The moral intuitions of humanity can better teach us the future of the heathen, than can God himself.

The readers of this journal dwell in all old-fashioned section of the country. We are behind the age, undoubtedly, in many of its improvements. We have not yet given up our Bible, although we confess that we come very far short of obedience to the rules of that book. We still venerate it as a perfect standard of faith and obedience. When modern civilization condemns slavery as a barbarous and wicked institution, we go to the Word, and, finding it there sanctioned by the God of Abraham, and by our Lord Jesus Christ, we do not suffer a sickly sentimentalism to explain away the distinct language of that inspired volume. And when the same modern philanthropy, more humane and more merciful than God reveals Himself to be, would explain away what the same Word says, respecting the heathen, we will still hold fast to our Bibles. That Divine book is not good enough for abolitionists, nor for any other sect of the brotherhood of human reason and human charity, but it is good enough for us. We want no better Bible, and no better God.

It is worthy of notice how the denial that the heathen are in any danger of perishing, which has recently appeared in a certain quarter, is accompanied by the denial that Christianity does the heathen any good, or makes them any better. The idea is broadly held forth, that the heathen are better as they are, than Christians themselves. Christian missions "destroy what is good among them, and put only evil in its place." "At the bottom of the suttee and of cannibalism, there is a genuine religious faith;" but at the bottom of Christian missions and of the Christian faith which produces them, there is only folly and fraud. It is not very long since we were informed from the same quarter that the "early books of the Old Testament abound with misapprehensions of the meaning of ancient astronomical and chronological emblems, and with imaginative interpretations and misreadings of hieroglyphical records; that "the Pentateuch is a miscellaneous collection of fragmentary records-a compilation of old documents, interspersed with narrations founded on oral traditions;" that the story of the serpent reads "like one of the numerous myths which arose out of the zodiacal emblems;" that "the story of Joshua is one of the whimsical mistakes in the progress of the change from. the pictorial hieroglyphic to the phonetic mode of writing;" and that "in fact, Christ himself denied the infallibility of the Jewish Scriptures, and was nailed to the cross, in great part, on account of this infidelity.""

From the same humane, meek, and liberal quarter, also was promulgated not long since, the following imprecation of "death

without mercy" upon the Christian clergy-well illustrating what Robert Hall called the real ferocity of infidelity:

"The crime of depriving a fellow-creature of life, is not the offence of greatest magnitude of which any human being can be guilty. If capital punishment be allowable for that, then would death without mercy-the death of the Mosaic law, death by stoning-be the appropriate penalty, not of Sabbath breaking, but of trafficking in superstition; trading in man's weakness, and with his loftiest aspirations; converting his instincts. of awe and reverence for the wonderful and admirable, into abject terrors; his most sacred emotions of grief, his solemn moments of parting on the confines of eternity, his very hopes of immortality, into implements of a craft, a source of income, a miserable instrument of popularity and power; and, the object attained, endeavouring to perpetuate it by proclaiming the infallibility of creeds and canons, persecuting those who question it as infidels to God, resisting the extension of knowledge among the masses, or rendering it exclusive and nominal, and thus seeking to crush the human mind under the wheels of the modern Juggernaut of conventional idolatry."

We are aware, of course, that doubts of the Christian doctrine respecting the future of the heathen, extend to many persons who have no sympathy with infidelity. Even amongst the supporters of Christian missions, some take the low view lately put forth, to our surprise, in a very respectable quarter in the north of Britain:

"We shudder at the accounts of devil-worshippers which come to us from so many mission-fields. We pity the dreary delusion of the Manichees, who enthroned the evil principle in heaven. But, if we proclaim that God is indeed one, who could decree this more than Moloch sacrifice of the vast majority of his own creatures and children for no fault or sin of theirs, we revive the error of the Manichee; for the God whom we preach as the destroyer of the faultless, can be no God of justice, far less a God of love. It needs no exaggerations, such as these, to supply a sufficient motive for missionary enterprises. Our object is to introduce Christianity with all the blessings that accompany it; its true views of God, its ennobling motives, its pure morality, the elevation of life and manners, the civilization, the knowledge, even the material progress which are sure to follow in its train. And we may leave it to God himself, to decide how the benefit of Christ will be extended to those whom it has pleased Him to permit to live and die in ignorance of His gospel; confident that the same rule of perfect justice, tempered with boundless mercy, has one uniform application everywhere and to all."*

This theory of the object of Christian missions is not from the

North British Review, for August, 1856.

Bible. We are gratified to be able to say it is understood to be an expression of individual opinion only, by the conductor of that journal. The religious press, both of England and Scotland, has animadverted upon it severely, The Free Church of Scotland is not responsible, either directly or indirectly, for the sentiments of that journal.

But it is no strange thing that some well-disposed persons should fail to follow out the teachings of the Bible upon this subject. We continually observe the same phenomenon in respect to various other subjects. As respects the principles of the slavery question, for example, it is not infidels alone that entertain opinions not warranted by the Bible. Some good Christians do the same. So, as respects charity, how many pretty things are said in these days, by a very good kind of people too, which find no warrant in the word of God. The spirit of the age, in some of its strongest aspects, is latitudinarian. The liberal minds of this age denounce bigotry and sects. In their zeal for toleration, they are intolerant of those who make any difference between the most opposite ideas. They love error as well as truth, and evil as much as good. Let them but have their ease, and all opinions are alike matters of the most charitable indifference. Thus we see how many sides there are to selfishness. But Christianity and the Christian Scriptures are distinctive; and, without some degree of that which this age calls bigotry, there would never have been and never be again any patriots or any martyrs. And if, indeed, the bloodiest battles ever fought have been about Truth, that only shows what a precious thing truth is.

