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circumstances are encouraging, and HOPE is the master passion of the whole nation. They seem incapable of entertaining a desponding or alarmed view of any circumstance. When the fate of the fine "Atlantic" steamer was for so many anxious weeks veiled from the deeply interested multitude, it was amazing to hear people, in the face of all manner of probable misfortunes, express conviction that the good ship and her people, and even her cargo, were all safe. If some of those who profess faith in "clairvoyance" consulted a modern Witch of Endor on the subject, and the oracle was favourable, it was handed about with great cheerfulness. If, however, she saw a wreck on the African coast, or a ship burned to the water's edge, and three forlorn men, one of them of huge proportions, and still undaunted bearing, preparing a slip of paper to be sealed up in a bottle, the consulters turned off in disdain, denying the witch's skill. They hoped then, hoped on, hope always. And thus, when they speak of their country, the mind rushes on to distant lakes and populations, and prairies, and future ages, and instead of being bounded by the great things already achieved, they tell of what they shall achieve. We say they prophesy-we ought to say, they hope. We say they boast!-we ought still to say, they hope. It seems easier to extingush in them the torch of life than that of hope.

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To this great principle in the Christian community does the Church owe much of its vigorous

effort at extension. Hope animates to energetic endeavour and vivid exertion. The faithful advance courageously, feeling that the deep and permanent wants of the human heart meet their efforts, and that the high objects which they present have power alike to arrest and influence the aged and the little ones.

The emblem of the Church of Scotland, endeared to us by years of oppression and persecution, during which its fitness has been verified, is the "bush burning, yet not consumed." The motto of the Church in the United States might fitly be, "We are saved by hope." Its whole existence is a history

of the pulsations of hope, urging onward to more extended effort, and more strenuous exertion. It is not of its nature to say, "This city is so crowded, that we must leave it alone, we can make no impression on it." On the contrary, a church that is awake and alive will observe, "Here is a district beyond us, filling up with a population who have no religious ordinances; let us draft off two of our elders, and a few of our influential Christian families -let the people be visited and invited to a prayermeeting in a convenient place-let us offer them the means-let us set them the example-let us set about it now, with prayer for the influences of the Holy Spirit. Does the pastor quail under the separation from some of his steadfast people? Does he say, How can I do without you? How can I spare so many pillars and props from my spiritual

edifice? Nay, he says, "Go, my friends; it is a Christian enterprise, it is our Master's work. I will lend you help as time and strength may serve, and we all shall follow you with our prayers." So armed and encouraged they go. The nucleus gathers around it a few of the sober-minded inhabitants of the new district. The success of the enterprise becomes interesting to them, as well as to those who came there and opened the scheme. In a year they have filled the district school-house, and have regular worship. In two years they have erected a becoming edifice, and got a pastor settled, and all the influences of a well-worked Christian system are brought to bear on the neighbourhood.

Here it is a city population that is spoken of, but, allowing for the difference of a fewer and more scattered people, the process in the country is nearly similar, reminding us of the manner in which a bulbous root propagates itself, swelling and pushing out fresh bulbs on either side. This method of church-extension is employed by the various bodies of Presbyterians. The Methodists and Baptists, whose communion-rolls are numerically stronger, use similar methods. They are not equal in influence and steadfastness to the Presbyterians, if we embrace under that name all the fragments which rest on the Presbyterian foundation. The coloured population are more generally united with the Baptist and Methodist bodies—and their status in American society, and degree of intellectual cul

tivation, necessarily place them in a lower grade with regard to influence; so that, though the Baptists have nine thousand and eighteen churches, and the Presbyterians only five thousand six hundred and seventy-two, yet the latter are the more powerful body.

The Episcopal Church, which the English would expect to be first and greatest, has only one thousand five hundred and sixty churches, and twenty eight bishops. It loses much in a country constituted like the United States, by its habit of standing aloof from other denominations, and fails in the more expanded exercise of Christian love which would be called into play, if it were substituted for the cold formal exclusiveness in which the majority of the congregations encase themselves.

One is at a loss to explain the sectarian trammels in which Episcopacy seems in all countries entangled. Not the High Church party alone—the Tractarians or Puseyites, as we should call them-their notions of apostolic succession, and baptismal regeneration, account for their exclusiveness; but the Low Church party-holy, zealous, and faithful though they beseem not to assimilate cordially with other denominations. In England we impute this chill reserve to their ideas of the dignity becoming an established church, and to an idea that all dissent from it is schism from Christ; but in America it must arise from some other cause. It is not apostolical succession, neither is it baptismal regeneration, for the Low

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Church party do not hold such dogmas. the damping effect of forms of prayer? much disposed to come to that conclusion for want of another, and then to reason upon it as an effect to be expected. What spirit can escape weariness under repetitions that must become monotonous. Or, when prayers are requested for a sick member, how can a heart surcharged with emotion fail to feel that a slender parenthesis to aid the importunity of an anxious spirit, which is limited to the "all sick persons, especially that one for whom our prayers are desired." And one cannot understand how such another poor "specially" can serve for the outpouring of a request for "those who travel by land or water," without damping or deadening the sentiment—if it be the missionary, or the emigrant, or the one beloved member travelling away from a weeping family, who is prayed for.

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The Liturgy has been altered and much improved in America, without exhibiting any of those alarming results which seem to be anticipated in England when a proposal to modify or in any way to interfere with it is made. It might be a fabric of straw or cards, so great is the alarm felt on that subject. not the alarm a superstition? And if the substantial Scripture truths of the Liturgy have suffered no injury by abridgment and verbal alteration in America, why should they suffer elsewhere, if managed with equal judgment; for example, the Lord's Prayer is recited once during morning and once during even

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