to forms even more tenaciously after the life is gone than before. When the rites and ceremonies of religion are all that any people possess, they can the less afford to lose them.

In view of this fact the mission of the religious reformatory spirit now abroad is immensely increased in importance. It is not only to destroy those particular evils, in opposition to which it first manifested itself, but also to infuse life into the dead forms of faith in the nominally Christian world. So far from orthodox Christians being required to renounce their religious belief when they leave the large and corrupt ecclesiastical organizations of this country, the exact reverse is true. Only the men who hold to the doctrine of no religious fellowship with open iniquity, manifest a real faith in the orthodox tenet, that every sin deserves God's wrath and curse, both in this world, and in the world to come." None but those who hold to a higher law than acts of Congress or Parliament, can really indorse the Calvinistic doctrine of God's supremacy. So with other points.

In the light of this subject we see the delusion under which honest people labor when they cling to the large and corrupt church organizations of this country, through devotion to the great doctrines of the orthodox faith. They embrace the body from which the vital spark is fled.

COVENANTING.

The subject of public covenanting, at the present time, has been brought to the notice of our readers by our correspondents, in this and last week's paper. It is perfectly evident, we think, that if those denominations, which profess to believe in the divine obligation of solemn, public covenanting, at particular times, permit the present occasion to pass without entering into a solemn bond to obey God in opposition to the wicked demands of the slave-power, they will find it hard to convince the world that their testimony, in behalf of covenanting, is anything else than a dead letter. But, leaving controverted points on this subject out of view, we confess we should love to see the friends of God and the slave, in all Protestant denominations, unite in a public bond at the present crisis. This bond should embrace a distinct assertion of the supremacy of God's law over all mere human enactments, and a pledge to obey the former and disobey the latter, in all

cases where they conflict one with the other. As instances of such a conflict, it should specify those parts of the fugitive slave bill which command the citizens to join the posse commitatus to aid in recapturing the escaping bond-man, and those parts which forbid them to aid, directly or indirectly, in his escape. The bond should pledge its signers to use all peaceful means in opposing the execution of this enactment, and to secure its repeal. It should also pledge them to oppose by all right means, the election of any man to office who is not opposed to slavery, and all laws made to sustain it, and who is not known to possess Bible qualifications for the office of civil ruler. It might embrace a testimony in favor of peace and in opposition to preparations for war, also in favor of temperance, and in opposition to all laws intended to give a legal sanction to the selling of intoxicating liquors. Other things might be added in different localities, as might be thought best.

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It would be a sublime spectacle to see the friends of God and liberty, all over this land, meeting together in convenient places, by preconcerted agreement, on the same day, and there solemnly entering into covenant with Almighty God, to choose his service, and obey him, in opposition to the behests of the Government of the United States, which violate his laws. forgetting slight denominational differences, members of all churches could thus unite in publicly swearing allegiance to him who alone is Lord of the conscience, it would be a transaction to go down in history with the leagues of the Scotch Covenanters, in the reign of the Stuarts. Such a movement would arrest, if any human agencies can, the downward progress of this nation. The signs of the times indicate that it is rapidly traveling in that pathway that led to the French Revolution. The law of God has been openly insulted and cast out of the American Senate. The man who asserted its supremacy was obliged to make a virtual retraction. The licentious and the drunken occupy the high places of power; duelists and murderers are the chosen law-makers of this people. It is but within a week that two of them tried to blow out each other's brains in mortal combat. "The vile are exalted," and consequently "the wicked walk on every side." Crime is increasing with a rapidity which is exciting the attention and the fears of many who are called to execute the laws. If these things are not arrested, the man is blind to the teachings of the past, and the signs of the present, who can not foresee the result.

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Patriotism, then, to leave higher motives out of view, ought to unite the friends of righteousness at this crisis. The perpetuity of this Government, as a government of justice and liberty, must be dear to all friends of God and man. hopes of the present generation and their posterity are deeply involved. Yet if the present downward tendency is not reversed, the ruin of this nation is inevitable. The great want of the friends of righteousness, it seems to us, is organization -union. As a means of promoting this, the measure of public covenanting of which we speak, is worthy of serious consideration.

MODERN INFIDELITY.

