the Constitution, be printed, and that the practicability of circulation must be first determined. And then making the further assumption that tracts on slavery cannot be circulated in certain portions of the country, and tracts on polygamy in certain other portions, he contends that they cannot be printed by the Society without a breach of trust.

Who, then, are "the ignorant, the unenlightened, and the needy," for whom tracts are to be printed and circulated? How ignorant, unenlightened, and needy must a person be to permit the Society to give him a tract without a breach of trust? Did the founders of the Society err when, in 1827, they determined to circulate tracts among the higher classes! When, in 1834, they resolved to furnish every family in the Southern States with tracts, was it only to the ignorant and needy slaves that their thoughts turned, or did they include all southern families among the ignorant and unenlightened? Tracts are intended to instruct, convince, and persuade those who are ignorant and unenlightened as to their duty on moral and religious subjects, however elevated their position and however well instructed in knowledge. If we may judge from the developments that have recently been made, the tracts on dancing, and the use of wine and tobacco, may advantageously be circulated among those who are professedly laboring to enlighten others on these topics.

The next position taken is that the practicability of the circulation of a tract must be ascertained before it can be printed without a breach of trust. This is extending the veto power indeed! It is not enough that tracts shall be calculated to meet the approval of different denominations of evangelical Christians, as we claim; it is not enough that they shall, in fact, commend themselves to the approbation of the individual views of the members of the Publishing Committee, as has been claimed; but they must be approved by everybody! How will this principle operate? Mr. Lord argues that to print tracts on the subject of the moral evils of slavery would be a breach of trust, because they cannot be circulated at the south, assuming this as a fact because the system of slavery exists, to some extent, at the south. We might, with the same

propriety, argue that tracts on dancing, the use of wine and tobacco, cannot be printed without a breach of trust, because they cannot be circulated among the Executive Committee, assuming this to be a fact because we know that these practices are, to some extent, indulged by the members of the Executive Committee. Mr. Lord argues that polygamy cannot be condemned by the Society in its publications, because he assumes that such tracts could not be circulated among the Mormons; and why not for a similar reason suppress tracts on Universal Salvation, on the Divinity of Christ, the Atonement, &c.? It is a short argument. Those who do not believe the doctrine of the tracts will not receive them, and those who do believe the doctrine do not need them. Indeed, we are ready to ask of what use to publish tracts on any subject, or of what use any effort to correct the moral evils and vices of sin? The argument must go to this extent; it must put a stop to the American Tract Society, and every other Society which seeks to convince men of error and of wickedness; it must close the Bible, call home our missionaries, shut up our pulpits, and leave the world to its own course. Not so thought the men who planned the American Tract Society. Said Justin Edwards, at the first anniversary meeting of the Society, "those truths which God has revealed, in the aspect and connection in which he has revealed them, it is our duty to extend, not merely because we have associated for this purpose, but because God has commanded us to extend them to every creature."

This idea of deciding whether a tract can be circulated before it is printed is a novel one, or rather the idea that any judicious religious tract cannot be circulated, is preposterous. In our number for August, 1858, we said, "If you have any doubt on this point, consult the Annual Reports of the Society, consult any faithful tract distributor in one of our large cities, and you will learn of not one or two, but of a large number of the openly vicious who have refused repeatedly to receive tracts condemning their darling sins, but who at length have been persuaded to accept, to read, to repent and to believe." We had not examined the Annual Reports of the Society for this purpose, we appealed to what every one knows, who

knows anything of the practical operation of tract distribution, and the use of this argument betrays a lamentable ignorance on the subject.

