id stream, which flows forth, melted from nature's ice by the genial summer sun, or projected from the mountain by nature's volcanic fires, and which it would be utterly in vain to attempt to force back or to bury, may be easily diverted and guided in its course, and, like the rivers of the Orient, be made to irrigate and fertilize and bless the land.

There is but one thing which the Church of Christ may at all times forbid, but one thing in the world which it may not under some circumstances be justified in using—and that one thing is sin. To fight against nature in all other things is to fight against God; for God is in everything except sin. Rather let the Church, like her Divine and Almighty and All-wise Head, seek not to destroy or to suppress the legitimate workings of human nature, but to control nature; not to oppose any of the legitimate operations of God's natural laws, but to bend them all as her own appropriate instrumentalities, given her from heaven, to the accomplishment of her own heavenly purposes-the glory of God, and the salvation of souls.

The characteristic of adaptiveness, whose importance we have been briefly illustrating, belongs to the Protestant Episcopal Church; and it is produced by the large liberty and toleration which are radical principles in its organization.

It is well to state here, that the evils which are supposed sometimes to result from such liberty, cannot result from it in the Church which is adapted to universality. They result from it often in narrower sects, because liberty is at variance with the narrow and intolerant spirit of sectarism. They cannot result from it

in a Church universal, for it accords exactly with the spirit or genius of such a Church. That which is liberty in the universal Church is but revolution or tyranny in the sect. The elasticity of an adaptive Church will yield, and fit it to every impression. The rigidity of the sect (which demands absolute unity in all things, and cannot yield nor bend without relinquishing its peculiarity or distinctiveness) is such, that either itself must be broken by the new impression, or its members must be all crushed by it into one mass.

We believe that the evils referred to cannot result from the most extensive toleration in the Protestant Episcopal Church. There are in it restraining and regulating influences always steadily and powerfully at work -its standards of faith, and its standards of prayer, and its constant lessons from the Word of God. The experience of the past corresponds with the conclusion of our judgment, that no permanent nor considerable evils (certainly none equivalent to the evils of intolerance) can result from the most unrestricted exercise of that large liberty which the Protestant Episcopal Church allows to its members. We believe that this Church, while in its liberal system it is the encourager and patron of all varieties of action and effort for the promotion of human piety, is, at the same time, in its careful and scripturally defended system, the regulator and guide of them all.

That evils may and do result from liberty under any circumstances, we grant; but there are evils resulting from everything which is connected at all with the imperfection and frailty of man's moral and mental nature. It cannot be otherwise. Still we contend that where

there is liberty there can be no permanent evils. Such as may arise will be temporary; they will cure themselves; they will be removed soon by the common sense and experience of men. New evils, occasional evils, will arise and be removed continually, while the great body of the Church shall be continually progressing in grace and happiness. It cannot be thus where there is intolerance. Evils, the evils which always appertain to things human, will in this latter case be made permanent; and the devotions of many souls will be repressed; and error will pass into malignity and heresy; and innocent diversity of opinion or of practice will go out into rancorous and deadly schism. This has been the woful history of the Church of Christ. It takes but the enactment of a positive law-done in a moment of deliberation, or, it may be, of carelessness or of passionto make a religious duty or a sin of a matter in itself indifferent or unimportant; and rulers, as well ecclesiastical as civil, should beware how they exert their power. The great fault of ecclesiastical legislators, in all ages of the Church, has been in legislating too much. They seem to have forgotten how wide and almost boundless is the application of a law, though it appear to be circumscribed; and that even a legal license will operate somewhere as a legal prohibition. They seem to have forgotten that there are laws in nature itself and in the Gospel as well as in their codes of canons. The legislators of a Church ought to have faith in the common sense and the deliberate judgments and the sincere hearts of the Christian people; they should trust much to the laws of experience, the laws of the human mind and affections; they should have calm confidence in the

gracious care of the Holy Spirit, the superintendence of the Head of the Church. They ought not to seek to curtail the liberty of the earnest soul in its searchings after holiness and God.

The Protestant Episcopal Church, as it now exists, is, in the highest sense, an adaptive Church. It is able to take in the countless diversities in the practice of the Christian community, and to hallow them all by the spirit of unity; to convert them all from opponents, often too bitter and severe, into friendly and loving coworkers with each other, all in the unity of its one capacious system. We pray that the day may be forever removed when this Church shall be taken off from its present free and adaptive principles, to be placed upon an intolerant and sectarian foundation. And if the day shall come when its own members and others professing Christianity shall understand well the adaptiveness of its system, then the glorious ideal of an united and happy Church will be realized. But never can that ideal be realized until these principles are acknowledged sincerely and in practice.

If the writer may be indulged in offering one word of advice to his Christian brethren generally, he will say: Let the principles of a Church so free and so adaptive be carried out. So long as men are willing to conform to laws which respect essential duty, leave them in other matters to their liberty. You cannot, you ought not to restrict them. If men are willing to strive after holiness, let them do so in every way; it is hard enough to be gained in any way. And be sure that whatsoever custom or effort will promote holiness is accordant with the design and the system of Christ's true

Church. Let men alone, leave them to themselves, so long as they are willing to come together upon the great essential principles on which Christ's Church is founded.

To the Protestant Episcopalian we say: Look well to the system of your Church, and endeavor to catch its spirit of forbearance and toleration, its spirit of wisdom and comprehensiveness. And remember, if ever you should be tempted to strive, or even to wish, to restrict the Christian liberty of your brother-his liberty in things not essential to salvation-then you will be tempted to war treacherously, and in the spirit of sectarism, against the grand and glorious principles upon which your Church is established.

SECTION XX.

RELIGIOUS DEVOTION AND ACTION.

Two tests of a Church. Religious Devotion-Formularies of the Protestant Episcopal Church-high spirituality-order of services-holy men of the Church-distinction between the system of the Protestant Episcopal Church and other systems for the production of devotion. Relig ious Action-variety and arrangement of evangelical subjects-in connection with liberty-and with adaptiveness-the Protestant Episcopal Church the revival Church of the United States-working of the system-such a Church should be dear to all true Christians.

In looking at the system of a Church as a practical system, there are, among others, two grand results by which it must be tested: first, Religious Devotion, that is, its capacity to improve and cultivate the piety and spirituality of Christ's disciples; and next, Religious