burnt in effigy in front of his church, and the latter publicly insulted and struck. Thus, although the popular fury in Switzerland is raging against the Jesuits of Lucerne, it is equally so against the Christianity of the New Testament; and, although Geneva, Basle, and Neufchatel, are the very Alps of the Reformation, or thrones of the Gospel, they cannot proteet it even in Lausanne, nor do anything to spread it in the Popish cantons. They would sympathise nobly-especially Basle, the Athens of the Rhine-with a grand moral demonstration of British Protestantism, at this crisis; but if the battle of the Reformation come on soon, we shall rather have to fight for them, than with them. Thus, whoever may be the Gideon, to blow the trumpet of defiance against Rome, and however it may seem to rally a great army, he will find much fewer to wield "the sword of the Lord," for the supremacy of the Lord, than might be supposed at first sight; for although it would, no doubt, call forth help that is now hidden, as well as power that is now dormant, and give that Gideon, like Elijah, thousands who have not bowed the knee to Baal, the moment he defies Baal in the face of all kinds of priesthood, yet there is far less to calculate upon, than either sanguine or superficial observers suspect. It is well, yea necessary, to be fully aware of this fact, however painful it may be to admit or contemplate.

Under this conviction, we feel it to be an imperative duty to characterise German Protestantism, just enough to show that it would be a less useful or hearty ally to Britain in this warfare for "the truth," than it was at the battle of Waterloo, for liberty. Even the Prussian eagle could flap only one wing, and flash only one eye, against Antichrist; for she has to shelter and please millions of his subjects, and can keep peace in her nest only by playing off her rival broods against each other, alternately. This see-sawing policy would neutralise the public influence of Prussian Protestantism, were there no neology in either its churches or universities. But much of German Protestantism is as antichristian as Popery itself, although in another way. It has even a worse spirit than Popery. Popery keeps the Bible from the people; but neology teaches them to spurn its inspiration, and to treat its facts and doctrines as mere speculations, or ingenious myths. It is, therefore, impossible to conceive a greater mockery of the Reformation, than would be presented to Europe and America, were neological Protestantism to come into the field against Popery; and were England to own this unholy ally, Rome might well dare and defy her to prove any such outrage against the Bible, from the chair of Peter, as has been perpetrated by the chairs of German theology. And Rome would be right: she has made the word of God of none effect by tradition, and sealed it by edict; but she has never held it up to scorn or suspicion, as of no Divine authority, nor as of little moral weight, where reason chooses to philosophise.

Nor is this all. Even orthodox Protestantism, whilst it glories in Luther-the nightingale of Wittemberg, as the Germans fondly call him-sings the "new song," if not with less sweetness than Luther, yet with far less simplicity. It ascribes salvation to faith in the Lamb slain, as fully as he did; and thus is one in heart with all evangelical Protestantism; but somehow, it is not one in head. We mean, that it is both mystical and metaphysical, in its modes of reasoning. It argues out the great doctrines of the Gospel from Scripture well, and throws brilliant dashes of fancy, and deep tints of feeling, into its illustrations of them; but it starts from strange points, and goes on by devious paths of ratiocination to reach the apostolic goal. Englishmen would hardly know, from either the premises or the process of a German defence of free grace, that it was his own side of the question. The conclusions of the argument would both satisfy and delight him; but they would also make him regret as well as wonder, that what ended with the word of God, did not begin with it. Thus the intellectual caste of even the best German theology is not Lutheran. On cardinal points it has the decision, but neither the directness nor the simplicity of Luther. It is not equivocal, but neither is it transparent. However well, therefore, its forms and force may suit Germany, they would not tell widely upon the British mind, although they would tell powerfully upon many individual minds. Unless, therefore, a battle for the Reformation should make the Lutheran church feel like David in Saul's armour, embarrassed by her dialectics, and thus compel her to throw them away, that she may sling the "five smooth stones of the brook" of our common Protestantism at the head of Goliath, she would not play Luther's part in the field, nor obtain that confidence from either Britain or America, which they would like to give her. In a word, French Protestantism, so far as it is evangelical, although a weaker, will be a better ally, if the battle must soon be fought.

