THE following remarks, taken from the Missionary News of the New York Independent, give to New Churchmen a new and gratifying proof that the light of the New Dispensation is beginning to shine in regions which, for centuries, have been shrouded in almost Egyptian darkness. The writer in the Independent must indeed be deeply impressed by the importance of the facts he records when he feels impelled to say, "We are witnessing the commencement of a mightier religious reformation than that of the sixteenth century.” "What we have to do in Spain and Portugal, for example (and probably in other nominally Christian countries), is suggested by the evidence that a deep religious popular yearning for Gospel truth and for Christ as the One Mediator is breaking forth into churches of converted men, one after another, so fast that we scarcely keep the count of their number. Few of us are, perhaps, aware that so far back as the eighth of last January the sixth new chapel for evangelical worship was dedicated in Madrid, the capital of (so lately) priest-ridden intolerant, Spain — a chapel that will accommodate from six to seven hundred people. This sudden and strong development of evangelical ideas and yearnings, so surprising to many, is going on all over Europe in very considerable degree. Indeed, it comes not from without, but from within. We are witnessing the commencement of a mightier religious reformation than that of the sixteenth century; and one on which, we may believe, no Spanish Inquisition will fall with annihilating or even checking power. But, while we are not to go there with missions to originate movements, as we go to heathen lands, we are to go there to supplement, to foster, to encourage, to aid as we may, out of our longer experience and more abundant trial of the evangelical faith of Jesus, those who are just being led by His Spirit to its blessed light and peace. What is thus true of Spain and Portugal is not less true of Italy. Her "Free Italian Church," representing so many self-governing separate churches, is not a creation from without. Foreign Christian agency had a little to do with helping and with guiding, but the movement itself was from within. The Italian people were hungering, and Rome did not feed them. The famine was sore in the land; and when the barriers were broken down and permission given, the people flew upon the bread of life. Witness the rapidity with which, through one agency alone, more than 600,000 Testaments were distributed-multitudes of them sold-in Spain. Witness also the avidity with which the people of Italy have seized on the Bible. We are to prosecute our work among them, then, not as among the heathen, but on a system which shall recognize, and honor, and put faith in what has already been done in the way of preparation by that poor representation of Christianity they have had in Romanism." AN ANCIENT WITNESS. The following extracts are taken from an interesting article, by Julius A. Palmer, jr., in a recent number of the Congregationalist: 66 The ancient capital of China was Si-guan-fou, situated on a branch of the Yellow River, about 650 miles from the mouth of the parent stream. Here, among a people who know not the Christian's God, stands a most remarkable witness, not only to the existence, but also to the doctrines of the religion which we profess. It is a monument of the kind usually erected by the Chinese to commemorate any well-known event of public interest. It is a dark-colored marble slab, about seven feet high by three broad, besides a pyramidal top, which is surmounted by a cross, and its inscription contains a brief enumeration of many of the truths which are found in the sacred Scriptures." "It was discovered in 1625, and a tracing of the characters was brought to Rome by Father Alvaraz Samedo and translated in 1643, but a Latin translation had been published in Holland seven years before the Jesuits had thus carried their trophy to the Eternal City." "The greater portion of the inscription is devoted to brief historical notices of the rulers of the Empire from A. D. 636 to a. D. 781, this latter date being, by its own testimony, the year of the erection of the monument." 6 6 "The following condensation of portions of the translation may be of general interest. Its first paragraphs are identical in doctrine with the Biblical account of the creation of the universe, and the fall of man. The eternal existence of a great First Cause, and the original pure and undefiled nature of man, are enlarged upon. Then follows the entrance of Satan into the world, throwing a gilded covering over that pure nature, insinuating evil and darkness.' The consequent sad condition of fallen man is portrayed in language strikingly scriptural: Thereupon our Trinity set apart the illustrious and adorable Messiah, who, laying aside his true dignity, came into the world as man. Angels proclaimed the joyful tidings. A virgin gave birth to the Holy Child in Judea.' The beneficent effects of the coming of Christ are then alluded to, the books of the Old and New Testament referred to, allusion made to the fact that the Saviour fulfilled the prophecies of ancient day, baptism and the cross are spoken of, and comments made upon the public worship of the Sabbath." "Native writers state that in the year corresponding to A. D. 635 there came ambassadors out of the West to the Celestial Court, headed by one Olopen, a pious and learned man, bringing the news of a new system of worship, holding the truth and rejecting that which is needless,' and their doctrine was declared by Oriental sages to be profound, excellent, and pure." 6 BOOK NOTICES. Pre-Historic Nations; or, Inquiries Concerning some of the Great Peoples and Civilizations of Antiquity, and their probable Relation to a still older Civilization of the Ethiopians, or Cushites, of Arabia. By JOHN M. BALDWIN, A. M. pp. 400. Harpers, New York: 1869. BESIDE the delight which a New Churchman has in a knowledge of the doctrines, he may also participate with others in their joy on becoming acquainted with the truth. This is true preeminently of the spiritual teachings, but it is true also of the truths on the natural plane. What might be called New Church science has the same relation to that science which opposes itself to Scripture, and looks downward to earth, rather than upward to the Lord, as the religion of the New Church bears to that which made the Lord and the life of heaven repulsive and unreal. There need be no selfish exultation in this looking about to see others joining us, but there should be sympathy and thankfulness. The book now before us, written, as