criminal codes are predicated upon this doctrine. But if mind be matter, or mechanism, or organization, how can man govern himself? Dr. Priestly justly says: "The doctrine of necessity is the immediate result of the doctrine of the materiality of man; for mechanism is the undoubted consequence of materialism." So Dr. Cooper, his American editor, judges, for he boastfully says that the time has come when the separate existence of mind, the freedom of the will, etc., are no longer entitled to public discussion. Nor do later Materialists teach a different doctrine. Man's acts," says Zoist, "are the results of his organization. His organs are made for him, therefore the responsibility of his acts rests with his Maker." Atkinson and Martineau* say: "All causes are material causes." 'I am as completely the result of my nature, and impelled to do what I do, as the needle to point to the north or the puppet to move according as the string is pulled." The reasoning is valid, the conclusion false; the premises must be false.

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Such a conclusion is as abhorrent to common sense as to common consciousness. What father in announcing the birth of his heir says that a new series of physical phenomena has started in his abode? Turn to history. Here, for example, is Sweden's Charles XII. Russia, Denmark, and Poland league against him, and agree upon a division of the anticipated spoils. While the troops are gathering for the conflict, the frightened Swedish council meet to discuss the terms of an accommodation. In the midst sits the monarch, an indolent, frivolous boy, who, hampered with bad habits, and encompassed with dissolute companions, beguiles his days with vain amusements, evincing no capacity for the cabinet, and no ardor for the field. The discussions of the evening set his mind in motion, and, as if touched with an angel's spear, he starts up and silences the cabinet: "My resolution is taken; I will smite the first foe that attacks me." Instantly the idle lad is the adamantine man, the Nestor in council, the Achilles in fight. The camp, the voyage, the march, and the battle are his delight; the drum-beat, the clangor of armor, and the clash of arms are his music. He humbles Denmark, terrifies Russia, conquers Poland, and for years waves his flag from the Dneiper to the Baltic, and from the German Ocean well nigh to the gates of Moscow.

That stern resolve, which neither the charms of peace nor the persuasions of ministers could shake, which, in the heart of an enemy's land, cut off from provisions, surrounded by desolations, and encompassed by foes, stood unmoved, and looked onward, even

* Letters on the Laws of Man's Nature and Development, by H. G. Atkinson and Harriet Martineau.

through files of fallen friends, stiffened by famine and frost, was no mere physical phenomenon. When a cannon ball from the enemy's fort crushed the temples of the king, it did something more than upset a bowl full of cerebral jelly.*

The materialistic hypotheses, except the first, are inconsistent with the doctrine of immortality. Let either be granted and you can prove death to be the end of man. True, one may believe, on the word of God, that the particles of the disorganized body, after performing innumerable circuits through the animal, vegetable, and mineral worlds, will, after the lapse of centuries, be gathered and built up into the identical body that is dissolved by death; but he who can believe this, is more to be wondered at for his faith than for his skepticism. Why reconstruct the worn-out, diseased, emaciated body, since, if mind is material, man is irresponsible, and has no more connection with his fellow man or with God than a waterwheel? Moreover, this would not be resurrection but reconstruction-not immortality.

Materialism involves Atheism. If perception, will, and affection in man be properties of matter, or results of mechanism or of organization, are they not such in God also? We cannot attribute the same properties to different essences. On this supposition how can there be an Almighty God. Name but his attributes-eternity, ubiquity, unity, omniscience. If God is matter, his mind is accidental; for we know that mental properties are not essential to matter. If he is organized, who organized him? If mechanism, who moves him? Excuse me, I cannot be profane. Has not the thought of God, from your early years, been the favorite idea of your mind, the center of all its cherished associations, and all its valued reflections? More fresh than boyhood's gambols are your meditations beneath the solemn forests that begirt the village schoolhouse, when you gazed alone upon the silent stars and thought of the invisible One who created and sustains them. Sweet the memory of Sabbath sunsets, when, reposing on the grass-plot beneath the shade, you wept tears of gratitude to Him who bathed

According to Vauquelin, the human brain consists of

you in the golden light. Oft at midnight, when your eyes were wakeful on childhood's downy bed, have you thought of the great Fountain of being and blessedness, and with ruby lips, fitted only to suggest a mother's kisses, have prayed,

"Earth has engross'd my love too long,

'Tis time I lift mine eyes

Upward, dear Father, to thy throne,
And to my native skies."

Maturer years have deepened this impression of the Almighty until it has become the refuge and rest of the soul. What are sciences but maps of universal laws? and universal laws, but the channels of universal power? and universal power, but the outgoings of a universal mind? What are all physical phenomena, properly understood, but the unfolding of a heart that delighteth to make the outgoings of the morning and evening to rejoice? Even the thunder and the lightning are the orchestra of his temple, aiding the devout spirit to a more profound worship and a more perfect joy. All the forms and motions of matter are pervaded by wise design, a design that is everywhere pervaded by goodness.

The more grand and mysterious world within is no less full of God. The faculties of the human soul are as beautifully balanced as the spheres; thoughts and feelings have their laws; relations and obligations are fixed; and though while "nature is bound in fate" the will is free, yet the vicegerent of God looks down upon it to remind it of "Him in whom we live, and move, and have our being."

