Popery. James I. had given the people that marvel of inspiration, the English version of the Holy Bible. Religion was the law of the land, and it was Protestant. The struggles of bloody Mary and her bigoted husband Philip II. could in no wise re-establish the spiritual despotism of the sovereign pontiff. Wickliffe and Cranmer, with their compeers in godliness, had given a clear voice and majestic elevation to the pulpit, and claimed high and holy rights for worship and the press. The laws of England, and especially the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer, had given to the nation, as such, a God, a revelation of immortality and of redemption by Jesus Christ, and the grand idea of intercourse with heaven. How important this adjustment to the purposes of a new civilization in the Western hemisphere!

NEITHER CLEAR NOR DARK.

Grant that the standard of vital godliness was low; that, with the multitudes, religion was matter of form; and that the English aristocracy, generally, were grievous sinners: still there were many notable exceptions; and a sense of God and eternity pervaded the nation, and went everywhere with British colonists.

With respect to the inner life, the doctrines of liberty, and the personal rights and responsibilities of men, it must be confessed, truth and error were strangely commingled. The high assumptions of prelacy and of monarchy were antiChristian; and there were interpretations of the Thirty-nine Articles which seemed to interfere with the freedom of the will. But the will would assert its own freedom, and, in America, go on with the grand problem of human rights with a manly independence of thought and expression heretofore but little known in the Old World. While, therefore, we may not expect to find a perfect theology nor a true system of government fully matured and strongly developed in the infancy of these colonies, we shall find the germs of

true religion and civil liberty everywhere, fresh and vigorous with a new life.

"The advancement of the divine glory, by bringing the Indians and savages resident in those parts to human civility and quiet government, was alleged as the principal motive of James's grant." The conversion of the Indians was inserted in the charters and fundamental laws of all the great pioneer colonies as a prime object of their grand undertakings. When, therefore, in 1585, the English sought to conciliate and improve the natives, they depended largely upon the book of inspiration. "In every town which Hariot entered he displayed the Bible, and explained its truths. When, in 1619, measures were adopted towards the erecting of a university and college,' it was also enacted, that, 'of the children of the Indians, the most towardly boys in wit, and graces of nature, should be brought up in the first elements of literature, and sent from the college to the work of conversion' of the natives to the Christian religion."

True, there was much that was strangely inconsistent with this lofty missionary purpose; but the felt obligation was acknowledged, and this acknowledgment was in evidence of the pervading religious convictions of the parent country.

The patent of Raleigh was made to conform strictly to the Christian faith, according to the Church of England. The virtuous Lord Delaware would not assume the duties of his high office in Virginia without a sermon from his chaplain, and the most solemn public recognition of Providence; and this was in harmony with public feeling in England.

Virginia must be taught the wrong of profligacy and crime; and God denied her the longer presence and high administrative abilities of the noble and gallant Smith. The colonists, four hundred and ninety at the time of his departure for England, 1609, were "in six months, by indolence, vice, and famine, reduced to sixty; and they were so feeble and dejected, that, if relief had been delayed but ten days longer, they also must have utterly perished."

PROVIDENCE AND PROGRESS.

Jamestown seemed about to be deserted. These miserable people embarked for England; but, at the mouth of the river, they met Lord Delaware with additional colonists and abundant supplies. "The fugitives," says Bancroft, our great national historian, "bore up the helm, and, favored by the wind, were that night once more at the fort in Jamestown." And now mark. "It was on the tenth day of June, 1610, that the restoration of the colony was solemnly begun by supplications to God. A deep sense of the infinite mercies of his providence overawed the colonists who had been spared by famine; the emigrants who had been shipwrecked, and yet preserved; and the new-comers, who found wretchedness and want where they had expected the contentment of abundance. The firmness of their resolution repelled despair. It is,' said they, 'the arm of the Lord of hosts, who would have his people pass the Red Sea and the wilderness, and then possess the land of Canaan.' Dangers avoided inspire trust in Providence. 'Doubt not,' said the emigrants to the people of England, 'God will raise our state, and build his church in this excellent clime." At the beginning of the day, they assembled in the little church, which was kept neatly trimmed with the wild flowers of the country; and, "after solemn exercises of religion, they returned to their houses to receive their allowance of food."

