist it at all, it must be by passively suffering its unjust penalties. If the existing authorities required of them that which, they could not yield without proving false to God, they were indeed to withhold obedience, but at the same time meekly submit to the penalty these authorities might choose to inflict.

The revolutionary spirit is essentially at war with the religious spirit. The religious spirit does not oppose reform, does not oppose progress, for it is itself a perpet

ual aspiration of the soul to God, that is to say, a continual hungering and thirsting of the soul after righteousness, after higher and yet higher degrees of sanctity; but it does oppose the spirit of rebellion and revolution. The meek, quiet, orderly, peaceable spirit, that would overcome the world, not by slaying, but by being slain, is the true religious spirit; the bold, daring, rebellious spirit, that recognizes no established order, and will submit to no fixed rule, is what the Scriptures everywhere teach us to regard as the Satanic spirit. One feels this at almost every page of the Old TestaThe rebels, the revolutionists, the innovators, the Come-outers, are everywhere condemned; but never are reformers condemned. Young King Josiah is held up to us as a pattern prince, and he is a most zealous and indefatigable reformer.

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The Church has also taken, always, the same view. She has, from the first, enjoined submission to the constituted authorities, as if no good could come from the disobedient and rebellious; - obedience of children to their parents, obedience of servants to their masters, of subjects to the magistrate, of citizens to the State, of the faithful to their pastors. She held out always that all were under law, and that the great virtue, the parent of all the virtues, was obedience. Enforcing this lesson of obedience with maternal authority and maternal affection, she tamed the savage, she softened the barbarian heart, she spread the Gospel through heathen lands, and covered the earth over with monuments of religious zeal and benevolent affection. So long as her sons obeyed her, so long as they submitted to her discipline, and meekly received the law at her hand, she was able to carry on her glorious work of regeneration, and the progress of the race, in all that truly adorns and enriches humanity, was steadily and rapidly onward.

But the Anakim remained in the land. The giants, that is, the earth-born, and mighty men of old, forgot that the first of Christian graces is humility, and the first of Christian virtues, obedience; they felt that submission was a degradation, even a debasement, and re

solved that they would rule, and no longer serve. Like Lucifer and his rebel hosts, they set themselves up against authority. They challenged supremacy with the Almighty. Then broke forth the revolutionary spirit, and, with a large portion of the professedly Christian world, Christian virtue was assumed to consist, not in obedience, but in defiance. Submission to superiors was anti-Christian. There were no superiors. This showed itself, in the sixteenth century, in ecclesiastical rebellion. Luther defied the Pope, and he and his followers, together with Zwingle and Calvin, shook off the authority of the Church and set up for themselves. The ecclesiastical rebellion was followed by civil rebellion, in the insurrection of the peasants; after an interval, in the revolt of the Netherlands; then in the English rebellion. The revolutionary spirit, checked for a moment, increased in intensity, and soon, in the eighteenth century, broke out all over Europe, and finally culminated in the French Revolution. Voltaire, it has been gravely argued, by a popular writer, in a religious periodical, continued the work of Luther. Luther overthrew the infallibility of the Pope; Voltaire, the infallibility of the written word, and finally emancipated the mind from its thraldom, and proclaimed, henceforth and for ever, absolute freedom of mind.

That our modern Come-outerism is the offspring of this very Satanic spirit, there can be no doubt. This spirit has taken full possession of modern literature. All our popular literature is Titanic, and makes war on the Divinity. It is profoundly revolutionary. What else is the dominant spirit of the more applauded portions of German literature? Kant, Schiller, even Goethe, the Privy Councillor, with his calm, conservative exterior, are of the old Titanic or Anakim race, the children of Cain, not of Seth. What else shall we say of Byron, Shelley, Bulwer, and even Carlyle? or of the nightmare school of France, with its Victor Hugo, De Balzac, and George Sand? And of what other parentage are your Owens, Fouriers, and Saint-Simons?

The watchword of the whole party affected by this

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spirit, whatever its Protean shapes, is LIBERTY. This is the angel of light, whose disguise the devil has chosen and in which he walks abroad, to and fro in the earth, seeking whom he may devour. Liberty is a sacred name; the name of all that is dear, precious, and thrilling to the human heart; the name of that to which all that is generous, noble, and praiseworthy in our nature aspires; the name of the very end for which we were made, for our highest end, as our highest good, is, to become free, to become able to "look into the perfect law of liberty. Once make it appear that yours is the cause of liberty, and you rightfully enlist all our sympathies on your side, and prove, that, in fighting against you, we are fighting against God. Whoso blasphemes liberty blasphemes his Maker. All, therefore, that Satan has to do is, to persuade men that his cause is the cause of freedom; and then he can make even their consciences work for him, and all that is noblest and most energetic in their nature urge them on in his service.

The specific form of what among ourselves is called Come-outerism has been determined by the Abolition movement. The providential mission of this country is liberty; the realization of liberty, not of classes, castes, or estates, but the liberty of man as a moral, intellectual, social, and religious being. Here Christianity was to do her perfect work, in freeing man from every species of bondage, and of ushering him into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. This is the end Providence has appointed us. But this is precisely the end the devil would defeat. Liberty is precisely the thing he hates. He must defeat liberty, or have no foothold on this continent. How shall he defeat it? By making direct war upon it, that is, by direct and open opposition to our deepest and holiest instincts? The devil is too cunning for that; for he knows perfectly well, that, were he to do so, the whole land would perceive his real character; would detect him, and know him to be the arch enemy of mankind, and therefore be prepared to withstand him. He can ruin liberty only in the name of liberty, accom

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