language of the Bible. In vain do they produce positive testimony from the Apostle Paul, or argue from various declarations of our Saviour, and from His ascending command to preach to every creature. There is a tribunal of appeal in this age, higher than the Bible and that is human reason and human sympathy. The moral intuitions of humanity can better teach us the future of the heathen, than can God himself.

The readers of this journal dwell in an old-fashioned section of the country. We are behind the age, undoubtedly, in many of its improvements. We have not yet given up our Bible, although we confess that we come very far short of obedience to the rules of that book. We still venerate it as a perfect standard of faith and obedience. When modern civilization condemns slavery as a barbarous and wicked institution, we go to the Word, and, finding it there sanctioned by the God of Abraham, and by our Lord Jesus Christ, we do not suffer a sickly sentimentalism to explain away the distinct language of that inspired volume. And when the same modern philanthropy, more humane and more merciful than God reveals Himself to be, would explain away what the same Word says, respecting the heathen, we will still hold fast to our Bibles. That Divine book is not good enough for abolitionists, nor for any other sect of the brotherhood of human reason and human charity, but it is good enough for us. We want no better Bible, and no better God.

It is worthy of notice how the denial that the heathen are in any danger of perishing, which has recently appeared in a certain quarter, is accompanied by the denial that Christianity does the heathen any good, or makes them any better. The idea is broadly held forth, that the heathen are better as they are, than Christians themselves. Christian missions "destroy what is good among them, and put only evil in its place." "At the bottom of the suttee and of cannibalism, there is a genuine religious faith;" but at the bottom of Christian missions and of the Christian faith which produces them, there is only folly and frand. It is not very long since we were informed from the same quarter that the " early books of the Old Testament abound with misapprehensions of the meaning of ancient astronomical and chronological emblems, and with imaginative interpretations and misreadings of hieroglyphical records;" that "the Pentateuch is a miscellaneous collection of fragmentary records-a compilation of old documents, interspersed with narrations founded on oral traditions;" that the story of the serpent reads "like one of the numerous myths which arose out of the zodiacal emblems;" that "the story of Joshua is one of the whimsical mistakes in the progress of the change from the pictorial hieroglyphic to the phonetic mode of writing;" and that "in fact, Christ himself denied the infallibility of the Jewish

Scriptures, and was nailed to the cross, in great part, on account of this infidelity.""

From the same humane, meek, and liberal quarter, also was promulgated not long since, the following imprecation of "death without mercy" upon the Christian clergy-well illustrating what Robert Hall called the real ferocity of infidelity:

"The crime of depriving a fellow-creature of life, is not the offence of greatest magnitude of which any human being can be guilty. If capital punishment be allowable for that, then would death without mercy-the death of the Mosaic law, death by stoning-be the appropriate penalty, not of Sabbath-breaking, but of trafficking in superstition; trading in man's weakness, and with his loftiest aspirations; converting his instincts of awe and reverence for the wonderful and admirable, into abject terrors; his most sacred emotions of grief, his solemn moments of parting on the confines of eternity, his very hopes of immortality, into implements of a craft, a source of income, a miserable instrument of popularity and power; and, the object attained, endeavouring to perpetuate it by proclaiming the infallibility of creeds and canons, persecuting those who question it as infidels to God, resisting the extension of knowledge among the masses, or rendering it exclusive and nominal, and thus seeking to crush the human mind under the wheels of the modern Juggernaut of conventional idolatry."

We are aware, of course, that doubts of the Christian doctrine respecting the future of the heathen, extend to many persons who have no sympathy with infidelity. Even amongst the supporters of Christian missions, some take the low view lately put forth, to our surprise, in a very respectable quarter in the north of Britain:

"We shudder at the accounts of devil-worshippers which come to us from so many mission-fields. We pity the dreary delusion of the Manchees, who enthroned the evil principle in heaven. But, if we proclaim that God is indeed one, who could decree this more than Moloch sacrifice of the vast majority of his own creatures and children for no fault or sin of theirs, we revive the error of the Manchee; for the God whom we preach as the destroyer of the faultless, can be no God of justice, far less a God of love. It needs no exaggerations, such as these, to supply a sufficient motive for missionary enterprises. Our object is to introduce Christianity with all the blessings that accompany it; its true views of God, its ennobling motives, its pure morality, the elevation of life and manners, the civilization, the knowledge, even the material progress which are sure to follow in its train. And we may leave it to God himself, to

decide how the benefit of Christ will be extended to those whom it has pleased Him to permit to live and die in ignorance of His gospel; confident that the same rule of perfect justice, tempered with boundless mercy, has one uniform application everywhere and to all."*

*North British Review, for August, 1856.

This theory of the object of Christian missions is not from the Bible. We are gratified to be able to say it is understood to be an expression of individual opinion only, by the conductor of that journal. The religious press, both of England and Scotland, has animadverted upon it severely. The Free Church of Scotland is not responsible, either directly or indirectly, for the sentiments of that journal.

age

But it is no strange thing that some well-disposed persons should fail to follow out the teachings of the Bible upon this subject. We continually observe the same phenomenon in respect to various other subjects. As respects the principles of the slavery question, for example, it is not infidels alone that entertain opinions not warranted by the Bible. Some good Christians do the same. So, as respects charity, how many pretty things are said in these days, by a very good kind of people too, which find no warrant in the word of God. The spirit of the age, in some of its strongest aspects, is latitudinarian. The liberal minds of this denounce bigotry and sects. In their zeal for toleration, they are intolerant of those who make any difference between the most opposite ideas. They love error as well as truth, and evil as much as good. Let them but have their ease, and all opinions are alike matters of the most charitable indifference. Thus we see how many sides there are to selfishness. But Christianity and the Christian Scriptures are distinctive; and, without some degree of that which this age calls bigotry, there would never have been and never be again any patriots or any martyrs. And if, indeed, the bloodiest battles ever fought have been about Truth, that only shows what a precious thing truth is.

