in, with her little rush light, to illumine the darkness of the sun, and make clear and palpable what the Bible had left obscure. It would be endless to refer to all the experiments of this kind which, during the last eighteen hundred years, have been successively tried in the church. But the issue, in all cases, has been much the same. The gospel has been perverted and corrupted, and the power of it has been turned away. The great source of light and hope has been removed, and a shadow has been substituted in its place. And it has mattered little as to the result, whether the adulteration took the form of an addition, or a subtraction. Those who have thought the standard of the gospel too low, and have wished to raise it, and those who have thought it too high, and have labored to depress it, have usually come together, in a little time. The extremes have met in the same result, and that has been one of delusion, corruption, and wickedness. To make the experiment of departing from Christ appear the more hopeful, it has sometimes been introduced under the name and form of a reformation. A real reforma tion, if put in the place of Christ, and trusted to as a foundation of hope, will soon prove itself to be but a broken reed. This was painfully illustrated in the case of the Reformation of the sixteenth century. Many of the reformed churches, when once they had escaped from the iron grasp of Popery, and found themselves out of the reach of their enemies, began to feel as though they had passed all dangers. Backsliding, degeneracy, errors in doctrine, and corruptions in practice, were scarcely feared; because they were regarded as scarcely possible. Christians trusted to the Reformation, and to its attendant blessingstheir settled peace and their legal establishment-to secure them from all future ills, and make them happy. VOL. VI. 66 And what was the consequence? A sad degeneracy ere long took place; contentions, errors, and backslidings were multiplied; and in less than two centuries, they needed another reformation to place them back upon the ground of the early reformers. But most of the alleged reformations in the church of Christ have not been real. They have been the work of furious and half-crazed fanatics, or of dreamy mystics, who, in the effort to improve upon the work of the Savior, have perverted and polluted all that their hands have touched. Such was the pretended reformation under Montanus, in the second century; and that under Manes, in the third; both of whom professed to be the promised Comforter from heaven, and to have a commission to reform the religion of Christ. Such, too, was the reformation attempted by the fanatics in the sixteenth century, who denoun. ced Luther as not worthy the name of a reformer, and undertook to carry forward his half-way measures to perfection. And such, it may be feared, are not a few of the misnamed reformations of the pres ent day. No movement of this kind, whether social, political, or moral, which virtually sets aside the gospel,-which professes to improve upon it, to go beyond it, or to proceed without it, can long prosper. It is sure to terminate in corruption and defeat, and to involve its abettors, sooner or later, in shame and ruin. Were we to speak of other experiments which have been tried in the church of Christ, we should notice those growing out of a carnal, worldly policy. There have been those in past ages-there are some such now-who, not content with promoting a holy, spiritual cause, by holy and spiritual means, have been inclined to resort to other measures. Some have used flattery, and some force. Motives of self-interest or ambition have been employed, and a worldly expediency has been substituted in place of duty. With a view to the more rapid increase of numbers, some have been willing to conceal or soften the more offensive points of the gospel; to lower its high and uncompromising claims; or to throw open the doors of the church a little wider than our Savior supposed would be consistent with its safety. But facts have long ago demonstrated that all such expedients are a great deal worse than fruitless. They are positively sinful, corrupting and dangerous. They draw away the church from Christ, and place it on another foundation; and the first storm that blows is sufficient to show that this new foundation is all sand. The foregoing discussion is intended to teach us, and to impress upon us, several lessons. And, first, the connexion of God's great work of providence, as recorded, in part, on the page of history, with his greater work of redemption, as unfolded in the gospel. To the casual observer of providence-to the ordinary reader of this world's history, the whole appears like a chaos of incidents, no thread, no system, no line of connexion running through it. One course of events is seen here, and another there. Some na tions become civilized and refined, while others are left to their native barbarism. Kingdoms rise upon the stage, one after another, and become great and powerful, and then pass away and are forgotten. And the history of the church seems scarcely less a chaos, than that of the world. Changes are continually going on within it, and around it, and these, apparently, without much order. New doctrines or measures are in troduced, and then laid aside. Her esies make their appearance, and have their advocates, and after a while are refuted, and die away. Now the church is protected, and now persecuted. There are reviv ings and backslidings; seasons of light and hope, and then of darkness. Such, we say, is the appearance to the casual observer of providence, and to the ordinary, though it may be extensive, reader of history. But the intelligent Christian, with his Bible open before him, and his heart warmed with the great subject of redemption, studies the book of providence, and reads history, with other eyes. He learns from his Bible, that as all things were made by Christ, so they were all made for him; that "he is head over all things to the