466 mutes them thirt and atic ECE ber lik ad be lir H 468 The Relations of Christianity to excite the attention and interest of Christians in Great Ben The existence of Thugism, the fearful massacre of victims at th Juggernaut festival, the horrors of the suttee, the universal pre lence of infanticide, and the exposure of the aged, the sick, arit dying upon the banks of the Ganges, all awakened the desire a teach these poor degraded heathen the way of salvation. At as two dissenting ministers, in whose hearts burned the love of souk offered themselves for the work. The commercial interest, ever a tensely selfish, and then, as now, too groveling in its nature to reeg nize the principles of humanity, which lie at the very basis of Christianity, rose at once in opposition to the movement. Som contempt, and unqualified denunciation were launched against these humble disciples of Christ by men high in station in the British Parliament: "They were mere renegades from the cobbler's bene masters of petty handicraft trades, and utterly incapable of coping with the astute and learned Brahmin; besides, the government was under obligation to protect the natives of Hindoostan in the free exercise of their religion. It would never do to interfere with that, and if necessary, troops must be detailed to secure to them freedom from molestation in their festivals and suttees." Unawed by these de nunciations, trusting in the promises of Him whose Divine commis sion was their only warrant, Carey and Thomas sailed for India, and though forbidden to enter the dominions of the East India Company, found a resting-place at Serampore. Sixty-four years hare elapsed since that time; the story of their labors, and toils, and those of their successors, are now a part of the world's history. Of the thousands converted to Christianity through the efforts of Christian missionaries who have followed in their footsteps, we will not speak: but the philanthropist, at least, may be permitted to rejoice that, as a result of missionary effort, the Thugs have been extirpated, the immolation of victims under the wheels of Juggernaut's car prohibited, the suttee abolished, the devotees no longer permitted to torture themselves by swinging on hooks, infanticide checked, and the hideous crocodile deprived of his living prey on the banks of the Ganges; and though now Mohammedanism is making a desperate struggle to recover its lost supremacy over a portion of the peninsula, and Brahmin and Moslem make common cause against the Christianity which both hate, yet the power of caste is broken, and the dominion of the Mogul a thing of the past; the swarthy sons of Hindoostan shall yet yield to the scepter of King Immanuel, and his triumph come the sooner for this outbreak of his foes. But it is not alone in India that the Christian missionary has planted the standard of the cross. Like the Catholic missions of e seventeenth century, the modern missionary enterprise has encired the globe; Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America, ustralia, Malaysia, and the islands of the sea are dotted with its cations; but, unlike those missions, it mingles not with the politial affairs of the nations it seeks to benefit; affects no pomp, dislay, or worldly grandeur, but seeks only to bring men to Christ, nd to the Christian philanthropist. There is no more convincing >roof of the elevating power of a pure Christianity than the fact hat, under its benign influence, the licentious and degraded cannioals of New-Zealand and the Sandwich and Society Islands, have abandoned their depraved and heathenish practices, and taken a respectable rank among the nations of Christendom; that the simple, timid Karen, and the wild and brutal Choctaw and Cherokee tribes, have adopted the habits and customs of civilized life; and that other nations are passing through the transition period of their history, and bid fair soon to take their place among the Christian nations of the world. Already the crescent begins to wane before the cross, and the lands where prophet and apostle once labored and taught, renouncing the faith of Islam, are returning to the doctrines of the Gospel. The changes thus effected are not mere changes of form, the substitution of one superstitious rite for another, rendering a relapse into barbarism inevitable so soon as the outside pressure is withdrawn. The hearts, affections, hopes, and aims of the converts are changed; and in most of the missionary fields, were every American or European missionary withdrawn at once, the native preachers and disciples would go on, more slowly indeed, but steadily, to a higher plane of civilization. In thus referring to the results of the modern missionary enterprise, we have anticipated, in part, our review of the progress of humanitarian effort since the commencement of the present century; but enough remains to be said of its triumphs in other fields. Intellect was never quickened into such activity as now; the humane teachings of the Saviour were never so fully understood or practiced, the ties of human brotherhood so fully recognized, or the responsibility of man for the welfare of his fellow-man, so thoroughly understood. We have seen within the present century the institutions for the deaf and dumb increased from six or eight to more than two hundred, and through the influence of Sicard in France, Baker in England, and Gallaudet, Clerc, and Peet in this country, their usefulness and sphere of instruction greatly enlarged; institutions for the blind established in every country in Europe, and in more than half the states of our own Union, and the word of God so printed that they may literally "feel after him, if haply they FOURTH SERIES, VOL. X.