rope, Asia, every-where that they are presented. Free grace, universal atonement, individual responsibility, salvation by faith, purity of life, and the witness of the Spirit to the fact of conversion, are, in the nature of things, and always will be, popular Scripture doctrines, because they are manifestly true, easily understood, and clearly taught in the Bible.

The economy of Methodism is not a human invention, but a providential outgrowth of Christian effort under the direction of the New Testament, from a great variety of circumstances in real life; it is concreted experience, crystallized into an efficient, practical ecclesiasticism strong enough to resist opposition, and sufficiently pliable to meet exigencies as they arise. Its itinerancy and lay preaching sprung naturally from the work to be done, in the doing of it, and are calculated to meet the ends sought by scriptural evangelism and a continued pastorate, in the city and country, whether thickly or sparsely settled. Its episcopacy is not a hierarchy nor an ecclesiastical aristocracy, but merely a ministerial office for the superintendence of the Church, to which any minister may be elevated, always under authority, and deriving its power from those over whom it presides, an evangelical supervision of the flock of God, happily devised to direct its forces to the best advantage. Personal religious activity among preachers and members is promoted and utilized by the various means of grace in use and methods of operation. Its class-meetings, prayer-meetings, camp-meetings, revival meetings, Sundayschools, and multiplied missionary movements, are calculated to keep all employed. "At it, all at it, and always at it," is its rule of personal effort. The position it has given to womau, and the work allowed her, well-nigh double its aggressive force or working power. The Methodist Episcopal Church has also been characterized by liberal views and broad charity toward others. It has not sought so much denominational position, strength, or aggrandizement, as the general good of the people by right doing. Its recognized mission is to spread scriptural holiness, to make society better and happier in all places and phases of life. For such reasons it is found on the side of the poor and oppressed, laboring in the cause of temperance, for universal education, in behalf of humanity, and in favor of all efforts designed to do good. It is the Church of the people. It has

also sought to maintain a high standard of morality among its followers, and thus wield a strong moral influence in its own behalf, in favor of righteousness, and therefore against wrong. Such principles and such policy must ever be popular among those who desire the welfare of the race, or who seek the greatest good for themselves.

The spiritual life, the doctrines, the economy, the liberality, the moral tone and the active benevolence of the Methodist Episcopal Church are suited alike to all climes and to all classes of men. If these are so fully preserved as to meet the approval of God and man, and vigorously applied to the ends proposed in the Gospel, accompanied by the pentecostal anointing, so that the coming century shall be a hundred years of earnest revival work by the Church throughout all lands, the dawn of millennial peace and glory will have come. The way in which to evangelize the world is to evangelize it; while waiting for the coming of Christ, to have the lamps trimmed and burning, as faithful stewards to be employed in the Master's service, using the means which he has provided, living holy, and working hard. Ministers should preach and members labor with this end in view, each giving time, thought, toil, money, for this sublime purpose. If this is done the Methodist Episcopal Church alone, with divine help, can convert the world in a hundred years. Nor is the task so great as might be supposed. If each member will be the means of one conversion in every ten years throughout the century, in addition to those who pass to the Church triumphant, so as to double in numbers each decade, the end is accomplished. Should there be failure, whose will be the fault? May the question which passed around the table at the supper, "Is it I? Is it I?" be heard in all our ranks, and repeated from generation to generation, till the harvest is gathered.

If one denomination can do this, how much more easily all combined? There are other Churches as pious, earnest, and as precious in the sight of God, as the one which has been named. Can there be a doubt that the divine plan is that they should unite in love and labor to bring in the glad day when the earth is the Lord's? Is it not evident that if drunk enness, ignorance, and paganism continue to curse mankind after a hundred years from to-day, sin will lie at the doors of

the Churches? The Methodist Episcopal Church does not bear this responsibility alone, nor does it seek to monopolize any field, nor crave universal dominion, but will most cheerfully share the toil and the glory with all who labor in the vineyard. Its ranks will, undoubtedly, be divided by continents and national lines. Its one great desire is that the world may submit to the cross, and the reign of Jesus be universal and everlasting; that scriptural holiness may spread over all of the parish of Wesley.

In order to accomplish this end the example of the Saviour must be followed. His first public discourse was on the rights of man, against slavery and oppression, his theme being, "Liberty to the captives, deliverance to the oppressed, the jubilee of the nations." Mr. Wesley and the Methodists took up these thoughts of Jesus, and proclaimed them anew to the world. That which has been most successful with the fathers is full of promise in the future. The reform which the Church now needs is simply more spirituality, more Christ-like zeal for right, more Pauline fortitude in maintaining truth, more Wesleyan vigor against sin, more work for the conversion of souls and the sanctification of believers-all united in wise, evangelical propagandism. By these it conquers. The harvest is ready. Why tarry the reapers?

