the easy art of raising objections. Nor was this all. George was found walking into one of the halls of the "Independent Religious Reformers" to hear the Rev. Dr. Pervions, a man of bankrupt character and illimitable audacity, discourse on "the Christian idea of God." This crowned the edifice. Joseph Bradley had made a convert. At least it seemed so. True, George generally attended the public services at the chapel, but not with his accustomed regularity nor with his accustomed relish. True, he still taught his class in the school, but with very irregular and fitful devotion. Still, though grievously hurt he was not convinced that Christianity was false, and all his past experience delusive. His mind was sometimes in a state of torpor about religion, at others he was in racking agony. Now his thought was still as death, and now tumultuous as a hive of disturbed bees. The temple of a pure and Christ likemanhood had not risen an inch since he listened to the voice of the charmer. He had ceased to strive, as before, against sin. He was achingly conscious of having lost all zeal for goodness. His prayers had been feebler and fewer, and at last they were stifled by the discomfort his doubts brought, as though the reality of prayer hung on the correctness of a figure in the Numbers, or of the spelling of a man's name in Exodus, or of the chronology of Genesis. He cared not for the Bible. The heavens seemed as brass, the earth the dwelling of a mistaken and misled and injured race, and himself a pain-filled puzzle. He was a poor traveller wrapped in the double darkness of night and fog. But God was in both fog and night. One ray of light came, shot, not from book of learned controversialist, or skilful word logic of a defender of the faith, not from preached sermon or friendly talk; WHAT IS UNITARIANISM ?-It is a luminous ether. It hangs in the theological heavens as a nebula, a vast congeries of nascent matter, without solidity, floating hither and thither by the attraction or repulsion of neighbouring orbs. Its mountains are mist, its hollows are empty spaces. It veers and changes as clouds do. For ever changing, it calls change growth. It organises nothing, and is itself unorganised. Its whole temper and spirit is opposed to positiveness. No sooner does Dr. Bellows construct a creed, than J. F. Clark cries out against it, not because it is erroneous, but because it is an effort to limit truth by a 66 but from within, from his long-since quickened conscience. He awoke to his condition at the summons of this messenger of the Holy Ghost. Reasoning within himself, he said, Well, anything that has such an effect on me as this talk of Bradley's cannot be true. It is impossible. Accepting his ideas has made me less useful that is bad; less anxious about what is good and pure and holythat is worse; indifferent to the cultivation of character-that is worst of all. Whatever injures me in all that is best and purest is false, is of Satan, and I will no more of it. The thirst I had for goodness is gone. Scepticism has checked me in the race for perfection, it has closed my eye to the beatific vision of God, cooled my aspirations, driven away the transport of my joy more effectually than my first fall, and in fact made me altogether worse than I was four months ago. Whether I am able to prove the reasonableness of Christianity or not it is as clear to me as day that the cause of the sceptics is untrue and utterly unreasonable. Bradley is wrong, and I will tell him so; but before doing that I will write to my pastor and get all the help I can in meeting his objections, so that if possible I may lead him to the truth as I knew and felt it not long since." The following letter was accordingly penned at once:-" "Dear sir,-For the last three or four months I have been in great perplexity owing to frequent conversations with a young man in our shop on the difficulties in the way of accepting Christianity. I am now quite sure that his objections are unsound, but I do not feel that I am able to show him this. Will you be so kind as to put me in the way of meeting his objections? May I have the pleasure of a long chat with you? I am, dear sir, most respectfully yours, GEORGE MOSTYN." JOHN CLIFFORD. definite statement. Its whole existence has been a protest against dogma and and system. Its methods have been Emersonian-the thoughts related to each other by juxtaposition rather than by suggestion. The bulk of that which it employs with effect, it holds in common with the evangelic sects. As for the rest, it has not been creative, but only critical. Unitarianism has never had power to reach the mass of men. It flourishes among the refined and cultured. It fails just where primitive Christianity was strongest among the ignorant, the rude, the sorrowing, the sinning millions. -H. W. Beecher. THE GOSPELS. No. IX.-The Gospel of Luke. IT is in harmony with this view of our Lord as the Saviour of sinners that Luke's Gospel sets Him before us. While in Matthew wise men from the east bring their tribute to the "King of the Jews," in Luke humble shepherds hasten to the manger-cradle of "the Saviour," of whom the angel had told them.