the last rampart, shall it drop from our hands; and then only in surrender to the God who gave it."

And all this, and much more than this, because the United States have elected an anti-slavery president, who has not yet entered on his office. We can assure our American friends of the free states, and not a few we believe in the slave-holding states, who are shocked and disgusted with this violence, that they bave the deep, respectful sympathy, and what they value more, the fervent prayers, of English Christians. We pray that God in his mercy may overrule this madness of the people of the South for good. The great American Union, and its prosperity, were never so dear to England as at the present time. We are persuaded that any real injury inflicted upon her would give us ten times more concern than her declaration of independence ever gave our forefathers. It is proposed to begin the new year with a day, or even a week, of prayer. America, we are sure, will not be forgotten.

S. J. has been received.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

A correspondent wishes to know whether it is a becoming thing for clergymen professing evangelical piety to form chess clubs. and meet at stated hours for the sole purpose of spending their time at chess. We leave the question with our readers. The bishop of Rochester, we perceive, has publicly censured clerical cricketers and archery men. Whether chess clubs are worse, or better, or purely indifferent, must be left, we believe, to each man's conscience in the sight of God.

ON THE HABITUAL READING OF THE WORD OF GOD.

THE habitual reading of the Bible is one chief feature of Protestant devotion. As such it is recommended and inculcated, adopted and practised, wherever a religious life is proposed. But there are tendencies of thought in the present day, which seem not unlikely to depreciate this practice, to impair its authority, and diminish its prevalence. These tendencies are the rather to be noticed, because they might seem to be of a directly contrary kind. Theology, as a science, is less cultivated than it was. The activity of studious minds is mainly confined to the Scriptures themselves, applying to them the methods and resources of ingenious historical criticism, and interpreting their language by a painstaking and candid exegesis. We have been recently told by a writer in the "Essays and Reviews," that the study of the Bible is the great work of the coming age; and in so saying, he has told us the truth. The conviction of this truth is, however, perfectly compatible with the apprehension which has been already expressed; nay, it must itself suggest it. The use of the Scriptures for devotional purposes, and for the sustenance of spiritual life, is a totally distinct thing from their critical and exegetical study: and the turn which the latter study has now taken is calculated, in its immediate influence, to injure rather than promote the devotional use of the Bible. While the human element in the Scripture is undergoing a far more extended and searching investigation than heretofore, it is certain that, in some quarters, the recognition of the divine element has become more faint, and that there are, in consequence, indications of diminished confidence in their application to personal life, and to its daily spiritual necessities.

If these indications are not yet observed in the general Christian body, they are nevertheless too evident in those parts of it which are first affected by the ideas of the day, and which must in due time have the strongest influence on the rest. The rising generation of educated minds has been accustomed to

hear language in regard to the Bible, which is calculated to stimulate the interest of inquiry, but to impair the interest of faith; and the effects are not slow to appear.

In order to present the tendencies of thought of which I speak, with the greatest distinctness, I will quote a few remarkable words of an eminent French writer, a student of the history of religion and translator of the Book of Job, whose professed unbelief in the inspiration of the Scriptures permits him to speak without modification or disguise.

"La lecture habituelle de la Bible, conséquence nécessaire du système protestant, est-elle donc en soi un si grand bien, et l'Eglise catholique est-elle si coupable, d'avoir mis un sceau à ce livre et de l'avoir dissimulé ?

"Non certes, et je suis tenté de dire que le plus magnifique coup d'état de cette grande institution est de s'être substituée, elle vivante, agissante, à une autorité muette. C'est une admirable littérature sans doute que la littérature hébraïque, mais seulement pour le savant et le critique, qui peuvent l'étudier dans l'original et restituer leur vrai sens à chacun des curieux morceaux qui la composent. Quant à ceux qui l'admirent de confiance, le plus souvent ils y admirent ce qui n'y est pas; le caractère vraiment original des livres de l'Ancien et du Nouveau Testament leur échappe. Que dire des personnes peu lettrées qui s'enfoncent sans y être préparées dans une aussi obscure antiquité ? Qu'on s'imagine le renversement d'esprit que doit causer à des gens simples et sans instruction la lecture habituelle d'un livre comme l'Apocalypse ou même comme le livre des Rois. Sans doute il vaut beaucoup mieux voir le peuple lire la Bible que ne rien lire; comme cela a lieu dans les pays catholiques; mais on avouera aussi que le livre pourrait être mieux choisi. C'est un triste spectacle que celui d'une nation intelligente usant ses heures de loisir sur un monument d'un autre âge, et cherchant tout le jour des symboles dans un livre où il n'y en a pas." (Etudes d'Histoire Religieuse, p. 385.)

