disabled, and wholly inclined to all evil." But we suppose it is not so understood by those who adopt what is styled the Arminian theory of free-will. This gives to every man what is termed "a gracious ability," which, if used by him, he secures the supernatural assistance necessary to regeneration and subsequent sanctification. It is the idea of co-operation, God and man acting together in the work, simultaneous action on the part of both, man beginning the work of regeneration equally with God.

Richard Watson says, "The sin of Adam introduced into his nature such a radical impotence and depravity, that it is impossible for his descendants to make any voluntary effort towards piety and virtue." He was an Arminian, and yet how very like is this language to orthodox teaching on the point of man's inability, relying on himself to keep the commandments of God. He was a co-operationist, and the language may be so interpreted.

The Methodist Episcopal church, which claims to be antiCalvinistic, in several respects, says, "The condition of man, after the fall of Adam, is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and works, to faith and calling upon God." This statement, by itself, needs no alteration to bring it into harmony with biblical teachings and the Calvinistic creeds. Yet we know that the faith of the Methodist Episcopal church and its teachings are Arminian. The meaning evidently is that, by his own natural strength and works he cannot turn and prepare himself, while yet, with divine assistance, he can do it. Does the theory that man has ability to obey divine commands come up to this standard? The Methodist Episcopal church says man "cannot turn and prepare himself by his own natural strength." The natural-ability philosophy says he can.

Pelagius says, "In our birth we are equally destitute of virtue and vice, and previously to moral agency, there is nothing in man but that which God created in him." "It is disputed, concerning nature, whether it is debilitated or deteriorated by sin. And here, in my opinion, the first inquiry ought to be, What is sin? Is it a substance, or is it a mere name devoid of substance?

not

a thing, not an existence, not a body nor anything else, which has a separate existence, but an act."

Celestius, a disciple of Pelagius, held that "infants are born in that state in which Adam was before he sinned," that is, as Pelagius taught, "destitute of virtue and vice."

Julian says that "human nature, in the time of our being born, is rich in the gift of innocence," and "nobody is born with sin." He was an Arian.

Now, the natural-ability theory makes all sin to consist in acts. It speaks, indeed, as a consequence of the fall of man, of an aptitude to sin in the natural affections" the sensibilities." But evidently there is no moral obliquity in these natural endowments of the soul. Then why, on the natural-ability theory, is not the above declaration of Julian correct; that "no body is born with sin"? No sin before acts, say both. Why, according to the new philosophy, is not "human nature, in the time of our being born," as Julian says again, "rich in the gift of innocence"? Why, as Celestius says, are not "infants born in that state in which Adam was before he sinned"— not a state of holiness, but a state " equally destitute of virtue and vice," and as Pelagius likewise says.

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This doctrine that all sin consists in acts, and belongs not to the nature of man in any sense aside from acts, (we think we are not mistaken in this statement of it,) and the philosophy, that men have natural ability to save themselves, are held by their advocates, in common with a belief of most of the evangelical doctrines, the Trinity, the Deity of Christ and the Holy Spirit, Divine Sovereignty, Election, Atonement and Regeneration, with some modifications, Perseverance of saints, the Resurrection of the body, the Judgment, and eternal Rewards and Punishments. This sound scriptural coin gives currency to the base philosophical coin. The mind uneducated in philosophy, and in the more difficult points of theology, fails, in a great measure, to detect the difference between the old and the new teachings on the subject of sin; and, while the doctrines of the Scriptures and of the evangelical churches are held in the main, even if they are not all taught as they should be, and as much as they should be, men presume that the preaching is not at

fault, and so the masses slide insensibly, under the influence of a corrupt heart, into an easier faith, respecting the doctrine of sin, a doctrine fundamental in the system of Christian truth.

