Now you must all be familiar with christianity had gained ascendency, the melancholy truth, that, from its and kingdoms professed themselves first publication, christianity has been evangelized. It might have been supthe occasion of discord and blood- posed-at least until the principles of shed. We might, perhaps, have been christianity had been narrowly siftedprepared to expect, that, whilst chris- that, when the religion became protianity strove to make head against the fessedly that of all the members of a world's superstitions, and to dethrone community, the sword would be sheathheathenism, which had long held an ed, and peace be the instant produce undisputed sway, the passions and pow- of sameness of faith. But alas, the ers of interested millions would be ex-persecutions by which paganism strove cited against its preachers. It was quite natural, that, when there was published a religion at war with every other then dominant and approved, fierce efforts should be made to crush, by crushing its advocates, a system whose establishment must be the downfall of those which a long ancestry had bequeathed, and which every lust felt interested in upholding. Seeing that the worst passions of humanity had so much at stake, it might fairly have been calculated that so vast a revolution as that of the Roman empire exchanging paganism for, at least, nominal christianity, would not be effected without great private dissatisfaction, if not political disturbance. Accordingly, as we all know, persecutions of the most fearful description assailed the infant religion, designing, and almost effecting, its extinction. And when Satan, battling for an empire which it was the professed object of christianity to wrench away, sent forth all his emissaries, and stirred up all his agents, in order that, if possible, the very name of the crucified might be banished and lost, there was exhibited a spectacle which bore out to the letter the prediction of our text. They who traced the causes of massacres which devas tated cities and provinces, and found that the christian religion had occasioned such outbreaks of violence, must have felt that Christ had spoken words as true as they were awful, when declaring that he had come, not to send peace, but a sword, on the earth.

It was, however, as we have already stated, fairly to have been expected, that, ere heathenism could be nationally displaced, and christianity substituted, there would be such public convulsion as would bring distress and death on many of the professors of our faith. The prophecy becomes not unlooked for in its fulfilment, until

to annihilate christianity, are more than rivalled in fierceness by those of which christians have been, at once, the authors and objects. The darkest page in the history of mankind is perhaps that on which are registered the crimes that have sprung from the religious differences of christendom. It were a sickening detail, to count up the miseries which may be traced to these differences. Our very children are familiar with the history of times when Europe shook as though with an earthquake, and when a haughty and tyrannical church devoted all to execration and death who dared to think for themselves, or to take the Bible as their standard of faith. Our own land became a battle-plain, on which was carried on the struggle for religious freedom; heresy, as the bold confession of truth was insolently termed, marked out thousands of our forefathers for the stake or the scaffold. In this did christianity differ broadly from those false systems of theology which had been set up in the long night of heathenism; these systems were tolerant of each other, because, whatever their minor differences, they had the same mighty errors in common: but popery opposed itself to protestantism as vehemently as paganism had done to christianity; for, though both confess ed Christ as a Mediator, the agreement of the two systems was as nothing to their separation on grand and fundamental tenets.

It is, then, but too true, that christianity has been a sword to christendom itself. The prophecy of our text has registered its fulfilment in the blood of the multitudes who, at various times, have been immolated on the altars of bigotry and ignorance. And if one of that angelic host which thronged the firmament of Bethlehem, and chanted of "peace on earth, good will towards

much of harassing opposition, so that, although persecution no longer wears its more appalling forms, it is not pos sible to make bold confession of Christ, without thereby incurring obloquy and wrong. The cooling of friendship, the withdrawing of patronage, the misrepresentation of motives, the endeavor to thwart, and turn into ridicule-for all these must the man be prepared, who, in our own day, acts out his christianity; and he who should think that he might turn from worldliness to piety without losing caste, and alienating many who have loved and assisted him, would show that he had neither studied the character of our religion,

ence. And whilst it can thus be maintained that the profession of that godliness which the Gospel enjoins, serves to break the closest links of association, dividing into almost irreconcilable parties those who have heretofore been as one in all the intercourses of life, it cannot be denied that christianity is still a sword, rather than a peacemaker upon earth; and that, whatever it may effect in days yet to come, the breaches which it now occasions in all ranks of society, attest that Christ spake as a true prophet when he uttered our text.

