whole movement. It is to be hoped that the funds and the labors of the Bible Union will now be devoted to more sensible and useful purposes.

THE FORM OF GODLINESS WITHOUT THE POWER.

The strictest observance of outward forms in a church is entirely compatible with its total apostasy. We know that the popular belief is, in this day, opposed to this truth. It is a prevalent idea that so long as a Church holds essential truth in her creed, and keeps up the public worship of God in a serious and orderly manner, that church can not be other than a Church of Christ. This idea is held by many honest people, and serves as a veil to hide the moral deformity that is often found in the character and conduct of the Church. Hence, when their church is charged with supporting systems of the highest crime, they regard the charge as false and slanderous. They think of the public congregation where Jehovah is, to all appearance, devoutly worshiped. Their minds revert to the fervent prayers and earnest exhortations of the preacher. His solemn warning to sinners, and beautiful exhibitions of the blessedness of the righteous, come back to mind. The serious, attentive faces of the congregation, as they listen to these proclamations of truth, are present to their view. The conclusion from these things is that there must be reality in all this. This must be true religion. God must surely own the church as one of his, where he is thus worshiped in the solemn convocation. Hence it can not be that their church is one of the bulwarks of any system of crime.

The Bible furnishes abundant evidence that all these outward appearances of piety are strictly compatible with the worst practical crimes, and may be found in churches that are uttely apostate. Passing by, for the present, other instances of this in the Bible, we select one from the prophet Micah. In the third chapter of his prophesy we find this language:

"Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity. They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.

แ

"The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, is not the Lord among us? none evil can come upon us."

That these verses describe an apostate church, under the influence of apostate religious teachers, is evident. Zion, or the Church, was built up with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. The religious teachings were utterly depraved. Yet great apparent devotion to the interests of Zion was manifested, and loud professions of piety were abundant. While the heads of Zion judged for reward, and the priests thereof taught for hire, and the prophets divined for money, they yet "leaned upon the Lord, and said is not the Lord among us." While abhorring judgment (or justice) and perverting all equity, they felt so secure in the Divine protection that they said "none evil can come upon us." hypocrites could point to what they considered certain evidences of the Divine presence and favor: Is not the Lord among us? Are not these the tokens of his gracious regard? Do we not have a numerous attendance on our ministrations in the solemn services of the sanctuary? Are we not "building up Zion," lengthening her cords and strengthening her stakes? Drawing from these considerations a presumptuous confidence, they felt safe in God, at the very moment that his heaviest curse was impending over them.

These

A more exact description than this of the leading churches of this land could not be written by the prophet if he lived in our day, and was an eye-witness of current events. Let us look at some of the details in this prophetic picture. The first is, "they abhor judgment and pervert all equity." The pulpits of this land have rung and are now ringing with defenses of the system of slavery and the Fugitive Slave Bill. The religious press. is teeming with similar justifications. Now slavery and the Fugitive Slave Bill are the most monstrous "perversions of all equity" that were ever framed into law. The provisions of the Fugitive Bill are drawn with an eye solely to the establishment of injustice. A bribe is paid for a decision against natural right, and evidence is taken as sufficient to consign a man to the endurance of lifelong robbery, which would not establish a claim of property to a dog. Now, if the defense of this iniquity by the Church and clergy is not overwhelming evidence of an "abhorrence of justice," and a desire to "pervert all equity," there never can be any evidence of the existence of such disposition.

Another particular in the description is, "they build up Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity." As a striking exemplification of this process take one or two authentic advertisements. The Savannah Georgian of the 3rd of March,

18-45, contains the notice of a public sale. After describing the plantation the advertisement adds:

Also, at the same time and place the following negro slaves, to-wit: Charles, Peggy, Antoinette, Davy, September, Maria, Jenny and Isaac, levied on as the property of Henry T. Hall, to satisfy a mortgage, issued out of the McIntosh Superior Court, in favor of the Board of Directors of the Theological Seminary of the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, against said Henry T. Hall. Conditions cash.

"C. O'NEAL, Deputy Sheriff, S. C.'"' The Charleston Courier, of February 12th, 1835, contains the following:

"FIELD NEGROES, by Thomas Gadsden.

"On Tuesday, the 17th instant, will be sold at the North of the Exchange, at ten o'clock, a prime gang of ten NEGROES, accustomed to the culture of cotton and provisions, belonging to the INDEPENDENT CHURCH in Christ's Church Parish.