The views which men take of sin, to a great extent, give a hue to their belief respecting all other Christian doctrines. The tendency of error here is a tendency to error in the entire system of the Christian faith. The first step downward from the true faith is to Arminianism, and from this to grosser forms of error. How far any of these forms may be held by the truly pious, it is not competent for any man to determine. Nor is this necessary. It is sufficient to affirm, that any departure whatever from the truths of the Bible leads to still further departures, till at last, the landing-place is infidelity. Therefore, stop at the beginning. Take not the first step. The founders of our principal Theological Seminary in New England, in enumerating the errors not to be taught in it, but refuted rather, begin with Arminianism, and then, in the enumeration, run through the downward series. They were fully persuaded that, if any of its teachers or students took the first step, there is danger that, some of them at least, may take the second, and third, and so on through the chapter. Many feel that a downward course, in regard to doctrine, and consequently, in regard to practice, has begun in our churches, and that it is high time that we "ask for the old ways, and walk in the old paths," lest we fall again into as serious a defection from the Christian Faith as that which, within the last fifty years, has turned so many of the churches established by our puritan fathers from Calvinism to Unitarianism.

ARTICLE IV.

SPOILS FROM DISTANT SEAS AND SHORES.

CARPET-BAG or trunk is a question yet to be settled among travellers. But, however thus encumbered or not, one may choose to go through the world, he will be pretty sure to find, after a long cruise, the lower regions of whatever receptacle he has, converted into a curious enough museum of miscellaneous mementos of places which he has visited, all of which go to make up that plague of custom-house officers called "souvenirs of travel." Of course, to their collector they have an untold value, however destitute of this quality they might be at a broker's counter or a haberdasher's stall. Here is a paper of

pebble stones which he has tied up at the foot of "Sunium's marbled steep," or where the crisp waves lave "the merchantmarring rocks" of the Symplegades ;

"And rippling waters make a pleasant moan."

"What will he do with it?" is a question which the author of "Zanoni" and a hundred others of "My Novel" never asked with more solicitude than our tourist mentally interrogates, as some sharp-featured government official begins to dive into the hiding places of his wallets and satchels and trunk (if he has one) to find if an ounce or two of contraband may give him a chance for a franc or shilling fee. It must be confessed that the ways taken to conceal these treasures often display a rare fertility of invention.

The present writer cannot boast, like a distinguished acquaintance of his, of possessing among his collections of foreign virtu, a square of window-frame from Calvin's house at Geneva; doubtless it may be genuine in the ratio of one to whatever you please. But we know a snug receptacle which guards under lock and key some of these memorials of lands far away beneath skies which bend over strange and unlike races of men, with shores washed by other seas than those which bound our Western coasts. As often as we open it, we find ourselves

living as if in another sphere, breathing another air, and wandering in memory among scenes which grow only the more fascinating as months wear on. Shall we unlock that "curiosity shop" of a summer's gathering, and try to re-live with the reader some of those pleasant days?

Shells from the Ægean these from Marathon, the pride of Attic song and story; and these from the old Homeric Tenedos. We have been for a week on these classic waters skimming their crests with rapid keel and anchoring amidst their blue and pinnacled islands. One long night under the full moon turning the waves into a silver lake, we tried our good ship's speed with two other craft- a Greek and a Sardinian; three white-winged sea-birds flying noiselessly on our courses as if three living creatures crossing and curving with the varying winds. No word was spoken save the low orders from astern to trim the vessels to their fleetest pace. These are the moments that condense within themselves the romance of a voyager's life, magnetizing him as if with the freedom from earthly drudgery and meanness, of a spiritual existence.

noon.

"He that has sail'd upon the dark blue sea

Has viewed at times, I ween, a full fair sight;
When the fresh breeze is fair as breeze may be,
The white sail set, the gallant frigate tight;
Masts, spires, and strand retiring to the right,
The glorious main expanding o'er the bow,
The convoy spread like wild swans in their flight,
The dullest sailer wearing bravely now,

So gaily curl the waves before each dashing prow."

But our fleet barque is still enough this sweet May afterThere she lies with her chain cable down and the iron flukes deep under her forefoot, swinging lazily to the tide within a gun shot of the Asian shore, close in with the tumulus of Achilles on the Trojan coast. The captain has dropped his boat and bent on the sail which he has been making cross-legged on the cabin floor for weeks gone by. It is a jaunty rig; and away we are stretching for the European side, while a huge Turkish screw war-ship is steaming right up on our track with the crescent flying at her stern, and three rows of open ports scowling with their shotted cannon right and left. It is wartime now (1859) but we are neutrals and Yankees besides. So