We venture to assert that many of those good, easy souls, who cannot admit the idea of heathen perdition, have never considered how, in their benevolence and charity, they either make out the gospel a curse to any people, or else totally repudiate the Divine justice. If the heathen shall all be infallibly saved without a union by faith to Jesus Christ, and if those in Christian lands, who believe not in Him, are lost, then it is better to be born in heathenism, which insures eternal life to all, than under the gospel, which certainly involves the doom of some. But if, on the other hand, all those in Christian lands who repent not, and believe not in Christ, as well as those who repent and believe, shall alike be saved, what becomes of the justice and veracity of God? We wish all these "charitable" people would study their Bible better, and, better following out the teachings of the Bible, would cease to occupy, unconsciously, the ground of those who reject the Bible. There is not much to be feared from infidelity, if we can just isolate and identify it. There is a neighbourhood in the upper part of this State, where the attempt was made some years ago to get up a congregation of that strange kind of Christians, who hold

the salvation of all men alike. For a short time, the true scope of their doctrine was concealed, and all went well. But their creed came fully and fairly out at last, and then the common sense of our people, and their knowledge of the Bible, revolted alike at such a monstrous perversion of Christian truth, and they quit all attendance upon such a ministry. The deserted building is now pointed out to the traveller by the name it bears in all that region, as the "No-Hell Church." It was this name which helped to kill it. There were involved in the name, as in the creed, two contradictory and mutually destructive ideas. The name made them patent to every understanding. The idea of "No Hell" rendered nugatory the idea of "Church," and the creed, thus exposed, soon forsook the field.

If the reader suggest that, after all, the idea of heathen damnation is too awful to be entertained, we have only to say, it is indeed an unspeakably awful idea; but so are several other ideas which we admit. The Bible gives us the idea of a world in ruins! Is not that awful? It gives us the idea of that ruin of the world, being moral and eternal! Is not that awful? It gives us the idea of God becoming incarnate, and crucified for the redemption of His own creatures from His own curse! Is not that awful? Now, if we admit these ideas, can we not admit that other idea? But if we prefer to reject the Bible, because of these awful ideas, what shall we do with the constitution and course of nature, that is analogous to the Bible? Are not pain, and woe, and death, and sin, too, all of them facts patent before our eyes? Tremendous facts, occurring under the government of a good God, and an Almighty God? If the future destruction of heathen men and women, which is plainly revealed in the Christian Scriptures, lead us to reject those Scriptures, what shall we do when we behold the constantly recurring fact of their present destruction as often as they come into collision with superiour races of men? Or with that other melancholy fact, that, as fast and faster than the existing races and generations are being destroyed, others are being born into their places? If we could have our own way, no doubt we should ordain the immediate banishment of death from the world, as well as of sin, which introduced it; and if these things might not be, then no doubt we should prohibit any further increase of human life under such a curse. But, if the infinite and incomprehensible Governor of the Universe should condescend to speak to us, while thus presuming to criticize His ways that are past finding out, He would, perhaps, do it merely by some such word as that which silenced presumptuous and complaining Job: "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?"

Recurring again to the subject of African Colonization, it certainly is a remarkable circumstance that the condition of the free people of colour is better in our slaveholding South than it is at the

free North. There, all agree that it is indeed deplorable, and perhaps hopeless. How to dispose of this unfortunate people; how to remove them from the baleful presence, and the withering superiority of white men that regard them as antagonists and rivals, while Southern masters look upon their slaves as valuable assistants, useful dependents, and faithful though humble colleagues and friends; whither to remove them, and what to do for them after they have been removed, these are questions which have long interested benevolent men. The scheme of colonizing them upon the coast of Africa has unquestionably numbered among its earnest advocates some of the best and wisest men of this country, both at the North and at the South. And certainly that is a very interesting question which this scheme will be the occasion of solving, viz: the question, whether the negro now, at this present stage of the civilization which his slavery in America has been the means of forcing him into, is prepared for self-government.

If there were no other reasons for our regarding the subject of African colonization candidly and kindly, these are enough. That this scheme is abolition in disguise (as many of our fathers at the South considered it at first) we do not believe. The abolitionists have been the uncompromising and bitter foes of this Society; and, on the other hand, many of the Southern friends of this Society have been too noble and too good to be chargeable with secret treachery to the South. So, too, the Northern colonizationists are the most sober and sound men in that region. They are perhaps the only men who have not run mad with the fanaticism which has become epidemic there. Not to take some position or other on the negro question is now simply impossible amongst our Northern brethren, and Colonization is the platform of those who do not hate their own flesh and blood, out of this mad negro-philism. From mere regard, then, for the good men, both North and South, who have favoured this scheme, we are bound to treat the question with great respect. And so we are, also, because it is to a certain extent a question, as we think cannot be denied, of sincere benevolence. And so we are, moreover, because it is a highly interesting experiment in political science. We have long regarded the scheme with curious and watchful eyes, because, whichever way it be decided, it must instruct the world upon many points that are now in debate. We have no sympathy with, the new theory of a diversity of original races of men. We have no doubt whatever that the negro is of Adam's race. And if he shall succeed in the experiment of self-government at Liberia, it will be a practical demonstration of his complete and perfect humanity. But, on the other hand, we are equally satisfied that he belongs to an inferior variety of the human species; a man of like passions, of like original capacities, with ourselves, but yet wanting in the developement which nothing but ages of good training can give to any people of our darkened and degraded race. And, therefore, if the expe