We have in our hands the twenty-fifth Annual Report of the Society, and we will make some extracts from this as a sample of what may be found in all. On page ninety-one is mentioned the case of a wife, who became much enraged against a colporteur and declared that he should not enter the house again. Her husband expostulated with her, but she replied, "He shall not come into the house again;" but the Spirit of the Lord reached her heart, and when the colporteur returned, they gave him a hearty welcome. On page ninety eight, a colporteur among the French, in one of the most forbidding portions of Louisiana, states that a Catholic priest denounced him and his books, and ordered the people not to read or touch them. Many came and received books. One woman who would not disobey the priest by touching the books, spread her apron over her hands and thus opened and read the books. The priest, thus baffled, stated that the books published in New York were of an incendiary character. This plan succeeded better. The colporteur left the place, and some of his friends thought it would not be safe for him to return, but he has been there twice since, and no harm was done him. One woman refused to receive a tract from him, and he tossed one into a tub near her. When he returned, the woman was glad to see him, and wanted more books. On page one hundred, a colporteur in Tennessee says, there were seven doggeries in the place, but before we left we procured a number of signatures to the temperance pledge. An old gentleman, who was furious in his opposition at our first visit, was now the first to welcome us. But we cannot go through the narratives of a similar character, even in this one report. Would it not be well for the Society to make similar selections from their own reports, for circulation among their own members? We hope not to be charged with impertinence or usurpation for making the suggestion. But it is too serious a matter for trifling. We are shocked that Christian men should argue that it is useless and wrong to proclaim the truth, because men will not listen.

to it. We have felt ashamed that it seemed necessary to quote, from the reports of the Society, facts to disprove such errors, when we remember who it was that said, "Go, and speak unto them and tell them, thus saith the Lord, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear."

Must we argue longer to show that circulation does not mean universal circulation? If Unitarians will not receive tracts on the Divinity of Christ, there are still many others who will gladly receive them; if Universalists will not tolerate tracts on eternal punishment, there are others to whom they may be given; if Mormons will not bear the precepts of the Gospel in their relation to polygamy, the Society may still be justified in printing and circulating their tract on the seventh commandment; if even members of the Executive Committee should turn their backs on the tracts upon fashionable amusements, wine drinking and the use of tobacco, there are many ignorant and unenlightened persons to whom such tracts may be a blessing; and if the Southern slaveholders curse when tracts against slavery and the slave trade are proposed, there are gray-haired members of the Tract Society itself, even ministers of the Gospel, who need to be taught "the first principles of the oracles of God" on this subject, for when the members of the Society assembled in May last, one such came also among them to defend the slave trade.

If anything could arouse the officers of the Society to appreciate the moral insensibility, which their withholding the truth has been a means of inducing, and to the discharge of their duty in the premises, it would seem as if the open advocacy of the slave trade, not in the distant South, but in their own presence, even by a minister of the Gospel, on the floor of the Society, would do so. And if the professors of such a religion pertinaciously refuse to receive the exhortations and admonitions of their Christian brethren, it will not be long before the opinion will prevail, that any such professions of Christianity are vain, and that objections from such a source are not worthy to be regarded.

ARTICLE IV. THE FORCES OF THE PULPIT, AND THEIR RELATION TO ITS POWER.*

So preeminent is the Pulpit among the human agencies which God employs to advance his spiritual kingdom on earth, that an inquiry into the conditions of its power cannot be void of interest to a thoughtful Christian mind. Especially will

those who are called to the "ministry of the Word," often turn to inspect the means by which, under God, they are to accomplish their high mission. This occasion invites to such a review, and suggests as a theme perhaps not altogether inappropriate, The relation of the forces of the pulpit to its power.

By the use of these terms, it is not meant to be implied that the pulpit has any power apart from its connection with the Holy Spirit. It is an organism of parts, designed and adapted to accomplish a specific purpose in the economy of grace, but only when the Divine efficiency streams through it, does it become an organism of powers, "mighty to the pulling down of strongholds." Like the human system, it must be pervaded and vivified by the indwelling spirit, or it will be powerless. And yet, as the body is curiously wrought into a repository for the powers of the soul, through which it acts on the world without, so has the great Architect fashioned the pulpit into an organism whose parts are nicely adjusted to be avenues through which the Divine Spirit puts forth his power for the regeneration and sanctification of men. We may, therefore, as properly speak of the forces of the pulpit as of the body, meaning those instrumentalities through which the Spirit exerts his power in the preaching of " the Word." These forces, for the want of better terms, I shall style material, development, action; and the proposition designed to be illustrated is, that the pulpit becomes a power just to the degree in which it employs these forces.

* An Inaugural Discourse, delivered by FRANKLIN W. FISK, Professor of Sacred Rhetoric, in Chicago Theological Seminary, April 28, 1859; and presented for publication by the Board of Directors of the Seminary.