meagre in interest, and very violent and bitter in sentiment. If there is any good point about them, it seems to us their agricultural discussions, which recognize the duty of improved methods of fertilizing and tilling the soil. The very few Republican papers have a hard struggle for existence, and have not great intellectual merit. A Maryland gentleman, who perhaps knows the South as well as any man in the country, said, if he had a thousand dollars to spare, he would spend it in distributing the "New-York Tribune" throughout his State. As the people are learning to read, they will soon ask for books, and libraries for general circulation must be opened. And yet, one looks almost with envy at the still virgin taste and healthy appetites of these people in reading. The old standard pieces, "Casabianca," and "The Burial of Sir John Moore," and "What though in solemn silence all," which our school-boys vote "slow" and "used up," are spoken in the colored schools with great expression and enjoyment. The Richmond boys leave "Oliver Optic" on the shelves, and take down the biographies of Franklin and Stephenson and the speeches of Sumner; and the Baltimore girls beg us to send them poetry and travels, instead of asking for Mrs. Braddon's last novel. Must they wade through yellow-covered literature too? We suppose there is no help for it; but let us at least keep them supplied with good solid food first, and as long as possible.

The Church at the South affords a curious study, to which we can do but poor justice at the close of a long article. We have little personal knowledge of the white churches at the South, but charitably suppose them to be about as good specimens of whited sepulchres as can be found in Christendom. They represent the general rebel feeling, and are rather led

than lead.

But the negro has a strong, vivid religious feeling, and the church is to him a great part of his social life. It has been his only consolation during slavery, his only place of general social gathering and recreation. The praise-house meeting, and the "shout," have cheered in memory and retrospect the long dreary hours of hopeless, unpaid labor. The spiritual in

toxication of the camp-meeting has taken the place of all other forms of excitement. The favorite exercise of the shout partakes so largely of sensuous enjoyment, is so clearly of the same nature as the popular dances of nations of simple habits, that we have met those who affirmed that it had no religious signification, but was only considered as an expression of social enjoyment. But we do not think so. All people in a low stage of intellectual development believe religion to consist largely in animal excitement, which they bring on by different means. It is not the normal development of the soul in life: it is something abnormal, strange, marvellous, which is to delight God and secure the salvation of man. The monk seeks this excitement of the brain by fasting and penance; the Dervish, by whirling round till his head spins with mad fervor; the Shaker, by his dancing; the Methodist, by song and shout. "She got religion and had to be toted home," is a very common expression of what is considered a 'most satisfactory evidence of religious excitement. The negro, though nominally a Christian, is still largely African in his religious faith. Religion is a charm, not to order his life into holiness and beauty, but to save his soul from the devil; it has no degrees of attainment. He either has it or he has it not as he might have a horseshoe nailed to his door. Certain methods are employed to obtain it: but they may fail, and he feels himself to be very unfortunate; or they may succeed, and he is safe for ever. "It is safer for me to steal than for you," one of these fortunate individuals said to another, "for I have the seal of adoption," — that is, I am safe from the devil, whatever I do, but you must look out and behave well or he'll catch you. From this there are all grades of enlightenment, and all variety and shades of belief among them. The Baptists and Methodists, especially, dispute for authority over them, and hold pertinaciously to their peculiar tenets. "They will tell you" said a Baptist preacher," that there are good men in all sects of Christians; but how can that be when they go right against the commandments of God?”—referring, of course, to baptism by immersion.

No doubt, human nature always has its variety of good and

bad, and the influence of the Church depends largely upon the men who are chosen to administer its rites. In some places, the Church enforces a strict morality, and excommunicates its members for social vices. In others, the ministers are licentious and immoral, and care not how intemperate, idle, or vicious their flocks are, if they can only keep up the excitement of the meetings and swell the numbers of the Church. On the whole, we fear there is little to hope from the influence of the Church as it is at present organized, unless it be an awakened activity of thought, from the multitude of sects which are striving for influence among the freedmen. The presentation of various forms of belief must enkindle doubt and investigation in many minds, and the freedom of thought in this direction will stimulate them in every other.