We venture to assert that many of those good, easy souls, who cannot admit the idea of heathen perdition, have never considered how, in their benevolence and charity, they either make out the gospel a curse to any people, or else totally repudiate the Divine justice. If the heathen shall all be infallibly saved without a union by faith to Jesus Christ, and if those in Christian lands, who believe not in Him, are lost, then it is better to be born in heathenism, which insures eternal life to all, than under the gospel, which certainly involves the doom of some. But if, on the other hand, all those in Christian lands who repent not, and believe not in Christ, as well as those who repent and believe, shall alike be saved, what becomes of the justice and veracity of God? We wish all these "charitable" people would study their Bible better, and, better following out the teachings of the Bible, would cease to occupy, unconsciously, the ground of those who reject the Bible. There is not much to be feared from infidelity, if we can just isolate and identify it. There is a neighbourhood in the upper part of this State, where the attempt was made some years ago to get up a congregation of that strange kind of Christians, who hold

the salvation of all men alike. For a short time, the true scope of their doctrine was concealed, and all went well. But their creed came fully and fairly out at last, and then the common sense of our people, and their knowledge of the Bible, revolted alike at such a monstrous perversion of Christian truth, and they quit all attendance upon such a ministry. The deserted building is now pointed out to the traveller by the name it bears in all that region, as the "No-Hell Church." It was this name which helped to kilĺ it. There were involved in the name, as in the creed, two contradictory and mutually destructive ideas. The name made them patent to every understanding. The idea of "No-Hell" rendered nugatory the idea of " Church," and the creed, thus exposed, soon forsook the field.

If the reader suggest that, after all, the idea of heathen damnation is too awful to be entertained, we have only to say, it is indeed an unspeakably awful idea; but so are several other ideas which we admit. The Bible gives us the idea of a world in ruins! Is not that awful? It gives us the idea of that ruin of the world, being moral and eternal! Is not that awful? It gives us the idea of God becoming incarnate, and crucified for the redemption of His own creatures from His own curse! Is not that awful? Now, if we admit these ideas, can we not admit that other idea? But if we prefer to reject the Bible, because of these awful ideas, what shall we do with the constitution and course of nature, that is analogous to the Bible? Are not pain, and woe, and death, and sin too, all of them facts patent before our eyes? Tremendous facts, occurring under the government of a good God, and an Almighty God? If the future destruction of heathen men and women, which is plainly revealed in the Christian Scriptures, lead us to reject those Scriptures, what shall we do when we behold the constantly recurring fact of their present destruction as often as they come into collision with superior races of men? Or with that other melancholy fact, that, as fast and faster than the existing races and generations are being destroyed, others are being born into their places? If we could have our own way, no doubt we should ordain the immediate banishment of death from the world, as well as of sin, which introduced it; and if these things might not be, then no doubt we should prohibit any further increase of human life under such a curse. But, if the infinite and incomprehensible Governor of the Universe should condescend to speak to us, while thus presuming to criticize His ways that are past finding out, He would, perhaps, do it merely by some such word as that which silenced presumptuous and complaining Job: "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?"

We postpone till our next number, what we have to say on the subject of African colonization.

ART. VII.-UNIFORM CURRENCY.

Essays on the Progress of the Nations in Productive Industry, Civilization, Population, and Wealth. By EZRA C. SEAMAN. New York. 1851.

Bartlett's Commercial and Banking Tables, adapted to the Currencies of all Commercial Nations. By R. M. BARTLETT. Cincinnati.

1853.

THE discovery of gold in California and Australia is producing changes and disturbances in every department of business. Its influence has already been decided and real, even in the brief period that has elapsed since it began to operate. In five or six years its effects could not be very large, but they have been sensible and measurable, indicating how great they will become when they have been allowed time for accumulation. The progress is slow and noiseless, but it is wide-spread and all-penetrating. As the annual supplies of the precious metals are poured into the channels of trade, they swell the magnitude of the current, change the prices of merchandize, interfere with the contracts between man and man, and disturb all the operations of commerce. By altering the relative proportions of gold and silver, they encourage governments to call in their old coins, and stamp them with new values, or to change one standard for another, thus wronging their creditors, and violating the contracts they have made with the people. As the advance in some products will take place sooner than in others, prices will be changed irregularly. Inequality and injustice will be introduced into almost every branch of trade, and where long contracts are made, as in railroad bonds or government stocks, the depreciation of the metallic currency cannot fail to work a large and serious injury.

Many questions of importance are suggested by these changes: the adoption of a single standard of value, instead of the double one of gold and silver; uniformity in the coinage of the different countries; the extension of the decimal system of France and the United States to the several countries of Europe; these and other questions are important, because they relate to the subject of money, in which such deep interest is felt by all classes of society, and to the justice or injustice of governments, whose highest duty is to preserve honesty and good faith among the people.

It is doubted by some persons whether the large supplies of gold from the mines of Russia, California, and Australia, have yet produced any appreciable effect upon its value. But the changes already effected in the currency of the United States and of France, and the knowledge we possess of the amount of coin in Europe and America, and of the annual supplies received from the mines, forbid us to indulge in any doubt on this subject.