* While Matthew traces the descent of Jesus from Abraham, the father of the Jews, Luke carries it back to the origin of the human race. It is in Luke that Jesus declares himself anointed by the spirit of the Lord to preach glad tidings to the poor, to heal the broken hearted, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, the year of jubilee, when debtors were forgiven. It is in Luke that Peter's deep conviction and humble acknowledgment of sin are the prelude to his call to follow Christ. It is in Luke that we have the parable of the two debtors, which teaches us that, "to whom much is forgiven, the same loveth much;" of the returning prodigal, whom his father sees afar off, and receives so tenderly to his heart and home; and of the sanctimonious Pharisee and the Publican whose prayer, "God be merciful to me a sinner," comes up with acceptance before God. It is in Luke that the publican Zaccheus finds acceptance; that the gratitude of the Samaritan, who alone, of ten that were healed, returned to express his thankfulness, is recorded; and that the duty of loving our neighbour is illustrated in the parable of the good Samaritan.§ It is Luke who has recorded our Lord's intercessory prayer for His murderers, and His gracious assurance to the penitent malefactor on the cross. In a word, it is Luke's gospel which speaks to the despised, the destitute, the downtrodden and the outcast. But it is in the Acts of the Apostles that, as we should expect, the writers apologetic intention comes out most clearly. He therein traces the gradual and legitimate development of Paul's larger conception of Christianity from the narrower view of it which their Jewish prepossessions led even the apostles at first to take. The suc cessive steps of that development are shown by him to have received either apostolic sanction, or the higher sanction of the divine direction and approval. After * Matt. ii. 2; Luke ii. 11. + Matt. i. 1, 2; Luke iii. 38. Luke iv. 18, 19; v.8. Luke vii. 40-50; xv. 11-32; xviii. 9-14. § Luke xix. 1-10; xvii. 11-19; x. 25-37. Luke xxiii. 34, 43. The the narrative of the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost, and the consequent formation of the infant church, we learn the growth of the Hellenistic (or Grecian*) element, and its protection by apostolic intervention from the narrow jealousy of the Hebrews or Palestinian Jews.+ liberalism, so to speak, of this Hellenistic element is remarkably shewn in the defence of the martyr Stephen, whose dying agony was cheered by a divine vision of the Saviour's glory; and in the labours of the deacon Philip in the conversion of the Samaritans.§ This last work seems to have excited apprehension at Jerusalem; but the apostles Peter and John, whom that apprehension sent to inquire, could not withhold the sanction of their prayers that the converts might receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The next step was the conversion of Paul by the personal manifestation of Christ, and his appointment to the apostleship by the same divine authority, thus raising him at once to an equality of rank with the original twelve.¶ Matters were now ripe for the decisive step, the admission of uncircumcised Gentiles to the full enjoyment of Christian fellowship and that step was taken. But that all ground of objection might be removed, it was not taken by Paul, but by Peter, the leader of the twelve, "the rock," on which the Saviour had declared "He would build His church; and, moreover, by Peter acting under immediate divine direction, and with manifest divine approval,** by an appeal to which he vindicated himself before the assembled church at Jerusalem; and extorted from them the acknowledgment, "Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life."++ The foundation, in the great city of Antioch, the third city of the Roman Empire in population, wealth, and importance,‡‡ of a large Gentile church, which speedily became the mother church of Gentile Christendom, was almost contemporaneous with the admission of the Gentiles into the Christian fellowship. It was from Antioch that Paul, in the company first of Barnabas, then of Silas and others, was sent forth by the Holy Spirit on those wondrous mis * Above p. 58. † Acts vi. 1-6. Acts vii. § Acts viii. 5-13. || Acts viii. 14-25. T Acts ix. 1-22. ** Acts X. tt Acts xi. 1-18. Of course Rome itself was the first; Alexandria, the capital of Egypt, was second; and Antioch, the capital of Syria, the third. We .have no date for estimating its population. Acts xi. 19-26. sions, the account of which, with their results, occupies the remainder of the book.* The narrative is continued till the imprisonment of Paul, and then breaks off, apparently because the author had written enough for his purpose, the vindication of Pauline Christianity; and probably because Theophilus, to whom the book is addressed, was personally acquainted with the apostle's subsequent history.+ The topographical notices in the last chapter seem to show that the writer knew that his friend was familiar with Rome and Italy.