If the denial of the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures is infidelity, then there are no doubt infidels among the advocates of the most important modern reforms.. They are found chiefly among that class of antislavery men who-for want of a better term-are called Garrisonians. (We use the term for convenience, not by way of reproach.) That all who hold Garrison's views of the United States Constitution, and of Christian non-resistance, deny the plenary inspiration of the Bible, is not true. Whether or not a majority of them do, we do not know, nor is it important we should. Neither do we know what is Mr. Garrison's own opinion on this subject. That some of the most prominent of the class to which we refer, do deny the doctrine alluded to above, is certain. They generally make no secret of their views. For whatever is frank and open in the avowal of their sentiments, they deserve credit. That there are, besides these, many Socialists, and advocates of other real or pretended reforms, who repudiate the doctrine of plenary inspiration, is true. The influence of these varied classes is extensive and powerful. They embrace men of the finest intellect, and of admitted purity of moral life. Many of them are also men of great natural kindness and benevolence of heart; and many of them exhibit a philanthropy and expansive benevolence, which ought to put to the blush many, of orthodox creed, who rail most loudly at their theoretical infidelity. That the views of these various classes, on moral, social, and political questions, are gaining ground, and that along with these views their opinion of the Bible is spreading, in many directions, it is useless to deny.

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It becomes, then, a matter of vital moment, to ascertain the cause and the remedy of this species of unbelief. As the Bible reveals the only hope for man, in this world and the next, and as the authority of the Bible rests on the doctrine of its plenary inspiration, to know how this doctrine may be most fully established, and how the progress of the opposite belief may be most effectually arrested, are questions which must lie near the heart of every friend of God and man. is obvious to all, acquainted in any degree with the subject, that the former modes of argumentation are insufficient. It is of course true, that the way of proving the inspiration of the Bible is the same in all ages. The arguments proving the genuineness and authenticity of the books of the Bible, the proofs from miracles and prophesy, are essentially unchangeable. The only effect of time on these various proofs, is to increase their weight, as fuller investigation developes the accuracy and purity of the sacred text, and as prophesy becomes more and more completely fulfilled. The force of these evidences will only increase by the lapse of time.

But these, to the mass of men, are not the most accessible or the most conclusive proofs of the inspiration of the Bible. The internal evidences, derived from the purity, holiness, and consistency of the teachings of the Bible, and from their effects in transforming human character, and controlling human conduct, are at once the most obvious and the most convincing. It is when mankind behold the Bible working an entire renovation of the whole moral and intellectual being of their fellow-men, that "the excellency of the power" of the Holy Scriptures is seen "to be of God." We are then brought directly to what we conceive the principal cause of the infidelity of which we have spoken, and consequently to its remedy. It is the failure of the Church to exhibit the fruits of this radical transformation, and the exhibition of their very opposite, that has filled the land with unbelievers in the inspiration of the Bible. An entire change, therefore, in the whole spirit and practice of the churches, is the only effectual remedy. It will not do, in this age, for the Church, or her ministers, to denounce infidelity, and argue, as she once could, from the known bad character of infidels. She dare not challenge comparison between the conduct of her own ministers and a members, and those whom she denounces as unbelievers. The advantage is here against the Church and with the infidel. This is a humiliating confession, but truth compels it to be made, and being true it is useless to disguise it. Hence the

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argument, from the glorious effects of receiving the Bible as inspired, is lost to the believers of that doctrine, and turned against them. What ought to have been their mightiest weapon of defense, is the most fatal implement in the hands of the unbelievers.

The interpretation of the Bible, by the prominent commentators of the country, has had a similar effect with the practice of the Church. Instead of showing (which is really the truth), that its teachings harmonize with, and really inculcate all true reform, the interpreters of the Bible have generally made it, on these subjects, the minister of sin. They have distorted its holy pages into a seeming justification of the most atrocious social and political cri nes. Drunkenness, war, slavery, caste, passive obedience to government as of Divine right, have fled for refuge to the perverted precepts of the Scriptures. The Church has furnished, and now furnishes, commentators in abundance, who forge from the armory of eternal truth, weapons for the defense of all these grievous wrongs. Now, the innate sense of right, which God has implanted in every man's soul, revolts at these practices. Hence the abhorrence which every one, except those who for selfish purposes practice or defend them, feels for these evils, is easily turned against the Bible, from which a seeming justification for them is extorted. The enemy of slavery, war, etc., has to encounter at every turn, the perverted teachings of the Bible. He has to urge his appeals against the prevailing exposition of that book, and against that reverence for its authority which all religious persons feel-a reverence, not founded on an intelligent understanding of the teachings of the Bible, but on the prejudices of education and habit.

Thus meeting, at every point of attack, the alleged authority of the Bible-finding a garbled text ready as an answer to every argument, and every appeal which he urges in behalf of the wronged and suffering slave, the antislavery man, who has not been deeply imbued with the teachings and spirit of the Holy Scriptures, almost inevitably conceives a strong disgust against them. Now, the guilty authors of his infidelity are the preachers and church-members, who so obstinately thrust forward the Bible to cover and excuse the unspeakable atrocities of slavery.

The temperance man, with his soul alive to the evils of drunkenness, goes to the haunts of its victims. He finds there the besotted husband and father, once respectable and virtuous, now a hardened and imbruted savage; the crushed