So speaks M. Ernest Rénau in his paper on Channing. Words not unlike them may here and there be heard amongst ourselves, though, for the most part, couched in the form of insinuation and implication, as being uttered in the midst of a people among whom the habit of private Scripture-reading is the strong support of piety, and a recognized influence on public opinion. It is not, however, intended, in making this quotation, to imply that opinions so advanced are common with us; but only to show, by a strong example, how the critical study of Scripture may be recognized as an object of the highest interest, while its devotional use is slighted as unreasonable, or even pitied as absurd. So, in fact, it must be while the book is regarded from its human and not from its divine side, or (to use its own language) while it is "known after the flesh and not after the spirit;" while it is contemplated as a collection of national literature, of monuments of ancient piety, and of records of the religious history of man,

but not as the word of the living God, gradually unfolded, finally completed, permanently fixed, and speaking to human hearts for ever.

It is certain that the Bible can only be fully understood by a right appreciation of both these aspects, and that the careful study of that which is human is fitted in itself to minister to the more enlightened apprehension of the divine word which is blended with it. But it is also certain that, while the former character of the book receives a close attention, the latter may be slighted, disparaged, or absolutely denied; and, as has been said, the tendency of thought in the present day is too evidently in that direction.

As far as that tendency may at any time be realized, in that proportion must the relations of Scripture to the church be changed. Its authority as the source of doctrine, its rights over the mind and conscience, must then disappear, and if any system of religion is to be maintained, it can only be by that "substitution" which M. Rénau so much admires as the great coup d'état of the church of Rome. It is a substitution accept. able on many accounts to sceptical minds, removing the authority which confronts them more into the region of human politics, and so enabling them more easily to excuse themselves for conforming to it, and to indemnify themselves by despising it. That is the feeling which underlies the preference for the more tyrannical yet more elastic system which the same author, a sufficient exponent of his class, repeatedly expresses.

"J'avoue que, pour ma part, j'accepterais plus volontiers l'autorité de l'Eglise que celle de la Bible. L'Eglise est plus humaine, plus vivante; quelqu'immuable qu'on la suppose, elle se plie mieux aux besoins de chaque époque. Il est, si j'ose le dire, plus facile de lui faire entendre raison qu'à un livre clos depuis dix-huit siècles." (p. 380.)

But if this book be acknowledged as the one written form of the word of God, no such substitution is needful, or permissible, for then its purposes are universal and perpetual. Though "closed for eighteen centuries," while the human mind has been in active progress, and fixed in an unchanging form, while the world has become an altered scene, it is always in advance of human progress, and is as much adapted to one age as to another. Moreover, as the word of the Father of spirits who deals with us, teaches us, and will judge us as individuals, it must be suited to the spiritual education of individual life, and for the spiritual satisfaction of individual hearts. That is what the Protestant system maintains, and therefore, as M. Rénau has said, "the habitual reading of the Bible is a necessary consequence of the Protestant system.'

It is so when the Protestantism is positive, not merely nega

tive, when it asserts the fulness of the divine gift, as well as rejects the usurpation which would restrict its use. If fears that we may fail in the former duty have now succeeded to fears that we might fail in the latter, it is the more necessary that those who entertain them should urge the claims and the fitness of the written word to be the close companion of Christian life. He who does so may seem to take for granted that which he ought to prove, namely, the character of the book of which he speaks. But, thank God! it is granted by the mass of those whom he addresses, and he is taking the very best means to preserve that state of things, and to obviate the influences which would undermine it. It is true that habits rest upon convictions, but it is also true that convictions are maintained by habits. The conviction that the Bible is the word of God for the education of the soul, will be more effectually maintained among us by the habit of its spiritual study than by any repetition of arguments in proof that this character belongs to it. And justly so; for in regard to the nature of things designed for practical use, experience is the satisfying test.

The

Now if we have in our hands a book in which God is speaking, the first principles of religion demand that it should be reverently used for the purpose for which it was given. That purpose might have been only to reveal some great truths beyond the reach of nature. It would then have been adequately accepted, if recognized as the public fountain and standard of doctrine. It would not have been adapted, and therefore not intended, for the daily use of individuals. But a glance shows us that it is a book not only for churches, but for men. living human tone, the vast range of subjects, the infinite variety of application, the knowledge of and sympathy with the secrets of the heart, are among its most obvious characteristics. Its revelations of the mind of God are associated with all that is around and within us. Their light falls on the mysteries of nature and the history of the world-on character, experience, conduct, in fine, on all subjects with which we are morally and spiritually concerned. It is plainly fitted, it is therefore certainly intended, to be the companion of personal life, and the counsellor of individual hearts. If that is the intention of God, there is no doubt about the duty of man. Two facts are before us: that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God," and that "it is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and instruction in righteousness;" and from the combination of these two facts there immediately results the duty of the habitual private reading of the Scriptures for the purposes of moral and spiritual life.

We have reason to be thankful that that duty is still so extensively recognized among us. Doubtless it is fulfilled, in many cases, with great want of intelligence and indistinctness