‡ In his account of Paul's missionary labours Luke dwells as much on the opposition he continually met with from the bigotry of the Jews, whether converted or unconverted, as upon his difficulties from Gentile ignorance and unbelief. He shows how he was cheered and sustained under that opposition, or how he triumphed over it. The closing incident of the book is an instance of this. Paul retained to the end his superiority over his adversaries; and so Theophilus might safely rely on what Paul had taught. In this defensive character of the gospel we have the indication, if not of the individual identity of the writer, yet of his position and date. It shews, not perhaps that he was Luke, but that he held the Pauline form of the gospel, and wrote in the apostolic age. For the controversy in which he was engaged belonged to that age almost exclusively. It is probable, indeed, that the dreadful catastrophe of the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, and the consequent overthrow of the Jewish state, so shattered the power of the Judaizing party in the church, as to put an end to its arrogant assumption, and reduce it to the feeble and despised sect of the Ebionites. The struggle of the church in the next century was with the Gnostic sects, which were, more or less, anti-Judaic, some of them denying even the supremacy and perfection of Jehovah, and distinguishing Him from the supreme and all-merciful Being, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The fact that the writer was a companion of Paul is indeed sufficiently shown by his use of the first person in several parts of the narrative, as already noticed.§ There yet remains for us to notice one more internal mark of authorship; the evidence of that higher culture which is implied in Luke's calling as a physician, and of his wider appreciation, from his own early training as a Gentile, of the intellectual requirements of the Gentile world, and his readier adaptation to them. *Acts xiii. to xxviii. † See above, pp. 277, 278, and note* there. Mark, equally with Luke, wrote for Gentile converts; but Mark was himself a Jew, and had passed much, if not all, of his early life in Jerusalem; so that he was less conversant than Luke with Gentile habits of thought and feeling. The most striking exemplification of this characteristic of Luke, is in his endeavour to link the incidents which he records with other incidents, or with personages already known to his readers. Thus he notices that the census or enrolment (not "taxing") at our Saviour's birth was the result of a decree of the Roman Emperor Augustus, and that Cyrenius (or Quirinius) was then president or governor of Syria;* that the famine for which the disciples at Antioch made a collection came to pass in the reign of Claudius;† that it was the same Roman Emperor who banished the Jews from Rome; that it was Paul's oratorical faculty that made him to be regarded as the god Mercury;s that Philippi was a Roman colony, and that the temple of Diana was the glory of Ephesus. We have a similar exemplification in the careful enumeration of contemporary rulers at the commencement of John the Baptist's ministry,** and in the minute enumeration of the geographical points in the two long voyages in which he was Paul's fellow passenger.+t These various particulars, many of them incidental, are the marks of an intelligent and cultivated mind. It may be added that the large amount of matter, additional to what he has in common with the other synoptics;‡‡ and perhaps that part of what is common to him with them, but which appears to have become known to Luke only in detached fragments,§§ shows the diligence with which he collected as well as examined his materials, and so furnishes another proof of his literary culture. We have thus traced, in each of the synoptic gospels, features which accord with what we learn from the New Testament or from early and trustworthy ecclesiastical tradition of their respective authors. We have traced, in that of Matthew, the work of one driven by social proscription to become a recluse student; in that of Mark, the power of quick observation and vivid description, developed by travel and by personal attendance on other travellers; and in that of Luke, the culture to be look for in the member of a liberal profession. In like manner we have traced the correspondence between their religious training and their *Luke ii. 1, 2. † Acts xi. 28. Acts xviii. 2. § Acts xiv. 12. || Acts. xvi. 12, 21. TActs xix. 27, 35. ** Luke iii. 1. ++ Acts xx. 5-15; xxi. 1-15; xxvii., xxviii. + Luke xiv., xviii. 14. §§ Luke chap. x. to xiii. mode of apprehending the office and work of the Saviour; the national Judaic conception of the Palestinian Matthew, and the more comprehensive view of the Hellenist Mark and the Gentile Luke. And further, we have seen how these differences, intellectual and religious, have been combined in the wise and gracious purpose of God so as to furnish to us a more com plete image of His beloved Son: how we PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE CHAPEL ALBUM. THE name of this notable individual is Ezekiel Bagowind was born at Tongue Bay, and at the time I took his photograph attended the Baptist chapel in Little Bluster Street. Known unto all men in Tongue Bay are those impressive "Piccadilly streamers," smooth, long, and glossy: his beautiful black hair, gathered up at the top of his head and rolled up like a German sausage, and laid along the central line of the cranium with exceeding carefulness; those expressive eyes radiating with the light of a deep self-satisfaction. But you see at a glance that it is