Thus, upon the whole, the Protestantism of Europe is but ill-prepared to make common cause against Popery at this moment, by argumentative warfare. The Protestant camp is large; but there is too much of Babel within it, for an effective attack upon Babylon now. And yet, there must be no peace, no truce, with Rome now; "no, not for an hour, that the truth of the Gospel may continue." Gal. ii. 5.

How, then, may that truth be best preserved? We answer at once, by spreading it throughout the heathen world. In placing this duty of the church first, we neither disparage at all, nor would dispense with, any other legitimate means of defence. We do maintain, however, that all the rest will fail, yea, and ought to fail, if missions be allowed to fail or languish. We cannot have God on our side, by either his Spirit or providence, if we do not side with them, wherever they are planted, and also send forth more.

Besides, missions are the only Protestant "epistles" that Rome will

read, or let Romanists read. Protestant books, and the Bible, she prohibits throughout all her dominions-but Protestant missions, which are the living epistles of Christ-she now reads with both her eyes, and points them out to her votaries as reasons for multiplying her own missions. Whatever Roman INFALLIBILITY may be worth, therefore, and wherever it may reside, whether in the pope, or in his church, or in himself and his cardinals conjointly, we have all its worth, and weight too, in testimony, that Rome dreads our missions more than our books or our arguments. Exeter Hall never alarms her, however it ring with the cry, "No Popery!" except when missionary meetings are held in it. She both dreads and hates the Bible Society also; but chiefly as it is the grand ally of missions. Were it not Foreign, as well as British, the pope would not have hazarded his designs on England, by his late bull against the Bible, nor have placed himself in a false position with the politicians of expediency at this crisis. He would have taken his chance of all that the Bible could do against him here, whilst the battle was about the rubric, had the Bible not been speaking and spreading wherever he had missions, and wherever he wished to plant missions. Thus he has let us into his own secret, and it will be both our fault and shame, if we do not make a good use of that secret. We now know what omen he dreads most-what thorn in his side he hates most-what hook in his jaw galls him most. All his old fields of missionary enterprise, in lands still heathen, are either occupied by Protestants, or about to be so, under shields and sanctions which even his Catholic kings cannot dispute, and dare not despise ; and in the new fields on the islands of the sea, his recent experiments would be ridiculous in his own eyes, were they not conducted by Frenchmen, and sustained by French cannon, and identified by France with her national glory, which the Vatican well knows how to humour. Let there be no bewilderment, and thus no undue fear, about Popish missions. They will dispute every spot of Protestant ground, and plant themselves, in their wisest forms, by the side of all our influential stations, amongst the heathen. Romanists demand this of Rome, and will take no denial; for they see their fame, both as nations and as a church, sinking, now that they have little or no hand in planting the cross in the deserts of Africa, or on the islands of the Pacific. France, Spain, Portugal, and even Austria, were wont (and they have not forgotten it) to plume themselves upon being missionary nations; and still, so far as they are Catholic, they hold missions to be an essential mark of the true church. But, during this century, that mark has appeared upon the brow of Protestantism, and waxed brighter and broader every year. This could not be borne in silence by Romanists, especially as the mark was both dimming and diminishing upon the brow of Popery. Thus the demand for missionary enterprise arose, and the Vatican was glad to meet it; for

the pope felt that tens of thousands of converted savages and idolaters proved more against his church than he liked to confess, and more than casuists could answer by words; and as those who made the demand furnished him with ample means of compliance, or with both Jesuits and money, the work was begun. Let Protestants, therefore, be aware of, and weigh the fact, that Rome has now staked her credit, as she did at the Reformation, upon her missionary spirit. This ground she has taken again, of her own accord, in order to evince and defend her pretensions before the world. She has both chosen and sought this battle with Protestantism; and now let her have it, whilst she is in the humour for it, and whilst her subject nations look on! This battle is no logomachy, in which only scholars can fight. Even children can be champions, and our young men and maidens, our old men and matrons, heroes and heroines of Protestantism, so far as Popery is concerned; for the question is now, Will the Gospel, if sustained among the heathen, do more good to them than Popery? The Romanists of Europe say, No! and lay at the pope's feet, for missions, as much money as the Protestants of Europe lay at the feet of Christ. Thus, as to means, the rival armies are about equally matched; and as to men, the advantage, in all things but in "holding the truth in the love of it," is upon the side of Rome. Her new missionaries are chiefly Jesuits; a fact that speaks volumes in a word, for both their profound learning and resolute spirit. It tells, indeed, of other qualities; but let them pass just now! The wisdom and zeal of Jesuitism, without its wiles, are formidable enough to call loudly and imperatively for missionaries "mighty in the Scriptures," and not powerless in any kind of useful knowledge, or of moral daring.