church ;" and that he overrules all things in providence, with a view to the great purposes of redemption. In the Bible, redemption is presented as the great work of God; that which was performed at the greatest expense to himself; that which is best calculated to show forth his glory. The creation of this world was but a scaffolding, on which the greater work of redemption was to be performed; and the entire work of providence in respect to this world the changes and revolutions which take place among men,-the rise and fall of states and empires,— these all are in some way connected with, and subsidiary to, the great purposes of redeeming mercy. Having gained these important intimations from the Bible, the Christian student now looks out upon the world, and.back upon the wide field of its history; and what before seemed so chaotic and disordered, puts on the appearance of system and form. A strong line of connexion is seen running through it; a unity of object is discovered; and redemption is seen to be the central point, towards which every thing tends, and for which all exist. In the death of his beloved Son, God has opened a way of life and salva tion for ruined man. He has laid a foundation of hope for the world. It is a sure foundation; it is the only foundation. And this point God is continually and variously illustrating The second lesson which the subject is fitted to impress upon us, is the importance of that first principle of Protestantism,-the Bible the only rule of faith and practice. This implies, that when the canon of Scripture is once settled, and the meaning of it ascertained, there be no more questions asked respecting it. We are to rest in the decisions of God's holy word,-desiring neither to rise above it, nor to fall below it; neither to add to it, nor take from it. in his providence. The foregoing we would regard it as God does, or remarks teach us how he illustrates if we would be greatly interested it. It is by an endless succession and instructed by it. of experiments. God is showing his creatures, not only in his word, but by the events of his providence, -by actual and oft repeated experiments, taking place before their eyes, that the gospel is the only source of real blessing to them, and that if they would be happy, they must put their trust in Christ alone. Some of these experiments we have already considered; and the making of them, and of others like them, has filled up, to a great extent, the history both of the church and world. The entire history of the past is little more than a history of these various experiments, all standing connected with the great subject of redemption, and all calculated and intended-if men could but see it to call them back from the vain search after happiness, and bring them to trust in Christ alone. President Edwards commenced an extended history of the church, and entitled it "A History of Redemption." In a more enlarged sense, the same title might be given to a full history of the world. It is all a history of redemption. Not that every thing which has taken place on earth has been of a directly religious character; far from it. But every thing has stood connect ed, in some way, with redemption. Every thing has had a bearing on this mighty subject. Even in those parts of the earth where Christ is not named, and his religion is not known, the providence of God has been silently, secretly at work, in subserviency to the designs of redeeming mercy. An experiment has been going on there, which is already of great value to the church and world, showing the hopeless misery of departing from God, and losing the knowledge of his salvation. It is in its connexion with redemption, that we must come to look at the history of the world, if The great Protestant principle as to the sufficiency of Scripture has been violated in several ways, and by very different classes of persons. It has been violated by Tractarians, Romanists, and all those other sects, who would connect with the Bible, and receive as a part of their rule of faith, the traditions of the elders, and canons of the church. It has been violated by fanatics, mystics, and impostors, who have made pretences to inspiration, and have substituted their own dreams and fancies in place of the revelations of God. It has been violated by lib eralists of various names, who, dissatisfied with much that the Bible contains, have undertaken, by dint of criticism and false interpretation, to cut it down, or explain it away, till nothing is left which offends the proud and selfish heart. But in whatever direction, or by whatever means, the great principle before us has been invaded, the flood-gates of corruption have been invariably opened, through which streams of error and wickedness have poured, to desolate the vineyard of the Lord. Nearly all those vain and wicked experiments which have been made in Christendom during the last eigh teen hundred years, and in the making of which the church has been corrupted and wasted, have come in upon it in this way. They could have come in no other. If the Bible had been uniformly and consistently adhered to, as the only rule of faith and practice, those long ages of delusion and darkness, so painful to the eye and the heart of benevolence, had never been. The church had been comparatively pure, and the world had been blessed. But the great lesson which this subject is fitted to teach and impress, is that with which the discussion commenced. The Gospel the grand remedy for human woes, and the only source of real blessing to the world. "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Of all lessons, divine or human, this is infinitely the most important to be learned. It is the lesson which, of all others, God has been at the most pains to teach us. And yet it is that to which we are naturally the most averse. We turn every way, before we come to Christ. We try every other foundation, before we consent to build upon Christ alone. The world's history is filled up with vain and fruitless