The next notice of a bequest of negroes for the benefit of the heathen is from a Savannah (Ga.) paper:

Bryan Superior Court. "Between John J. Maxwell and others, Executors of Ann Pray, complainants, and Mary Sleigh and others, Devisees and Legatees, under the will of Ann Pray, defendants.

IN EQUITY.

"A bill having been filed for the distribution of the estate of the Testatrix, Ann Pray, and it appearing that among other legacies in her will, is the following, viz.: a legacy of one-fourth of certain negro slaves to the American Board of Commissioners for domestic missions for the purpose of sending the gospel to the heathen, and particularly to the Indians on this continent. It is on motion of the solicitors of the complain. ants ordered that all persons claiming the said legacy, do appear and answer the bill of the complainants within four months from this day. And it is ordered that this order be published in a public gazette of the city of Savannah, and in one of the gazettes of Philadelphia once a month for four months.

"Extract from the minutes, December 2nd, 1832.

"JOHN SMITH, C. S. C. B. C." These advertisements are mere specimens of multitudes of others of similar character, and serve both as indications and illustrations of a general practice. Human beings are bought

and sold, held and bequeathed, for the benefit of theological seminaries, the support of preachers, and the sending of missionaries to the heathen. The wages paid for the labor, and the price paid for the bodies of slaves, is both literally and figuratively, the price of blood. This price of blood the leading denominations of the American church take and apply to the support of all the various means employed for building up the Church at home and extending it abroad. If this is not "building up Zion with blood," then how and where can the world furnish an example of such spiritual masonry? Yet do the sanguinary builders of this structure of blood put forth, as in the days of Micah, abundance of pious pretenses. They say with their ancient prototypes, "Is not the Lord among us? Look at our revivals of religion, our extended missionary operations, our numerous theological seminaries, our presses, and pious ministers and devoted people. Then elated with the survey of their extended boundaries, flowing wealth and multitudinous adherents, they triumphantly exclaim with them of old, "none evil can come upon us."

To the churches thus cemented together by the blood of the tortured slave, comes the terrible denunciation which the prophet thunders against the wicked Church of his day:

"Therefore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest."

Similar to this is the language of Isaiah :

:

"To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts, and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.

"When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand to tread my courts?

"Bring no more vain oblations: incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I can not away with, it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.

"Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth; they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.

"And when ye spread forth your hand I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers I will not hear: your hands are full of blood."

DECREASE OF THEOLOGICAL STUDENTS.

Recent statistics exhibit the fact that there are fewer candidates for the ministry in the Protestant churches of this

country than there were in 1840. In the Theological Seminaries of the Congregationalists and Presbyterians there are fewer by seventy than ten years ago. During this period the population of the country has increased six millions, and one million of square miles have been added to its territories.

These facts furnish food for reflection to the thoughtful. A truly evangelical Protestant ministry is one main hope for our country and the world. A true minister of Christ is the fast friend and staunch advocate of all those principles of freedom, justice and religion which form the only solid basis of good government, and which alone can promote the highest well-being of mankind in time and eternity. The true minister is, of necessity, the friend and advocate of freedom, for his great business is to preach and follow Christ and his doctrines, and the mission of Christ is to "proclaim liberty to the captive and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." He is necessarily, also, the enemy of intemperance, because he is ordained to warn men against those sins which exclude from the kingdom of heaven, and the Bible declares that " no drunkard hath eternal life abiding in him." He is by the same necessity the friend of peace and enemy of war, because his master is the Prince of Peace, and the elements of his kingdom are "righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." He is also, of necessity, the friend of sound education, for the mission of the gospel of which he is a minister is to enlighten the world. God's true Church and ministers are the light of the world, and as his religion is disseminated through the earth, so will the cause of true learning progress. In short, the true minister of Christ is the friend of every principle and every measure which makes men wiser and better, and the opposer of every principle and system which has the opposite tendency. He is governed by a spirit alike the opposite of that of the despot or the slave. He has no desire to be lord over God's heritage; but feeling his own unworthiness, and imbued with the spirit of genuine humility, he preaches Christ the Lord, and himself the servant of the flock for Jesus' sake. At the same time he has none of that spirit of craven fear and cringing sycophancy which would induce him to hold back one jot or tittle of the counsel of God, for fear of offending his people. He is too deeply penetrated with a sense of his high and solemn obligations to his own master, to stoop to court the favor of rich and haughty sinners in his congregation. Perfect weakness in himself, he is strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. An