Is there, then, in Protestantism, confidence enough in the power of truth and the promise of God, to keep up against Rome the holy war of missions, now that she courts it? That war, be it remembered, was not undertaken against her. Popery seemed a doomed and dying thing, not worth a thought in England, when our missions began. They went on also for years, yea, for more than a quarter of a century, before either the Vatican or the Propaganda thought them worth notice. But when India yielded Brahmins as confessors; and Madagascar women as well as men were martyrs; and the South Sea Islanders flung away their idols; and the cannibals of the Sandwich Islands became the sheep and lambs of Christ in character as well as in name; and the emancipated negroes stood up in the attitude of their great ancestors, Cyprian and Augustine; and Henry Martyn, Bishop Heber, and John Williams, divided the palm with Xavier; and Morrison, Carey, and Milne, with Schaal and Verbiest; and Moffat, of Southern Africa, and Freeman, of Western Africa, diverted the attention of Europe from the intrepid Jesuits in Cochin-China, Rome and Romanists took the alarm for their old fame, and resolved to give battle to

the new champions of the cross, before it was too late to dispute their ground. It is, therefore, for Protestantism to determine now, whether it thinks that ground as well worth keeping, as Rome thinks it worth gaining; for, we repeat it, that her infallibility has decided that our missions are as much dreaded and hated by Popery, as the Jesuits are by Protestantism.

But it will cut this argument short, as well as sharpen its point, to say now, that the battle of the Reformation, if fought with success in this century, must be so by the Gentile churches and their missionaries; for the Protestant churches and their universities are not prepared to fight in one phalanx, nor simply and solely for the supremacy of Christ and Scripture. It is of no use to conceal or blink this fact, whoever may be pained or mortified by its disclosure. Rome can confound or confuse all the learning, logic, and charges, that all Europe can bring against her. She is more than a match for them, whilst they wield any weapon but the word of God; and upon this, no national church in Europe is yet prepared to stake her claims. But the mission churches, in general, have no other weapon of offensive or defensive war. The Bible is everything with them; and, therefore, their holiness, happiness, and improving character, form both a weightier and mightier argument against Popery, than any form or force of state Christianity, argue how it will, and bluster how it may. Even our Nonconformist churches, in which the word of God is the only acknowledged rule of faith or discipline, cannot command or attract the same notice from Rome, however holy or harmonious they become, as the Gentile churches do. The former are what they are, partly from other causes than the direct power of Divine truth; whereas, the latter are just what the word of God has made them; and it has made many of them holy and happy in a degree that eclipsed all that Romanism ever realised in Paraguay or Japan, where her missions were most sanctifying and successful. Whoever, therefore, has confidence in the glorious Gospel itself, as the power of God unto salvation, and cares nothing about the glory of anything else, or of any one but God, and the Lamb, and the Holy Spirit, may see at a glance, if he will only look with his own eyes, that our mission churches defy Rome to rival them, or even to imitate them, in pureness, knowledge, or civilisation, work how she may, and pay what she will! They know little about the pope or his pretensions; but when they hear of them, they may well say what Jane Taylor said of the power of philosophy to sanctify the heathen

"Let the keys-of-Peter boasting man,
Do with his enchantments if he can."

For if the mission churches are kept pure, and continue to prosper,— and it will be the fault of Protestantism if they fall off,-Popery will be put to shame in the eyes of all nations, just as Judaism and philo