men," had taken the survey of chris- | above the disunion thus unhappily intendom, when persecution was at its troduced into households, it were idle height, and the Romish hierarchy, to deny that piety is still exposed to backed by the kings and great ones of the earth, hunted down the revivers of apostolic doctrine and discipline, we may doubt whether he would have poured forth the same rich melody; whether, if left to frame his message from his observation, he would have announced that Christ had come to send peace, in the face of so tremendous a demonstration, that, practically at least, he had come to send a sword. But you are not to suppose that the prediction of our text is accomplished in no days but those of intolerance and persecution. We learn, from the succeeding verse, that Christ specially referred to the family disturbances which his religion would occasion. "For Inor gathered the testimony of experiam come," saith he, "to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-inlaw." Here we have a prophecy, whose fulfilment is not limited to a past gene ration, but may be found every day in our own domestic histories. We live in times-and we are bound to thank God for the privilege-when the profession of that religion, which we believe to be true, exposes to no public danger, when the sword sleeps in its scabbard, and magistracy interferes with men's worship only to protect. But we cannot, nevertheless, be ignorant that there is a vast amount of private persecution, which, as laws do not prescribe, neither can they prevent; and that the introduction of genuine piety into a household is too frequently the introduction of discord and unhappiness. It may have fallen within the power of many of us to observe, how the peace of a family has apparently been broken up by religion; how its members, amongst whom there may have heretofore circulated all the charms of a thorough unanimity, have become divided and estranged, when certain of the number have grown careful of the soul. The making a profession of religion is often considered tantamount to actual rebellion; and then the announced result is literally brought round-the parents being set against the children, and the children against the parents. And over and

There is no necessity that, in exhi biting the present fulfilment of the prediction, we pass from christendom to the still broad domain of heathenism. It is undoubtedly a result of every missionary enterprise which makes head against idolatry, that deep and fierce passions are roused by its success. Those members of a tribe who embrace christianity, become objects of the inveterate hostility of those who adhere to the superstitions of their fathers. Thus is there acted over again, in the circumscribed neighborhood of a missionary settlement, something of that awful drama which once had the Roman world for its theatre. Heathenism still struggles to put down christianity, and idol-worshippers still regard as a personal enemy every convert from idolatry. Neither can we see reason to question, that, before any wide tract of paganism could become nominally

faith, than was ever effected by the best systems of heathenism, whilst left free to attempt the improvement of human condition. We confess, of course, that much misery has been occasioned by the christian religion; and that, had this religion gained no footing in a land, there are many forms of disquietude which its inhabitants would have altogether escaped. Whilst christianity acts as a sword, there will be wounds, which, had there been no such weapon, would never have been inflicted. But the fair way of meeting the question is, to endeavor to strike a balance between the produced wretchedness and the produced happiness, and to determine on which side the preponderance lies.

evangelized-we mean, of course, by tation in saying, that, in spite of its the machinery of the present dispen- having been as a sword on the earth, sation-so that the religion of Jesus christianity has done more to elevate should take the place of a degrading the character, diminish the wretchedmythology, the worst passions of man-ness, and augment the comforts of the kind would be banded in the withstand- nations who have received it as their ing, and that too by perfidy and violence, the exchange of falsehood for truth, of systems which patronize sensuality for one which enjoins the living soberly and righteously. And when christianity had triumphed-triumphed, be it observed, against an opposition resembling, in its vehemence, that which met our religion on its first publication-there would occur, we may believe, all those private, but distressing persecutions, which we trace and deplore amongst ourselves; so that, in prevailing on a heathen empire to throw away its idols, and erect the cross as its standard, you would have prevailed on it to receive into its families the fruitful source of dissensions, and to take as its portion the being rent into parties, whose variances must interrupt, if not destroy, all the harmony of society. Hence, it is still the melancholy truth, that, in sending christianity, you send a sword into a land. Until there be ushered in a season when religion shall take possession of every heart in an extended population, there will lie, to all appearance, an impossibility against the nominally evangelizing that population, without, at the same time, dividing and disturbing it; for the cross, whilst introduced only into the creed of a multitude, will excite their enmity against the few who give their affections to Him who died on it as a sacrifice.