-31 may find him;" the insane no longer subjected to cruelty and torture, but gathered into hospitals, where, by kind and gentle treatment, agreeable amusements, the solace of books, paintings, and music, and such employment as may withdraw the mind from its sorrows, they may be restored to reason and to society again; the poor idiot and the cretin, long believed to be irresponsible and beyond the pale of human sympathy, through the benevolent labors of Guggenbühl, Seguin, Wilbur, Howe, and others, so far improved as to be fitted to perform the ordinary duties of life, and to tread, though with faltering step, the way of holiness. War has been deprived of much of its horrors, and its frequency diminished; the great temperance reform, though it has not yet wholly stayed the plague of intoxication, has rendered the traffic in intoxicating drinks disreputable, has rescued its thousands from the drunkard's grave, and has prevented tens of thousands more from entering upon the downward course. The death penalty has been restricted to the highest crimes; the criminal encouraged to attempt a better life; the juvenile offender and the vagrant child rescued from a career of crime, and by careful training transformed into useful and respected citizens; aged and infirm females provided with a home and its comforts; the repentant Magdalen raised from her degradation, and encouraged by a sister's kindness to "go and sin no more." We grieve that with these triumphs of humanity, we may not also record the downfall of that monster evil, human slavery; but we rejoice to know that its doom is sealed; that in its audacity and reckless disregard of all obligations, human and Divine, may be seen the surest presage of its speedy overthrow. This progress of philanthropy, this fulfillment of the new commandment of our Saviour, should inspire us with the most glowing hopes for the future. The ages to come will develop, in its highest glory, LOVE as the crowning attribute of Divinity. The lineaments of the Divine image, obliterated by the fall, shall reappear in the sons of God, redeemed by a Saviour's blood; and as Christianity shall triumph over the hoary forms of error, man shall cease to be the slave of his appetites and passions, shall better comprehend, and more fully observe the Heaven-appointed laws of his physical nature; and while his sympathies for the whole human brotherhood shall become increasingly active, the objects which now specially excite those sympathies shall constantly decrease, till all over our world, now stained with sin, and abounding in mental, moral, and physical deformity, there shall be found no hardened criminal, no reckless and degraded inebriate, no painted harlot, no beggar clothed in rags, no deformed, blind, dumb, or crippled sufferer, no raving maniac, no helpless idiot, and no loathsome cretin basking in the sun; but health, holiness, and happiness, shall pervade the earth. For such a period let us pray and hope; its coming may be nearer than we think; eyes already opened to the light of day may see its glorious dawn; for all things portend the speedy fulfillment of the Revelator's vision, and betoken the hastening of that time when the angelic host and the glorified saints shall send up to the throne of God new anthems of praise, as, looking forth from the battlements of heaven, they behold "new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness." ART. X.-RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE. GREAT BRITAIN. The Protestant Churches.-Lord Palmerston, than whom, as the Evangelical party believes, no man has ever appointed better bishops; than whom, as the High Churchmen say, no man has ever done more harm to the Church of England, has been succeeded as Prime Minister by Lord Derby, who is supposed to sympathize with the Broad Church party. The friends of Dr. Pusey find, however, some consolation in the assurance that there is some good Church influence in the new councils, and that at all events the new Prime Minister will not do them as much harm as Palmerston. Derby has declared himself against the abolition of Church rates, which is desired by a large majority in the House of Commons; against stopping the annual support of the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth, unless a fixed compensation be granted to it; and for a continuance of the connection between Church and State. "This latter question," says the Press, a political organ over which Mr. Disraeli is supposed to have some influence, "is more and more becoming a large question of vital importance, which is no longer looming in the distance. Statesmen do not like to talk of it, or to think of it; for it is a hard and thorny question. But whether they shrink from it or not, the controversy draws nearer and nearer, and it will hardly be possible for the most cautious politicians to avert an open struggle for many years longer. This, this chiefly and solely, is the remaining battle-field between Conservative and Liberal." The bishops of the Established Church, though among them well-nigh every shade of opinion in the Church is represented, are unanimously opposed to a revision of the Prayer Book, as moved in the House of Lords by Lord Ebury. This has given particular satisfaction to the High Churchmen, who, on the other hand, are greatly offended at the discussions of the upper house of the Convocation for Canterbury on daily Church services, "because the right reverend fathers of the Church discourage the observance of the clearest intentions of the Prayer Book, to say nothing of the warrant of the Holy Scripture." An