where beyond the Sabbatical river, which flows impassably for six days in the week, and runs dry only on the seventh, are hosts and nations of good Samaritans, who are hindered by nothing but a rigid Sabbatarianism from marching forth to manifest their fellowship with their feeble brethren. In like manner our little knot of High-Churchmen having solved the difficulty of the division of the church by declaring their fragment to be the church, are accustomed to keep up each others' spirits by promising one another that some time or other, when the Sabbatical river of Greek and Armenian exclusiveness shall be dried up on a week-day, we shall see what we shall see. Expectant dum defluit amnis."

We have a very considerable measure of respect for the exclusiveness of the High-Churchman. It is no very long time since we have ourselves argued that making a truce and opening diplomatic relations with seceders was no way to national unity; and we have no disposition to flinch from the parity of reasoning which concludes that the unity of the Church of Christ is not to be gained by the organizing of its factions into several confederated and mutually militant parties, picketed against each other from village to village through the land, but "recognizing" each other, and having certain diplomatic relations, as of pulpit exchange, and so forth. This is the ideal church unity to which the Tract Society bears its cautious witness, and after which the heterogeneous leaders of Mr. Kimball's "Christian Union Society" led one another such a pretty chase some two years ago, and came out nowhere. We believe that a generation is growing up which will see the folly of all such Eirenica as these, and which will candidly acknowledge, to the honor of the little squad of High-Church Episcopalians, that, in their ridiculous way, they did nevertheless bear unconscious witness, in a perverse age, to the principle and duty of Christian Union, and by the obstinacy of their schismatic practices did testify against schism tolerated and approved. And we tender them a certain amount of qualified sympathy, in view of the aggravating behavior of the recusant Thrall, Cotton Smith, and Tyng, Jr., whose notorious latitude of exchange with Presbyterian and Congregational neighbors no

Episcopal or Canonical authority has thus far been able to restrain.

It is superfluous to point out how absurd a contrivance for healing the wounds of Christendom is the Mitchell prescription of a little more apostolic succession. Mr. Bryan Maurice sneers at the American chapel at Rome as a "funny compound. One week it was Presbyterian, the next New School Taylorite, the third Dutch Reformed;"-the hymn that is sung "says that 'The voice of Free Grace cries Escape to the mountain;' and then the Doctor prayed that the elect might be speedily brought to a sense of the truth; and then Mr. Adams told us that we had only to will to be converted, by calculating the advantages of the step, and we should be converted." His biographer will not pretend that the theological variations here caricatured are wider in range than those which prevail among the ministers of Episcopal Churches, all the way around from Pusey to Samuel Clark the Arian, by way of Thomas Scott and Frederick Robertson. The absurdity which his sarcasm cuts upon so keenly is that of seeing Christians of these various opinions coming together in a foreign land for common worship, with no more of a basis of union than their mutual love, and common trust for salvation upon the same almighty Saviour. If only the flux of valid orders had been thrown in, and the incantation of the Dearly-beloved-brethren pronounced, how sweetly they might have flowed together! Not all the family feuds and bitternesses and back-bitings that have vexed "The Protestant - Episcopal - Church-in-the-United-States-of-America," could make it less than heavenly in its unity, if only this healing branch of priestly pedigree could be introduced. Only accept this boon, which comes begging to be taken,-so we have been assured many a time, not only from Episcopalian, but from Episcopal lips-and you come right in at once, New School or Old, Calvinist or Arminian, and no questions asked, and the Church is one again. Their principle of Christian union is derived, evidently enough, from misapprehension of a patristic maxim, which they inversely read "in necessariis, libertas; in non-necessariis, unitas," and where the caritas comes in, it is not always easy to discover.

We cheerfully concede to this High-Church party the advan

tage incident to conscientious narrowness of position, in giving energy to proselyting operations. It was the remark of the great Henri IV., that so long as the Huguenot conceded the salvability of the Catholic, while the Catholic refused to concede the salvability of the Huguenot, nothing could be expected of the controversy but that the Huguenot should go to the wall. We must make up our minds to yield this advantage to our High-Church Episcopalian friends, just as they, in turn, will have to give it up when their approaching contest with the Romanist comes on. But so long as they continue to hold it, it gives a certain air of dignity and religious duty to the electioneering and wheedling, as well as to the argument and authority, by which sea and land are compassed to get a man out of one Christian sect and into another. We can have a genuine respect for the home propagandism of our Episcopal brother, who rejoices over every new proselyte brought over from a godly Methodist or Presbyterian family as over a brand snatched from the burning, when if our Congregational or Presbyterian brother should be caught mousing about in the same way, we should be very much ashamed of him. This conviction of an exclusive divine privilege conferred upon the ecclesiastical corporation, is a very good and energizing thing for the sect, but a very, very bad and demoralizing thing for the members of it. And yet it is the only thing which can give respectability or substantial vigor to that pushing and elbowing effort for self-advancement which characterizes the dissenting sects in England, and the Episcopal denomination in this country. "There is something peculiar about your American Episcopalians "-this was a remark which we once heard from an accomplished lady, a devout member of the English Established Church-" they seem so very much like our English dissenters."

In conclusion, we gladly take the opportunity to testify that it would be altogether unjust to judge Mr. Mitchell by his book. From the admiring descriptions of his favorite heroes, it is much to be feared that his readers will conceive of him as a sentimental goose, taking vast pride in his "white and very handsome hands," his "silken and wavy hair," and his "feminine beauty" of face; choosing his religion mainly for archi

tectural considerations, and under the guidance of delightful girls, whose "Oh, do, Mr. Mitchell; something tells me that you will," it is impossible to resist. On the contrary, he is a very diligent and faithful Christian pastor, eminently useful and practical, a thoughtful student of the Scriptures, and as liberal in his views and dealings as is compatible with his unfortunate position. In literary merit this book is far inferior to other efforts of his pen, in prose and verse; so that we are disposed to accept the apology, if it should be offered, that the author has purposely written it down, both in style and argument, to the taste and capacity of the class of young people whom he considers most hopeful subjects of his zeal. We strongly recommend it to Episcopalian ministers, for lending to susceptible young persons in their neighbors' congregations, of inferior intelligence, but ardent longings after the first society.

ARTICLE III.-OBSERVATIONS ON THE MODERN

GREEKS.

IN estimating the present condition of the Greeks as a nation, there are several things which must not be left out of view, if we would do them justice. These things are not excuses for their faults or failures, but conditions of their national life-independent, in part, of their character-which have affected their progress.

One of these is the state from which they came into existence as a nation, taken together with the shortness of the time that they have had since that event for development. Under the Turkish rule the Greeks were in a state of degrading slavery. It was a slavery worse in many respects than most cases, because the people of quick intellect and progressive spirit served the one of dull mind and stationary habit-the Christian served the Mahometan. Their restlessness under the yoke increased the severity of their masters, just as to-day the Greeks of Asia Minor are better off than the Cretans have been at any time during fifty years. They had no schools but such as they could themselves maintain; no proper means of communication from town to town; no secure possession of the profits of their labor. Then came the war of independence, lasting from 1821 to 1829, which completely desolated their country. When they came out of this, they had to start from the very beginning to build up civilization. In Athens, for example, in 1830, there was but one building fit to be inhabited. It is not quite forty years since they began at this point, and forty years in the Levant is not what it is in Chicago.

Another thing to be considered is the small scale of the materials and means which they have had for their progress. The whole population is now a little over one million, having come up quite gradually to that point. Their territory is about nineteen thousand square miles, but less than half of it is cultivable, and of that part only about one-third is in private