But now we think it a question worthy the closest examination, whether, since christianity has all along proved a sword, the human race has been benefited, in temporal respects, by its propagation. We are not about to take into account the unspeakable advantages which this religion has conferred, when man is viewed as the heir of immortality. But there would be something so unlooked for in the fact, if it were fact, that the amount of present happiness had been diminished, or even not in creased, by christianity, that we have right to demand stricter than ordinary proof, ere we receive it into our catalogue of truths. And we have no hesi

And we could not wish a finer topic of christian advocacy than that of the immense blessing which the religion of Jesus has proved to mankind, if viewed simply in their temporal capacity. We are ready to keep futurity out of sight, with all its august and terrible mysteries. We will not meet the arraigner of christianity on ground from which he must instantly be driven, that of the revelation of immortality, which can be found only on the pages of Scripture. We will confine ourselves to the present narrow scene, and deal with man as though death were to terminate his being. And we do assert-and proofs unnumbered are at hand to make good the assertion-that the great civilizer of manners, the great heightener of morals, the soother of the afflicted, the patron of the destitute, the friend of the oppressed-this, from its first establishment, hath christianity been; and for this should it win the veneration of those who know not its worth, as the alone guide to man's final inheritance. We have only to contrast the most famous and refined of ancient nations with modern and christian, in order to assure ourselves, that, in all which can give dignity to our nature, in all which can minister to public majesty and private comfort, to independence of mind, security of property,

munity, labors at making Christ known | reared for the shelter of the suffering, and to their mighty advancings in equity, and science, and good order, and greatness. We show you the desert blossoming as the rose, and all because ploughed by the sword christianity. We show you every chain of oppression flying into shivers, and all because struck by the sword christianity. We show you the coffers of the wealthy bursting open for the succor of the destitute, and all because touched by the sword christianity. We show you the human intellect springing into manhood, reason starting from dwarfishness, and assuming magnificence of stature, and all because roused by the glare of the sword christianity. Ay, if you can show us feuds, and jealousies, and wars, and massacres, and charge them home on christianity as a cause, we can show you whatsoever is confessed to minister most to the welfare, and glory, and strength, and happiness of society, stamped with one broad impress, and that impress the sword christianity: and, therefore, are we bold to declare that the amount of temporal misery has been immeasurably diminished by the propagation of the religion of Jesus; and that this sword, in spite of produced slaughter and divisions, has been, and still is, as a golden sceptre, beneath which the tribes of our race have found a rest which heathenism knew only in its poetry; a freedom, and a security, and a greatness, which philosophy reached only in its dreams.

to idolaters-why, we say of this intrepid wrestler with ignorance, that, in toiling to save the souls, he is toiling to develope the intellectual powers, reform the policy, and elevate in every respect the rank of the beings who engage his solicitudes. The day on which a province of Africa hearkened to his summons, started from its moral debasement, and acknowledged Jesus as its Savior, would be also the day on which that province overstepped one half the interval by which it had been separated from civilized Europe, and went on, as with a giant's stride, towards its due place amongst nations. So that however true it be, that, in sending christianity, you send a sword, into a land, we will not for a moment harbor the opinion, that christianity is no temporal blessing, if received by the inhabitants as their guide to immortality. It is a sword; and divided families, and clashing parties, will attest the keenness and strength of the weapon. But then it is also a sword, whose bright flash scatters the darkness of ages, and from whose point shrink away the corruption, the cruelty, and the fraud, which flourished in that darkness as their element. It is a sword: and it must pierce to the sundering many close ties, dissect many interests, and lacerate many hearts. But to wave this sword over a land is to break the spell fastened on it by centuries of ignorance; and to disperse, or, at least, to disturb, those brooding spirits which have oppressed its population, and kept down the energies which ennoble our race. And, therefore, are we nothing moved by the accusation, that christianity has caused some portion of misery. We deny not the truth of the charge to disprove that truth would be to disprove christianity itself. The Founder prophesied that his religion would be a sword, and the accomplishment of the prophecy is one of our evidences that he came forth from God. But when men would go farther, when they would arraign christianity as having increased, on the whole, the sum of human misery, oh, then we have our appeal to the splendid institutions of civilized states, to the bulwarks of liberty which they have bravely thrown up, to the structures which they have

But now, having examined our text as a prophecy, we are briefly to investigate the causes which have turned into a sword that which, in its own nature, is emphatically peace. We shall not go particularly into the cases of heathenism persecuting christianity, and popery persecuting protestantism. Neither shall we speak of the tumults. caused by the various heresies which, at different times, have sprung up in the church. When men's passions, prejudices, and interests are engaged on the side of error and corruption, it is unavoidable that the advocates of truth and purity will array against themselves hatred and hostility. But we will take the more ordinary case, in which there is no open conflict between theological systems and sects;