And what is the face of Jesus but the complement of nature's revelation, bearing that impress of God's moral attributes which she could not receive, and providing and pointing a way from erring children's footsteps to a forgiving Father's bosom.

Let me say with that great man who, as on the wings of an angel, flew through the spheres of thought with the gospel of modern science, "I would rather believe all the fables in the Legend and the Talmud and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without mind." We know there are difficulties in the belief that God is a spirit, but they are the difficulties of mystery, not of inconsistency. There is a God, and there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding. In this, as in other instances, the culminations of philosophy are the starting-points of revelation.

ART. II-REV. C. H. SPURGEON.

SOME three years ago the fame of a bold young preacher broke on the multitudes of London, and its echo soon reached across the Atlantic. He was young, being only twenty years of age; he made no pretensions to learning, never having graced a literary institution in the character of a pupil; he was unheralded by brilliant antecedents. Being born in humble life, he was unpracticed in either the art of oratory or of preaching, his public efforts having consisted of addresses before Sunday schools, and a very brief but successful pastorate over an obscure Baptist Church at Waterbeach. In personal appearance he was not prepossessing; in style he was plain, practical, simple; in manner, rude, bold, egotistical, approaching to the bigoted; in theology, a deep-dyed Calvinist; in Church relations, an uncompromising Baptist. We could scarcely imagine a more unpromising list of qualifications, or rather disqualifications for public favor. Yet the fame of this young man spread throughout London, and from London through Europe and America, with a rapidity that has never, perhaps, been equaled in the history of preaching, and his labors suddenly gathered around him masses of anxious hearers, surpassing everything of the kind since the days of Wesley and Whitefield, if, indeed, the audiences of those mighty men equaled the vast crowds which gather to hear this youth.

The growth of his popularity, the enlargement of his influence, the increase of his power, have gone steadily on, each year adding new laurels to his name, each public effort drawing around him a widening circle of admiring hearers. Most, even of his friends, looked upon him as a brilliant but transient meteor, and tremblingly expected the time when, like a meteor, his light would expire. His enemies thought him an over-zealous, fanatical enthusiast, whose burning zeal would soon consume both itself and him. Nearly all feared that he would become intoxicated with the large drafts of popularity which he had daily to drink, or that he would not be able, owing to the want of variety, to sustain the reputation he had so suddenly acquired. Neither result has happened. He has disappointed all. He has grown more humble as he has grown more popular; there has been no waning of his reputation, no diminution of his power, no fluctuation in his progress. His course has been steadily onward and upward, and he stands out to-day before the world, as the most famous preacher of the day, and the name of Spurgeon has become a household word in Europe and America,

mentioned along with those of Whitefield, Newton, Summerfield, and Irving of days gone by, and crowned as the successful rival of Cumming, Melville, Noel, and Punshon, the first English preachers.

Such success presents a problem which it is the duty and interest of the Church to solve. Twice on every Sabbath of the year thousands gather to hear this young preacher of the Gospel. Surrey Hall is packed to its utmost capacity. Between five and six thousand eager listeners are crowded in the spacious area, each paying roundly for the privilege. It is not unusual for the spacious body of the hall, the three broad galleries, the several aisles, and all vacancies about the pulpit and doors to be occupied, and hundreds turn away unable to find footing within the audience-room. And this is no novel fact; it was a fact realized in Exeter Hall; it was a fact in the large new chapel built for him in New Park-street, and is a fact which has been weekly realized for many months in Surrey Musical Hall. Nor is this the limit of his power to draw an audience; it is only the limit of his audience-room. It is only necessary to throw open the doors of the vast Crystal Palace, and twentyfive thousand anxious hearers gather to face the young preacher. Here, then, is a success unequaled, in the history of the past, in the rapidity of its development, and in the vastness of its results. Here is a phenomenon unprecedented in the history of audiences, whether in the sphere of religion, literature, politics, or amusement. What is this phenomenon? It is not that an orator attracts a crowd; that is often done; but it is that a young preacher of the Gospel, under the most unpromising circumstances, should, in the space of three years, rise to such an elevation of popularity and power, as to attract, day after day, six thousand paying auditors from all classes of society to hear the Gospel. "This is a result unequaled in the gathering of audiences, even where dramatic genius, where the enchantment of music, where the appliances of pleasure, where the magnificent adornings of art, and the thrill of eloquence have united to attract. Neither Macready, nor Garrick, nor Forrest, nor Jenny Lind, nor Rachel, nor Gough, nor Clay, nor Choate has done it." Its nearest approximation is in the history of our own Henry Ward Beecher. And the phenomenon is the more remarkable, in that this gathering is around the pulpit where no art wins and no pleasure stimulates, and occurs where hundreds of other audience-rooms are opened for the same purpose, with pulpits occupied by men of learning, eloquence, and piety.

What is it that constitutes the power of Mr. Spurgeon, and makes Surrey Hall, week after week, the center of gathering thousands? Is it because he is the most eloquent man, the most learned man,