ARTICLE VIII. THE ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY IN KNOWLEDGE AND By Prof. B. B. Edwards. THE Christian philanthropist, when he casts his eye on the history of the world, or on its present condition, is apt to be despondent. If he be not conscious of this feeling on a cursory view, he may awake to the sad reality on a further examination. In proportion, indeed, as he is a true man, cordially devoted to the best interests of his fellow creatures, he will be sustained by the goodness of his cause. The arm of the faithful soldier is nerved mainly by the justice of his cause. In the darkest hours, he is cheered by the consciousness that he is contending for the true interests of his country. Still, the moral strength of an army consists very much in the degree in which they expect success. Sometimes victory is taken for granted. All the previous arrangements are made with a distinct understanding that there will be a favorable result. To each division of the host is assigned the duty of following up the victory and of reaping all its possible fruits. In such cases a defeat is nearly impossible. A triumph is generally certain where it is confidently expected. So in the spiritual warfare. The Christian philanthropist, who commences his work with the cheerful anticipation of success, will commonly win his object. A hopeful frame of spirit is one of God's best gifts to man. A morbid anticipation of defeat, or of small success, is followed almost always by the expected result. But in proportion as one is fitted to his particular work by an enlightened education, by enlarged views of the dispensation of grace which is committed to him, by a fraternal interest for his brethren elsewhere, by compassion for a world which must perish without the light of revelation, he will derive encouragement from the general spread of Christianity, or become faint-hearted from the prevalence of sin and error. His success as an individual will be very much in proportion to his expectation of the universal triumph of the Redeemer. If animated by the great hopes which should fill his bosom, he will perform his work with an energy and authority which is possible in no other circumstances. If he looks with a despairing or indifferent eye on the mass of mankind, he will be apt to do so on the 1848.] Various and sure grounds for Hope. 359 members of his own little circle. If he has made up his mind to surrender the race to irreversible destruction, he will be likely to show little energy in his own sphere of duty. In other words, one of the principal elements of success in individual effort anywhere, is the expectation that there will be progress everywhere. The personal aim, the individual, local hope, are linked invincibly with the great final result. What are the grounds for hope that the cause in which the true philanthropist is engaged will ultimately triumph? 1. Our confidence in the power of the Holy Spirit. All obstacles before Him are as the chaff of the threshing floor. Opposing governments hoary with despotism, or rank with socialism, will sink in his presence like lead in the mighty waters. He understands the thousand avenues to the human soul, and can fit his instruments to his purpose with unerring precision. 2. The predictions of the Scriptures. Unless we mistake their interpretation, they announce the Saviour's universal reign. Their abrupt transitions, their gorgeous and daring imagery only make the desired consummation the more sure. Couched beneath these metaphors, there is a breadth and affluence of meaning, which no partial gospel triumph can exhaust. The sublime imagination of the Hebrew prophet was not divinely illumined to pierce the tract of ages in order to foreshow a confined and momentary triumph. Even should the ancient prediction have this limited and local application, we have a firm resting-place in the declaration that the fulness of the Gentiles shall come in and so all Israel be saved, uttered, be it remembered, after the day of Pentecost, after the gospel had been preached, through mighty signs and wonders, from Jerusalem, round about unto Illyricum. The vision is for an appointed time, though it tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not tarry. 3. The fitness of the remedy to the disease,-the perfect adaptation of the gospel to the woes and depravity of man. It addresses itself in a manner possible only to its Divine author, to all the susceptibilities and powers, the hopes, fears and aspirations, to all the feelings of doubt and despair which lodge in man's bosom. It is not an arbitrary arrangement. The preaching of the gospel is foolishness only in the view of perverted reason and of a corrupted taste. It includes the elements of the highest wisdom, the most admirable fitness of means to the end. 4. The success which has already attended the dispensation of the gospel. Its sway over mankind is yet, indeed, very imperfect and limited. The mass of men, even in Christian lands, still reject its authority and live without its hopes. But it has accomplished enough to show what it can do. It has been tested in all departments of society. It has had its triumphs in every region of intellectual power -of polished or of hardened depravity. If it reaches Pascal and Newton, then there is no genius or science which it may not purify and exalt. If it can create a nation of Christians out of Sandwich Islanders or South Africans, it has power to redeem every tribe that needs its light. Its influence is not universal, it is not general, but it has shown its capability;-its power to solve the hardest problems of degenerate nature. It has been tried in a thousand balances and never found wanting. If it can conquer one district of paganism, it can subjugate the world. 