it is, in an unconscious effort to confirm the teaching of the Word concerning the Ancient Church, has proved very interesting; and if it has not accomplished all we were hoping of it, still it must be regarded as a valuable contribution to the history of the race, whose Divine origin it asserts. It must be remembered, too, that the author offers us only "Inquiries.” These inquiries are arranged under very attractive headings, a few of which are as follows: Arabia was the Ancient Ethiopia; The Cushite System of Political Organization; The Origin of Chaldea; The Indo-Aryans preceded by the Cushites; Origin and Antiquity of Egypt; The Ages before Menes; The Arabian Cushites in Africa; Traces of African Ancient History; The Ancient Race in Western Europe; Ancient Communication with America; etc., etc. It will be evident at once that Mr. Baldwin pursues his researches in a period of which hardly more than myths remain, and many would therefore consider his conclusions antecedently improbable. But where traditions of different countries and races agree, to suppose them founded upon fact is not so difficult as to attribute them to imagination; and Mr. Baldwin has depended largely upon this cumulative evidence. Lord Bacon's remark is quoted to the effect "that the mythology of the Greeks, which their oldest writers do not pretend to have invented, was no more than a light air, which had passed from a more ancient people into the flutes of the Grecians." What Mr. Baldwin calls the audacious egotism of the Greeks in assuming to themselves what they cannot call their own, is rebuked in a pungent paragraph on page 47: "Three thousand years hence, when all the living languages of the present time have been long dead, and all the literature connected with them lost, some writer belonging to a nation, and using a language that will first appear two thousand years hence, may undertake to write the history of America. To do it as some have written the history of Greece, he will begin with some great epoch in our history yet to come, previous to which authentic history will be found impossible; but mythical and traditional recollections of Europe and of the first ages of America will remain, and these will be grouped together, and referred to as a legendary or heroic age of America. Alfred the Great, William the Conqueror, Shakespeare, Napoleon, Luther, Dante, Julius Cæsar, and Mahomet, will all become mythical Americans. Another historian may protest that the mythical and legendary recollections are merely interesting fictions,' and signify nothing." He quotes Humboldt as follows: "We will not attempt to decide the question whether the races at present termed savage are all in condition of original wildness, or whether, as the structure of their languages often allows us to conjecture, many among them may not be tribes that have degenerated into a wild state, remaining as scattered fragments from the wreck of a civilization that was early lost." A few extracts of especial interest to New Church people are subjoined without comment : "The oldest books, leaving out those of China, are preserved by the Indian and Iranian branches of the Aryan family, the Rig-Veda, a translated fragment of the Desatir, and portions of the works of Zoroaster; next to these come the Hebrew Scriptures" (p. 11). Monotheism was never taught more distinctly in any age, or by any race, than in the first book of the Desatir, called 'the Book of the Great Abad.” 66 - p. 292. "In the tenth chapter of Genesis, the names recorded are professedly used, for the most part, as ethnical and geographical designations; but this ethnical geography of Genesis was probably more ancient than even the Hebrews themselves understood."-p. 18. "Arabian tradition knows nothing older than Ad. It associates with him, and with his time, the beginnings of civilized life.” p. 104. Concerning modern Arabia, which is said to be full of ruins, and to exhibit the relics of the ancient civilization which gave birth to Egypt, India, Phenicia, Greece, and Rome, he says (pp. 113-115): "A man is less a kingdom than an aggregation of municipalities; each town, each village, has its separate existence. Here we have the remains of the ancient political system. The traditions tell us . . . that this Cushite nation first appeared in Arabia, in nine or more tribes, separately organized, and governed by chiefs, whose names are given." Does the world already know that there was, anterior to what we call the ancient nations, a still more ancient civilization, having its rise in South-western Asia, and established in accordance with what New Church people would call heavenly order? Mr. Baldwin insists that the world does know it, and is very impatient that the proper acknowledgment is not made, so that Greece and Rome may be reduced to their true position among the nations. He is especially impatient and severe with Archbishop Usher, because he lent his hand to unravel the Scripture chronology, and fixed upon the date of the Creation as 4004 B. C., not knowing any better. He would not have done it in this generation, and he has not done any harm worth speaking of; why, then, trample upon his memory? We take it that personal abuse is as much out of place in a modern scientific book as Usher's creation date would be in a table of true chronology. We have not attempted to decide upon the success of Mr. Baldwin's argument, because our decision would not help the matter. We form the opinion from this book that the time for putting the Ancient Dispensation in our text-books on Ancient History has not yet come, but this book shows that the time is not far distant when historians will view Greece and Rome as recent facts, and when, to take an illustration nearer home, the interval of seventeen hundred years between the First and Second Advents will seem short, and men will regard it as a literal fulfilment of the promise, "Behold I come quickly." The True Christian Religion; or, The Plain and Easy Road to said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.". ACTS xvi., 31. Part Second: "Receive." "And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost." -JOHN XX., 22. Lowell: written and published by ALBERT COLBY, while a licensed preacher of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 1871. WE refer to the small work with the above title (published by the author in connection with a work on the Life of Christ and the Apostles, by Rev. Rufus W. Clark) to express our regret that it has been printed. We see from a preface to the present, which is not the first, edition, that the state and mental position of the writer |