as a serious, honest, and intelligent man, without, in my own belief, unchurching all the rest. This I shrink, as it seems to me, every intelligent and fair-minded man must shrink, from doing. Where, then, can I go? Literally, I can go nowhere.

Now, here is, if we mistake not, a very serious and embarrassing question, a. preliminary question, which must be met and disposed of, before we can proceed a single step. We have, since we came to believe in the unity and catholicity of the church, thought much and anxiously on this question; and, without wishing in the least to disguise its difficulty from ourselves or from others, we will, with all modesty, deference, and humility, give, briefly, the best answer we have been able to obtain.

We begin by assuming, that no solution of the problem, which really unchurches any existing communion, will answer the purpose. The moment such a solution is proffered, each communion which is unchurched is provoked, as we have said, to bring forward its rival pretensions; and each claiming to be a church, and, therefore, to be independent in respect to all others, there is no common umpire to whom the dispute may be referred, and whose decision will be recognized by all as binding upon all. The Bible is not this umpire, because the Bible is all in the meaning which the living interpreter gives it, and each communion interprets it differently from the others. The Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, the Congregationalist, each appeals alike to the Bible; but has the Bible as yet settled their rival pretensions? Individual reason, or private judgment, will not answer; because each man's private judgment is in no small degree the product of the peculiar traditions of his own special communion; and because it is never the same in the case of any two individuals. The whole history of Christendom, since the time of Luther, demonstrates the utter impracticability of attaining to unanimity by means of individual reason. Moreover, the individual reason is authoritative only for the individual. To make. it the umpire, would be to set up the reason of

one as the standard, and to require all the rest to conform to it, which would be the grossest tyranny conceivable. My individual judgment is the equivalent of my neighbour's; to require me to submit mine to his, or him to submit his to mine, would be an outrage, which every true man, at all conscious of his rights, dignity, and duty, would, if need should be, resist even unto death. There is, then, as we have said, no common umpire, to whose decision, recognized by all as binding, the rival claims of these conflicting communions can be brought and settled. We are forced, then, by the very necessity of the case, by the actual condition of Christendom, to begin by so far recognizing the claims of all, as to bring the special claims of no one into discussion, - unless some one, indeed, insists on unchurching all but itself; and even then we must suffer ourselves to do it, only so far as is necessary to rebuke it for its arrogance and exclusive spirit.

Perhaps our meaning would be best expressed by saying, that we should begin by waiving all discussion of the claims of rival communions. This discussion is really unnecessary, and cannot fail to be mischievous. Let us begin, then, by assuming, that the Lord's body has been broken into fragments, but that each of these fragments is, in a degree, a living fragment, and capable of imparting more or less of Christian life. No one of these fragments must assume to be the whole unbroken body of the Lord. This premised, let there be no discussion as to who broke the body, or as to which fragment, upon the whole, retains the most of the original body, or to which we should do best to assimilate; but, let the question be, How shall all these fragments be brought together, and reunited in one unbroken body, so that the whole Christian world may be really one?

Here, then, is our answer: Do you ask, which is the true church? that is, which is the Lord's body? We answer, No ONE; that is, no one is it, all and entire. Do you then retort, and say, that the church has failed, and that we assume the true church to be no longer extant,

save in a refined and metaphysical sense, thereby falsifying the promise of our Saviour, that he would build his church upon a rock, and the gates of hell should not prevail against it? We deny your charge. We say, the true church, the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church, does still exist, and has never for one moment ceased to exist, but exists at the present. moment in a fragmentary state. This existence, in a fragmentary or broken state, is very different from not existing at all. It is the church still, but the church no longer in its full glory and power, which in fact is implied in our very inquiry; for, if it were, it would at once be recognized. We prefer representing the church as a body broken, rather. than as a vine, and the several communions as branches; for these branches must all through the main trunk intercommune, and receive their nourishment from the root; or else they would be dead branches, abiding not in the vine. If these separate churches are branches, we ask, where is the trunk? that is to say, where is the central church, which receives the sap from Christ, the Root, and circulates it through the branches, thus giving life and growth to the whole plant? We do not understand this notion of branch churches, without a main trunk. To us the church is the body of our Lord, bearing to him a relation analogous to that borne by our bodies to the vital force, or organic principle, which creates and preserves them living organisms. Now we can easily conceive of the body being broken, and yet without the parts being torn so far asunder as to have absolutely no intercommunion; and this is to us an exact representation of the present condition of the church. It is the torn and bleeding, but not yet dead, body of our Lord.