in his attire he thinks he excels. Clothes are his study. They make the man. Raiment is more than meat, and dress more than life. A good name is a treasure, but a well-fitting coat surpasses it. A crease is an abomination. Tinsel on his extended fingers, tinsel athwart his capacious breast; every feature of his face, and every article of his apparel, summons attention to his exterior, and whispers in your ear the command, "Look at me." As the wooden figures with wax faces in the windows of "Moses and Son" are made to show off garments, so he is a living dress-holder, a walking advertisement of the fashions. So much care for the body that perisheth has led to the starving of the mind. He "A marciful Providunce fashioned us holler, Seeking for something more congenial he has now lent his powerful aid to the cause of open-air preaching, and may be heard saying nothing with tremendous energy at the corner of Little Bluster Street. But Ezekiel is as inconstant as the wind; and in which quarter he will be seen next I cannot say, but I am sure he will not stay long anywhere, and may be most likely, found where there is freest play for vanity and self-conceit. JOB GILSON. ONE of the modes in which Christ is confessed by the believer is that of baptism into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. It is an avowal of personal allegiance to Christ our King. It is a symbol of changes that have taken place in us; of the death to sin, of the resurrection to newness of life. It proclaims the essentially personal character of the religious life. But it does more than this. It is a channel of blessing. The obedient disciple has great reward. He is filled with fresh gladness. Never has this been better expressed than in the words of Miss Smiley, the notable minister, until recently belonging to the Society of Friends, but now, after a most painful struggle, in fellowship with the Baptists. She says:-" Meantime I am having great comfort in thus yielding myself. I cannot tell you how the significance of the act grows upon me and reacts upon my spiritual life. If I am deprived at this period of regarding it as an initial act, I can the more view it as the completion of my consecration. I have felt as though I were busied in gathering up the last remains of the old Adam-all of my will and my life that may have hi therto escaped, and bringing them now to a final burial. And how very surely in the same grave must I lay down all reputation and much that has hitherto gone to make up life. May every error and cramping prejudice go down also to rise up no more! On the other hand, I have an ever-joyful feeling of looking forward to that day as a bridal, when I shall openly give myself away to Jesus to be his altogether. And though I have loved him so long and so truly, yet now there seems some new feeling of tenderness, and more perfect union and entire dependence. It has all come upon me as a sweet surprise; for, while ready to keep his commandments, I thought the long delay would render the act unnecessary, and not to be accompanied with any corresponding spiritual experience." Would it not be well for those Christians in our congregations, who are sure baptism is scriptural, but doubt its necessity as a part of the whole of perfect obedience to Christ, and who are sometimes called "Dry Baptists," to contemplate this aspect of the act; and to remember that in keeping any of the Divine commands there is great reward. J. C. Church Register. ASSOCIATION EXPENSES & YEAR BOOK. TO THE EDITOR. Dear Sir,-Will you allow me to supply an omission in the Year Book," page 48 -Nottingham, Broad Street, Contributed 5s.; also from Prospect Place, Nottingham, 2s. 6d., to the Association expenses Fund. I have received this year from 132 places the sum of £19 Os. 1d., against £15 Os. 9d. from 121 places last year, and all this year's contributions have not yet come in. The Year Book is less complete this year in consequence of the delay-some of the matter not reaching me till well on in July. We do mean to do better another year: and the figures, &c., of general interest omitted now, will then be supplied. The churches can help the Secretary very much by early returns. And if any of the agents have not paid for their Minutesand I have reason to believe it is so-will they please remit to Mr. Winks at once? Our edition is quite exhausted, and we had not quite enough. I hope the orders for 1873, when I hope to make the book as full and correct as possible, will be given so early that we may print enough and have a few to spare. I am, dear Sir, yours &c., THE BAPTIST UNION. The AUTUMNAL SESSION OF THE BAPTIST UNION OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND I will be held at Manchester, October 9th and 10th. Chairman, Rev. Thomas Thomas, D.D. Inquiries and communications to be addressed to Rev. D. Macgregor, 53, Grafton Street, Oxford Road, Manchester. CONFERENCES. The next CHESHIRE CONFERENCE will be held at Wheelock Heath, on the 18th of October. Rev. I. Watts to be the preacher; and, in case of failure, Rev. W. March. Service at 11 a.m. Business at 2.30 p.m. The Home Mission Committee to introduce for discussion at the close of business, the subject-"Claims of the Home Mission Work on the Churches in this Conference." W. MARCH, Secretary. |