experiments, in the search after happiness; nor is the heart of restless man weaned from them even now. He is as much inclined as ever to forsake the fountain of liv ing waters, and hew out for himself cisterns which can hold no water. How long is this miserable course of things to continue? When shall it have an end? Is it not time, even now, that we commence learning the lessons of heavenly wisdom? Is it not time that we listen to the voice of our Heavenly Father, crying to us, not only from the pages of his word, but from every leaf and line of the great book of his providence, and saying: None but Christ. Nothing but Christ. Oth er foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. OUR LATE CONQUESTS. BAYONETS and cannon-balls have disclosed a new and distinct era in our history. Fifteen years ago, Mex ico afforded no prospect of game to a far-sighted and a strong falcon, except some covetous vision of that sort may have flitted across the mind of some of the chivalry of the South. Within that time poor Mexico's his tory has been unravelled from the web of destiny in galloping haste, and she now finds herself a helpless quarry, with the falcon upon her, and barely saving her life by the most humiliating concessions. Her armies, although nerved with des peration, have fled before the Saxons; her best leaders have furnished no charm to dispel the fatal spell ruining her, and even the strong holds nature gave her for defense, have played her false. At every point defeated, the sacred city of her kings penetrated by the enemy, and her government reduced by desperation from driveling imbecility to a "bedizened nothing," these constitute briefly the elements of a" conquered peace," as Coleridge would have termed it. From the first, predictions were made concerning the intentions of our government, of such an incredible nature, that most minds revolted from them. Some predicted that Mexico would be forced at the point of the bayonet to yield up all claim to Texas, not only to the Nueces river, but to the Rio del Norte, and they regarded this consummation of annexation in a legal title, written though it might be in blood, as the extreme of intention on the part of our government! But the idea of making, by the same laudable means, the Rio del Norte a boundary between the two coun ernments. Our flag was floating over the "Halls of the Montezumas," and had been flung to the breeze from the loftiest peaks of the Cordilleras. Mexico was at our feet, and we of course dictated our own terms. By these terms, Texas, as far west as the Rio del Norte, becomes ours; the entire Province of New Mexico, and the territory north of the river Gila, and a line which divides Upper and Lower California, is also ceded to us, making an area of "seven hundred miles north and south, and nine hundred miles east and west." Our late conquests, absolved from crime by treaty, tries, then boldly leaving that to has been sanctioned by the two govswallow up New Mexico, and then rushing westwardly to the Pacific to do the same office for California, never entered many minds, except the privileged behind the curtain! And yet it has been done. Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Buena Vista, Monterey, Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, Cherubusco, and Mexico, have all become words to us as noted as Austerlitz, Friedland, and Wagram, words indicative of a victorious but bloody march to complete conquest. For our part, we must confess, when we looked back over some modern scenes in American history, as connected with the barbarous extermination or removal of Indians from their own lands, we felt the greatest confidence possible in the elasticity and capacity of the governmental conscience. Long before Scott took the field and consummated what Taylor had begun, we had written concerning our greediness for conquest. "These facts are palpable, and they are written in blood. Our government is possessed by a mania for more territory, and does not scruple to seize it at the cost of war. The conquest of New Mexico and California has become common talk. No one questions the toughness of the governmental conscience. That conscience hitherto has proved itself as elastic as the stomach of a boaconstrictor. It can swallow whole territories to which it has no more right than to London or to Paris, without a grimace of pain. How absurd to talk of tenderness of conscience in a government whose rapacity for conquest is only equalled by that of England!" Without referring to some ridiculous facts, which quarrels among the principal actors have brought to light, it is sufficient to state that a treaty was signed by Nicholas P. Trist on the part of the United States, and three commissioners on the part of Mexico, and this treaty "Stuffed out with big preamble, holy names, And adjurations of the God in Heaven, amount to the comfortable surface of six hundred and thirty thousand square miles, which will sound more significantly when we say it is an area almost equal to that occupied by Great Britain and Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, and Prussia. With Texas, it is more than half of the original territory of Mexico. Or, to make it still more familiar and formidable, its area is sufficient for sixteen states as large as Ohio! With this general indication of the extent of our conquests, it becomes a matter of importance to ascertain, as far as possible, the character of this immense territory. What are its resources and its present condition ? What is the value, now and prospectively, of a territory for which all acknowledge we have paid a great price ? If this country contains sixteen states like Ohio, with her amazing fertility, and resources, which are likely to be developed at some future time, then we may be accredited before the world as sagacious in our greediness to gain it. Or if there are hordes of ignorant barbarians, lorded over by nabobs of uncounted wealth, from whom the thumb screws of avarice may extort such compensation as |