So much for the church as it is. Now, the real problem is not, to which of these parts I must assimilate; therefore, the preliminary question, With which communion shall I seek fellowship? disposes, as it were, of itself, and ceases to be a question at all. It is only by taking a false view of the Christian world as it is, that it ever comes up to trouble us. The question disturbs

us, because we begin by assuming, that some one of these communions must be the true Catholic Apostolic Communion, and that the rest are no Christian communions at all; instead of assuming, in the outset, as we should, that all are but so many fragments of one and the same Catholic Apostolic Communion. In any one of these communions, you are in the church, and, therefore, have no occasion to ask, Where shall I go? STAY

WHERE YOU ARE.

The true question for the inquirer, is not, Which is the true church? but, What can be done to bring all the fragments together, heal the broken body of Christ, and clothe it again with his seamless robe? And, after all, this question is not so difficult as some might suppose. Assuming, that all the professedly Christian communions extant, save one, must be unchurched, the matter is indeed difficult; for then you can reach unity only through proselyting, only by converting all the members of these unchurched communions to your own; which, beginning as you do by setting up your own as the church, the only church, and the whole. church, is utterly impracticable, as the experiment of the last three centuries abundantly demonstrates. But, on the ground we assume, it becomes comparatively easy. We have but to observe the process of nature in healing a wounded body, in order to ascertain, at once, the law which is to govern our efforts. Nature carries on her curative process by throwing off the bruised flesh, and forming new flesh, simultaneously, and by one and the same operation, by virtue of the vital principle, which is in the broken body, and equally, though it may be in unequal degrees, in the several parts. The restoration of unity, and the absorption of all particular communions, must go on simultaneously, and be effected by virtue of the living principle still in the broken body of our Lord, and in all the fragments into which it has been broken.

Now, is there in all these fragments this one vital force, this organic principle, by virtue of which the

whole body may be healed, unity recovered, and division absorbed? We contend, that there is, and that just in proportion as we address ourselves to this vital force, we shall be successful in healing all these divisions, which we now deplore in the church. Beneath all this diversity, which strikes us, on the surface, there is, though but partially operative, the fundamental principle of unity. It is to this principle, that we must look ; for unity can be effected only by appealing to a principle common to all. Unity by conversion of one communion to another, much more of all communions to one, is out of the question. The union must come, if it come at all, by means of efforts possible to each communion, while continuing to be a particular communion. That is, the work to be done for the recovery of the unity and catholicity of the church, as a body as well as a spirit, must be a work, possible to the Roman Catholic, without his becoming a Protestant; to the Protestant, without his becoming a Roman Catholic; to the Anglican, without his becoming a Presbyterian, or a Congregationalist; and to the Presbyterian, or the Congregationalist, without his becoming an Anglican.

Now, what is this principle? It is, answers one, the spirit of Christ, that is to say, LOVE. Love is the grand principle of union, and, just so far as all possess it, they do really become one, one with one another, one with Christ, and, through him, one with the Father. Nothing more true; but this overlooks a very important fact, and assumes the presence of love as the principle of the unity of the church; whereas it is the unity and catholicity of the church, which we need, as the condition of producing love in the hearts of its members. This answer makes the unity and catholicity of the church the end; whereas love is the end, and unity and catholicity are the means. With this multiplicity of jarring and hostile communions, whence the love necessary to unite them? If, with these jarring and hostile communions, you can obtain the love, what do you want the unity and catholicity for? Here is the fallacy of most of the grounds of Christian union, proposed, in our