Two influences deserve to be specially noted. The Roman Catholic Church evidently intends to establish an active propagandist movement throughout the South. It is founding colored schools, colleges, and asylums, and is making many converts. It has many advantages in dealing with the colored people. The priests and teachers, many of whom are of French or Italian birth, have not the bitter prejudice against the race which clings even to the northern American, and can more readily enter into all their feelings. Then the condition of the negro's mind is well fitted to receive the church. doctrines. Long accustomed to lean upon others, the idea of authority coming, not in the name of an earthly tyrant, but of the heavenly Lord, is welcome to him. The human personalities of Saints and Virgin offer to him objects of faith which his affectionate nature delights in; and the pomp and ceremony of the mass appeal to the love of beauty which is so conspicuous a trait in his character. His superstition finds food here. We learned an incident in Virginia, which seemed to carry us back to Ante-Lutheran times. A clergyman has a handbill printed, which purports to contain a true copy of a letter from Jesus Christ found under a stone, preserved in a miraculous manner. This letter promises to its possessor a variety of blessings and immunity from many dangers; it is sold at ten cents a copy, and is eagerly bought by the negroes

of one of the most enlightened cities of the South, that they may have this invaluable protection with them. The Church which has so ably dealt with this weakness of human nature in the past for its own benefit, will know how to do so now. But we are not afraid of the influence of the Romanist Church. Side by side with the ballot-box, and the common school for all, it will remain in power only while it serves humanity, and be swept away when it becomes more a hindrance than a help.

The African Methodist Church is another body with strong influence over the colored people. It would be unjust to take partial estimates of the work of this body as final. Some warm friends of the colored people think its tendencies are good, that it leads them to self-respect and dependence upon. their own race, and that by educating colored men for the ministry, it will establish a better influence over them than in any other way. Others, equally true and friendly, feel that it favors bitter and unscrupulous hatred and distrust of the white race; that it is hostile to liberal education; that it seeks to perpetuate hostility between the races, and shuts the black man out from all the advantages he might gain from his true friends at the North. Doubtless, there is truth in both these views, as the Church is represented by different persons. In some sections of the country, unscrupulous and corrupt men are certainly using the power it gives them to the injury of the schools and the people. Whatever good it may do in some places, we cannot sympathize with any church which recognizes any distinctions of race, color, or sex, as at all important in comparison with the qualities of the heart, soul, and life. This is the great religious truth which the negro needs to take home to his heart, that life is the evidence of religion; and that, as God is not afar off in a distant heaven, but here and now, immanent in every soul and in every operation of nature, so religion must not be a thing of times and seasons, an excitement, a spell to conjure with, but a constant, all-pervading influence, ennobling and purifying every act of life. There are souls among the freedmen, purified by suffering, cleared by silent thought, ready to receive this pure

and high form of religion; and we believe the great duty of the liberal church of our day, by whatever name it be called, is to bring this truth home to their hearts.

So we are not hopeless of the South, immense as is the work that is yet to be done there. It looks now, indeed, like the fields when the snow has just melted off, barren and desolate, encumbered with the remains of the old life, not ready to welcome the new; but it has been ploughed deep by the sword of war, and the careful eye may already see many green and promising germs of the new crop. It is our part generously to labor for and with its people, until the past is redeemed, and they can walk abreast with us in the march of civilization. Then the many brilliant and courteous graces of the Southerner, the earnest and noble traits of the negro character, united with the strong and energetic powers of the North, will combine to form a nation worthy of the glorious land which God has given into their possession.

ART. II. THE WISE MEN OF THE EAST.

The Wise Men of the East; Who they were; How they came to Jerusalem. New York: Sheldon and Company. 1869. 12mo.*

THOROUGH and critical treatises on special Biblical subjects are frequent in Germany, but comparatively rare in England and America. We have not patience for minute inquiries upon topics which seem to be of slight importance. It is waste of time to seek the species of the lily of the valley, or of the fish which gave back the tribute money, or the nature of the darkness at the death of Jesus: all of which subjects the Germans have discussed. Even the investigation of Paul's "thorn in the flesh," which Dr. John Brown has proved to be weakness of sight, is rather ingenious than satisfying. Yet these special treatises are valuable when they

*The author of this book is Professor Francis W. Upham, LL.D., of the Rutgers Institute, New York, a brother of Professor T. C. Upham, of Bowdoin College.