5. But there is another ground of encouragement which we especially wish to consider in the present discussion-that is, the general state of the world. Leaving out of the account the church of Christ, the institutions of Christianity, and all direct efforts for the spread of the gospel, is the general aspect of the world one of discouragement or of hope? As we look through the great volume of history, what report have we to make? When we survey the long ages, as they stretch off into a dim antiquity, are we animated with hope or filled with forebodings? Is the Providence of God coöperating with his gospel in gradually leading the entire race to holiness and salvation? Or is God seen in history only as restraining what else would be intolerable depravity, or as an avenging Deity, laying bare his punitive arm? There are only three possible theories on this subject. It is assumed by some that the world has been and is becoming gradually worse, that all supposed melioration is only on the surface, that the current of depravity is constantly running deeper and broader, that a funeral pall is by degrees extending over this once fair creation, that men will sin with a higher hand and a bolder face till some miraculous and dreadful catastrophe shall engulf them, introductory perhaps to a new order of things when the saints shall possess the earth and the tabernacle of God shall be literally with men. The only exception to this dark picture is the little Goshen where the people of God abide. As we do not know who the elect are that are to be gathered in, we are to proclaim the gospel to all whom our voice can reach, yet with small expectation of success. This might be called the discouraging or hopeless theory. Another theory teaches that the world is in a state of perpetual vacillation; there are vibrations of hope and of despair; the earth is now verging towards the light, then is shrouded in darkness; there is a constant flux and reflux; empires rise and fall, but no progress is made. 1848.] Hope from the present State of the World. 361 Generations come and disappear, but the world is no wiser or better. All things continue as they have continued from the beginning. We can predict neither the redemption nor the destruction of the world. Uncertainty rests on all things. It is a confused mixture of good and evil, in which we can discern no positive elements, no great tendencies in either direction. All which we can say is, that the waves advance and then recede. It may be called the theory of indifferentism, sometimes of atheism. The only remaining supposition is, that the world is gradually becoming better; that on the whole some progress has been making towards a brighter era. The change may be often exceedingly slow and nearly imperceptible. Light struggles with the darkness and sometimes seems to suffer total eclipse, but ultimately the cloud disappears. Knowledge, truth, virtue, civilization, are more and more distinctly recognized and highly prized. Apart from the church of Christ, separate from all direct religious influence, may we not be cheered with the hope, if not with the absolute belief, that the Providence of God in history is working out the same merciful design that the grace of God is in the church? Must we look upon the world, as destined, in its present order, to certain destruction, or as balancing to and fro, in inextricable confusion, or as giving indications, not to be mistaken, of a better destiny? That the more hopeful interpretation is the true one, might be made probable at least, if not evident, by three distinct lines of argument or three classes of facts. We might appeal, in the first place, to the existing state of the world, and show that there were never so many grounds for encouragement as at the present moment. There are certain auspicious changes, some of which go to the foundations of society. The rights of conscience were never so well understood nor so extensively respected. The distinction between the church and the State is more clearly defined and correctly appreciated. The rights of the vast mass, the lower classes, are not trampled under foot with the same proud disdain as formerly. Kings and cabinets are compelled to entertain the idea, that the legitimate object of government is to promote the real well being of the people. On no other theory can they retain their sceptres. Mere promises of reform are now of no avail. The days of court-favoritism and of peculiar aristocratic privilege are coming rapidly to an end. Moral and intellectual worth are beginning to assume their true position. The great science of humanity is more profoundly studied and its laws more sacredly observed. Penal codes, criminal legislation, and all that vast system of statutes, written and unwritten, VOL. V. No. 18. 31 affecting the morals and manners of society, are undergoing most salutary changes. It would be impossible now to rebuild the dungeons of Olmutz, or of the Bastile, or of Newgate. The ear of despotism is reached by the voice of outraged humanity. Secresy-that worst attribute of tyranny-cannot be maintained. Now, these considerations are not invalidated by the fact that they are attended with partial evils, or by the assertion that they are counterbalanced by corresponding mischiefs. No one, it is presumed, would exchange, leaving Christianity out of the account, our own existing New England for that of the pilgrim fathers, or for the boasted old England of the seventeenth century, or for the Germany of the Reformers. In three hundred years there has been an immeasurable advance in points vitally affecting society, touching not simply its branches, but its trunk and its roots. Another line of argument would consist in selecting some prominent events in the history of the church, and showing how they have exerted salutary effects on the world, which nothing has been able to counteract or destroy. The Protestant Reformation, for example, has impressed its character on the political world as truly as on the religious. It created in a sense a language and literature which are more influential than any, with perhaps a single exception. It breathed its genius and religious spirit into dialects spoken by sixty or seventy millions of men. It has left its witness in the hearts and memories of multitudes, a veneration for the author of that Reformation, an almost passionate affection for him which may contribute at length to lead them into the same path of holiness and truth. But its effects did not end with Germany. It awakened the human mind, so that it has never been able to slumber since. It engraved, as with an iron pen, the great doctrine of personal responsibility in the relations of man to man, as well as of man to his Creator. No perversions of this great event, no failures to carry out its principles, have been able to stay its influence, or efface its impressions. All Europe, politically and socially, is in a state essentially different and essentially better, than she was before the Reformation. In a thousand forms, it has pervaded society, and if not always with healing power, yet really and substantially so. Some of these remarks are applicable to the religious movements of the present day. Their indirect, earthly benefits are not among their least. Foreign missions, missions in our own country, the distribution of the Bible, are constantly exerting a wider and happier influence upon those who take no part in the work and may never share in its saving influence. In proportion as Christians truly exhibit the spirit of their Master, being one with another as he is one with the |