heavenly-mindedness, and superiority to all minor things, which we naturally ascribe to the Primitive Christianity. I know nothing more painful than to have one's heart disenchanted of such a picture; and there is no task one less willingly undertakes, than to make such a benignant vision fade away, whilst the cold, hard features of the Reality are gradually exposed. A man who reveres his nature, and believes that all that was ever imaged of its Purity and Love might well be nothing short of true, will not exhibit an inhuman eagerness to dissolve any fair and blessed belief in a realized sacredness and peace, which, though it belongs to the Past, and claims no place in the Present, still shows, by the facility with which it is received, the Faith of the common heart in the divine affections of humanity. But perhaps even the tenderest sympathy with Man should disincline us to favor that tendency, which only shows our instinctive faith in Goodness, whilst it transfers its energy to some distant scene of Action; and whilst it finds, or creates, but little that is divine in the Present, satisfies and expends the ideal sentiment that is in us, by dwelling on a transfigured Past, and a celestial Future. Every man has a Belief in the capabilities of Humanity to realize a life of peace and sacredness; but, alas! Eden or Heaven, or some mythic and unhistoric period, is always the scene of the Picture; whilst it is forgotten that such a Faith presses with the whole of its practical responsibility on the present hour of Life, and that whoever believes in a blessed capability which he does not aim to manifest, is a spirit

fallen and unprofitable in the eyes of God. Assuredly God gave us our Belief of a fairer and nobler state for Man, a Belief universal to every form of the religious, or the irreligious Mind,—not that untasked Fancy should locate it in the Past, or dreaming Hope transfer it to the Skies, but that with our own hearts and hands, with the energy and patience of true Believers, we should transfigure the Present, build up the living Temple, and realize outwardly the spiritual Beings that we are. This, essentially religious, Faith has been delivered over to be a luxury to the Imagination, whilst the Conscience has scarcely felt the burden of its Greatness. Trust in our diviner capacities, and in a more blessed state for Man, has sought its justification in uncertain traditions of the Past and dim visions of the Future, whilst for the Present it assumes humble dejection, and self-distrust, and the miserable confessions of infirmity, as the religious attitudes of this Christian Faith. Now this is in reality to burlesque Humility, -for it is not only to distrust one's self, but to distrust God, — it is not only to have no confidence in our own strength, but to have no confidence in Him. who perfects His strength in the weakness of those who cast themselves in Faith upon Him. God loves not the Humility that is as distrustful of Him as of itself; and he is the meekest child of the Heavenly Father, who, knowing his own weakness, has yet a divine Faith, that, if he aspires to be true to his holier nature, the everlasting Grace will bear him through. To be humble and self-abased is nothing, — but to be humble and at the same time

to lift the eyes and stretch forth the hands towards heights of Heavenly Goodness, and regard them as attainable through reliance upon Him who, within the sincere and pure heart, works effectually to will and to do of his own good pleasure, this is the true meekness of a Christian Soul. Wherever there is Christian Faith there must also be something of the spirit of Christian Enterprise, and that from no mere confidence in man, but from filial trust that God never deserts those who follow, in love and selfforgetfulness, the highest guidings of His Spirit. Who ever did so much to create Faith in the divine powers of Human Nature, as Jesus Christ? Yet who ever so entirely cast himself upon God for strength? In him were united Humility, and the feeling that all things were possible to him. Never do we read of a moment of depression, but it is followed by the record, that a fresh sense of connection with God came upon him,- that he rejoiced in Spirit, — and that the eye which Prayer had brightened, or any symptom of success kindled into hope, "saw Satan like lightning fall from Heaven." — Now, perhaps, the feeling that the primitive Church caught and continued this spirit of our Master, has rather directed us to the Past for the realizations of Christianity as a thing once accomplished, than created the sentiment of Responsibility, that its realizations are still for us to accomplish, and that the justification, which in fact no past condition of the Church has yet given, of the divine Faith in Humanity which Jesus taught, it is still for us to give. And if this be so, then have we less

scruple in presenting that Apostolic Age in its own colors; if to do so may create the sentiment that Christian Enterprise, in order to justify by our own realizations the divine trust and spirit of the Lord, has still to show, what as yet the world has never seen, the due fruits of such a faith. It is in this spirit, - to do away with the enervated impressions that there ever was a realized Church of God from which the world has deteriorated, and to show that on every new generation of advancing Man rests the responsibility of consummating the faith and divine expectations of the Lord, -that we would now speak the plain and unvarnished Truth of that Apostolical Period.

There never was a time when the Community of Believers, by their realizations of brotherly Love, and their communion with the Holy Spirit, approximated to the Saviour's idea of a Kingdom of God upon Earth. That the influence of a new and more quickening spirit in Religion, which brought the living heart into immediate connection with God, wrought powerfully upon individual minds, and produced results that can only be attributed to a divine movement of the mightiest elements in Man, is, in our view, an established Fact. But we can nowhere find, either in the small community that assembled around the Lord, or in the Apostolic period, or in the times of the early Fathers of the Church, any traces of a Society in which the mind of Christ subdued the infirmities of man and the passions of the world. And the more we look into the details of these times with a calm and quiet eye, when the

prejudice of sacred expectation has yielded to an investigation into the Facts, the more we are dis

appointed and startled to find how often the lowest elements in man dwelt in close proximity with Christian influences, and appropriated the privileges of Faith for the mean indulgences of a common, vain, worldly, and unregenerated heart. We would not imply that Insincerity was at the root of these evils, for there is no question so difficult to determine as the degree in which spiritual self-deception may connect itself with the lower passions of the mind; and when made the grounds of social elevation and distinction, Religion has always manifested a peculiar tendency to part with its diviner spirit, and to give intensity to the fanatical selfishness of man. We might suppose that, if anywhere in the primitive times, around the person of the Lord, a Christian Society, a Church of God, would be formed: but of the Twelve, we have it on record, that James and John desired spiritual dominion over their Brethren, and sought to turn the love that the Lord bore them to their own glory;— that Peter was carnal in view, and savored not of the things that be of God, and, as might be expected, without spiritual self-knowledge and thoughtfulness, was unstable and faithless in trial; that Thomas could not recognize the divine mind in Christ, and put the material question, "Show us the Father," and was obtusely sceptical, as such a man naturally would be, of his Resurrection from the dead; that Iscariot embittered the heart of Jesus, and introduced a sense of painful discord into his last and parting hours,"I have