ART. VI.

PRESENT ASPECTS OF SCOTCH THEOLOGY. IF to be true and constant to a system of theology is a comnendable thing in the history of a Church, the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland are worthy of all praise. If the ductrines of the Westminster Standards, commonly known as Calvinistic, have not been faithfully held and preached in Scotland by the vast ministerial army stretching from John Knox to James Begg, they have never been faithfully held and preached outside Scotland. Scottish Presbyterianism has wrought a history marvelous in the testimony it gives of unity -complete unity-in doctrine. It might be divided by questions of policy, such as patronage and control by the State, but in matters of faith as well as of government there have been

no divergences of importance from Knox's day to a recent one. In their warm attachment to their doctrinal system the Presbyterians of Scotland have neither been greatly disturbed by the dangerous phases of religious thought south of the Tweed, nor infected with the malady that has almost destroyed the Reformed Churches of the Continent. Perfectly satisfied with their symbols, they have neither felt inclined to criticise them nor to tolerate attacks on them, at least from their own ranks. They ought to have been a happy family. Commonly, doctrinal controversies are the most bitter and divisive that are known to Churches, and to have almost entirely escaped these would seem a piece of exceptional good fortune for Scotch Presbyterians. They have not, however, been free from strife. On the contrary, there is no body of Christians that have been more disturbed by internal dissensions than they. It is true that the differences which divided them have been often more metaphysical than actual; nevertheless, the disputes were not the less sharp and heated.

While these unimportant struggles are passing from sight, other and more serious troubles are beginning to appear. It is not the disestablishment question nor the establishment of a papal hierarchy in their midst that is to engage the most earnest attention of the Churches, but a movement which threatens the complete overthrow of their standards of religion and (in one of its more destructive aspect) to undermine their faith in the inspiration and divine authority of the Scriptures. The recoil from what must, with all the deference due to an able and consistent body of doctrine, be regarded as a horrible theology in its most characteristic features, has been long in coming to Scotland, but coming it surely is at last. Why the Continental Churches, which had the same basis of doctrine, so soon departed from it it is not our purpose now to inquire. Their history forms a remarkable contrast to that of the Scottish Reformation. While in the case of the latter unwavering attachment to its confessional theology has been a distinguishing feature, the former have held their symbols in such light esteem that their ministers might without rebuke. deny openly every doctrine taught by these standards. Nothing of this kind could at any time have been permitted to a Presbyterian minister in Scotland. With what surprise and

horror Scotch theologians regarded the speculations of the Oxford "Essays and Reviews" on the subject of the Bible is well known; but it might be said, without denial, of one of the Continental Churches, that Strauss had more friends than enemies among its theological teachers.*

We ought not, perhaps, in speaking of the long and strong attachment of Scotch Presbyterianism to the traditional theology of Westminster, to fail to notice the fact of the existence in the Established Church of what is known as a Broad Church party. This party might be charged with being in close sympathy with the Broad Church party of England, and with loose ideas, indeed, about the canon of Scripture and what is known in Scotland as evangelicism, but it professes to hold to the Westminster Standards. It is said that it was the Edinburgh organ of this party which first urged upon the Free Church the duty of vindicating its attachment to its doctrinal standards in the arraignment and trial of Professor Smith for his daring biblical criticisms; and its leader, Principal Tulloch, who was moderator of the General Assembly last year, in his closing address said the schemes for revising the Standards were founded on ignorance of their true character, and, from the nature of the case, must be unsuccessful. The Westminster theology, in all its purity, has been preached from Scottish pulpits, and preached faithfully. It was not considered necessary or proper to soften any of its harsher and more repellant features. Not only was the decretum horribile, as Calvin called it, the central point in sermonizing, but the inferential doctrine of infant damnation was taught from the pulpit, even within the memory of the late George Gilfillan of Dundee.t The Rev. Dr. John Eadie used to tell how once when he delivered an address to a congregation which was served by a pastor whose rigid theology hindered "perfect freedom of utterance" concerning the offer of salvation, an elder rose and expressed his thanks for the freeness with which the Gospel had been proclaimed, "a freeness," he added, "to which this congregation is not accustomed." +

*Von Oosterzee, in a paper read at the General Conference of the Evangelical Alliance, 1873.

The Rev. David Macrae, in the New York "Independent," Sept. 12, 1878. "Life of John Eadie, D.D.," pp. 113, 114. Macmillan & Co. 1878.