Soon thereafter came the noble Gates with "six ships," and "three hundred immigrants, a hundred kine, as well as suitable provisions," and assumed the government. What could a people, trained under the discipline of Providence, say better than "God bless England, our sweet native country"? what more appropriate than to give this invocation of affectionate gratitude a prominent place in the service for morning and evening prayer?

About this time (August, 1611), "on the remote frontier, we catch a glimpse of Alexander Whitaker, the self-denying

'Apostle of Virginia,' assisting in bearing the name of God to the Gentiles." How striking the indication of deep religious convictions and a high providential mission!

Glancing back for a few years, we see the hand of God in the rush of tender sympathy which brought the young and beautiful Pocahontas to the rescue of Capt. John Smith, the true founder of Virginia. We behold the war-club of the stern Powhattan suspended over her fragile form as she protects the great white brave from instant death. Soon again we see this youthful Indian princess threading her way through the dark forests to save Jamestown from its impending doom; and we say, Surely she was God's chosen instrument for the purposes of his own gracious providence.

Now we see "John Rolfe, an honest and discreet young Englishman, moved, as he thinks, by the Holy Ghost, to labor for the conversion of the unregenerated maiden."—"And soon, in the little church of Jamestown, which rested on rough pine columns fresh from the forest, and was in a style of rugged architecture as wild, if not as frail, as an Indian's wigwam, she stood before the font, that out of the trunk of a tree had been hewn hollow like a canoe, 'openly renounced her country's idolatry, professed the faith of Jesus. Christ, and was baptized.'" Soon she is the bride of the zealous Rolfe; a beautiful princess, "the first Christian ever of her nation." Thus did God reveal the real humanity of the aboriginal American tribes, their capabilities of cultivation and religion, and the mission of Christianity in winning their confidence. Thus did he rebuke the murderous injustice of converting them into enemies, slaughtering them on their own hunting-grounds, and selling them as bondsmen to unprincipled tyrants. Thus did he teach the world that a purpose higher than the gratification of wicked avarice and mad ambition had controlled him in founding a new empire. Men were free and responsible. They could, for a time, resist the plans of Divine Benevolence; but grave lessons of wisdom arose from the progress of providential plans.

Wisdom is the legitimate result of discipline in the hands of God, however stern it may be.

RELIGION THE LIFE-FORCE AND ORGANIZING POWER OF LIBERTY.

Let us now pause to consider that religion is an active principle, a powerful divine life, in the souls of men. One of its first experimental effects is to impress the individual with a strong sense of responsibility, with a conviction of duty which no other person can discharge. It rouses and releases the conscience; and, upon the exercise of true faith in the Redeemer, it imparts liberty from the bondage of sin. The great preacher demonstrates the divinity and verity of his mission by thus proclaiming "liberty to the captive."

The world is long in coming to the comprehension of the nature and scope of experimental religious freedom. Slowly, however, the great truth is reaching the general intelligence, that spiritual deliverance from the bondage of sin is the clear announcement of God's will that there should be no oppression in any part of the world; that attempts to fetter the souls and deny the just rights of men are offensive to him; and that each new man in Christ Jesus is invested with prerogatives of liberty which make him superior to oppression and torture and death.

It is impossible that this should be a dormant power. It is in itself a high inward sense of justice. It does not, indeed, prompt to rebellion even against usurpation and unrighteous laws. It is the profoundest submission to the great rule of right, and results in due consideration for the laws of public order represented by "the powers that be." But injustice is seen to be against God; and the true mind, regenerate, learns at length that the rights of man and the rights of God are inseparably connected. The assertion and vindication of these rights must be contingent with respect to time and circumstances, and must especially depend upon