attempt to carry in the same Convocation a resolution against the "violent infraction of the most solemn rights and privileges of the Church, committed by the new Divorce Act," failed. In the province of York the archbishop, as usual, refused to allow to the Convocation any opportunity of proceeding to business, gravamina against which procedure were signed by nearly all the members present. The three archdeacons of the Diocese of Oxford, appointed by the bishop a committee to investigate the charges of Romanizing tendencies brought against the Cuddesdon Theological Seminary, have negatived the principal charges, though they find "some unfortunate resemblances to the practices of the Roman Church." The long controversy on the admissibility of Archdeacon Denison's Eucharistic Doctrines in the Church of England, has been finally settled by a decision of the judicial committee of the Privy Council, dismissing the appeal of Mr. Ditcher against the sentence of the Court of Arches. But, terminated in England, it breaks out again in Scotland, where the Bishop of Brechin is charged with un-Protestant views on the same subject by his colleagues of Edinburgh, Argyle, and Glasgow. The English Methodists report about six hundred thousand dollars missionary contributions the last year, being an advance on the preceding year. Their number of Church members has likewise increased, and they never stood in an attitude of more strength and dignity before the religious world than at this hour. At a synod of the English Presbyterians, held in Manchester, a motion against the use of the organ was carried by a majority of 72 against 62. The Society of Friends has diminished in number during the last half century, though the population of Great Britain has more than doubled itself. to the Weekly Register of London, the Roman Church has been joined during the last three months by several other clergymen of the Established Church, and by Lord Norreys, eldest son of the Earl of Abingdon. This will place another English earldom under the influence of Rome. On the first of May Cardinal Wiseman performed the solemn blessing of four ships at Deptford, the first instance of the blessing of a ship in England since the Reformation. Extraordinary occurrences are reported from the Irish College in Paris, an institution which prepares some seventy Irish students for the priesthood, and whose supreme direction is vested in a board of the Irish bishops, representing the entire Irish episcopate. dent, Dr. Miley, has, without charge, trial, or investigation, expelled the two other professors from the institution, and induced the French government, against the wish of the cardinal archbishop of Paris, to serve them with a peremptory order to quit France at once, or else they would be flung into prison for six months. Dr. Miley is said to be jealous of the Irish spiritual direction, and to lean on the secular government. The case will be investigated by a general meeting of the Irish prelacy in June next. In the mean while, to allow the irritation to subside, a vacation has been decreed. The presi GERMANY, PRUSSIA, AUSTRIA. The Protestant Churches. - All parties in Prussia seem to be aware that the Prince of Prussia delays a radical change in the Church government only out of regard for his brother, the king. The resignation of Dr. Stahl, as member of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council has not yet been officially accepted, but he takes no longer any part in its transactions. He devotes his time to an elaborate work on the "Union," while his celebrated opponent, Chevalier Bunsen, has just published the first volume of his long expected translation of the Bible. Some more troubles have followed the proceedings of the General Synods of Bavaria; Count Giech, the most influential lay member of the Church and of the general synods, having been indicted by the government for publishing certain views which the royal commissary at the General Synod of Baireuth prevented him, by order of the government, from uttering before the Synod. It appears that the leading men in the Bavarian Church, though highly conservative in all political questions, intend to exert themselves strenuously for a greater independence of the Church. At the University of Erlangen, which, together with Rostock and Leipzic, is a literary stronghold of Lutheran High-Churchism, the number of theological students has risen to three hundred and twenty-five, an extraordinary increase, which indicates that the prospects of the High-Churchmen are favorable as far as the clergy are concerned. The Theological Faculty of the same university has passed the resolution that, contrary to its whole past history, and in spite of the fact that Erlangen is the only Protestant university of Bavaria, it will henceforth confer the title of D.D. only on members of the Lutheran Church. It has recently become known that Rev. W. Löhe, the leader of the extremest faction of the Bavarian High-Churchmen, has introduced in his congregation as long as two years ago a rite which substantially is the same as the sacrament of extreme unction in the Church of Rome. The Supreme Consistory of Munich, though generally agreeing with the views of Löhe, has been forced, by public opinion, to forbid this innovation. In the grand-duchy of Mecklenburg, where, likewise the restoration of a species of Protestant popery is attempted, a distinguished professor of the Theological Faculty of Rostock, Dr. Baumgarten, has been dismissed on account of doctrines which are at variance with some ducal decrees of 1552 and 1602, defining what is to be considered in the country of Mecklen |