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secondary or non-fundamental. It was a serious mistake of an intensely theological age to introduce so much logical and metaphysical theology into the creeds, and thus to intensify and perpetuate controversy, bigotry, and hatred. A creed is not a system of scientific theology. Many of our Confessions of Faith would be far better for being shorter, simpler, and more popular. But changes in public documents, once accepted, are inexpedient, and lead to endless trouble and confusion, as the history of the filioque, and the altered Augsburg Confession, abundantly prove.

4. We must cultivate a truly evangelical catholic spirit, a spirit of Christian courtesy, liberality, and charity towards all, of whatever creed, who love our Lord and Saviour. We must subordinate denominationalism to catholicity, and catholicity to our common Christianity. We must be Christians, or followers of Christ, first and last, and followers of Luther, Calvin, Knox, Wesley, only so far as they themselves follow Christ. Christianus mihi nomen, Lutheranus sive Reformatus mihi cognomen. Christianus sum, nihil Christiani a me alienum puto. Let us remember that we are saved not by our human notions of divine truth, but by the divine truth itself-not by what separates us, but by what we hold in common, even Him who is above us all, and for us all, and in us all.

In the present divided state of the Church, we must needs belong to a particular denomination, and are bound to labour for it with honest loyalty, zeal, and energy. But our steady aim should be, through our denomination, to serve and promote the kingdom of Christ alone. While living in one story and in one apartment of the great temple of God, as we must do if we are to live in the temple at all, we may maintain the most friendly and fraternal relations to our neighbours who occupy different apartments, yet worship and glorify the same God and the same Saviour. It is wicked to hate and curse those whom God loves and blesses. We should rejoice in every victory won for Christ, in the erection of every new church or chapel, whatever name it may bear. If we love Christians of other creeds only as far as they agree with us, we do no more than the heathen do who love their own. We must love them also because of their peculiarities and differences, as far as these represent aspects of truth, and are prospered by God. Man admires and loves a woman for her womanly qualities, and woman admires and loves a man for his manly qualities. We must rise to a higher platform, from which we can recognize and bid God speed to every corps and division of the army of the great Captain of our salvation. Let our theology be as broad as God's truth and God's love, and as narrow as God's justice. Let us think more highly of others than

ourselves. Let humility and love be our cardinal virtues. Thus shall we prove true disciples of Him who died and rose for us all, and whose first and last command is to love God with all our heart, and our neighbour as ourselves.

Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, neither Lutheranism nor Reform, neither Calvinism nor Arminianism, neither Episcopacy nor Presbytery, nor any other human distinction, availeth anything before God and at His judgment-seat, but a new creature in Christ Jesus. To Him we belong, in His name we are baptized, by His blood we are saved, Him alone let us love and serve as long as life lasts; and when we shall see Him as He is, not through a glass darkly, but face to face, in all His loveliness and majesty, we shall reach in Him the solution of all perplexing problems on earth, the divine harmony of all discordant human creeds.

5. Finally, let us never cease to pray for a Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Ghost upon all the Churches which profess the holy name of Jesus. God's Spirit alone, who is the spirit of union and peace, can heal the divisions of Christendom, destroy the evil spirit of bigotry, hatred, and jealousy, fill us with divine love, and overrule all sectarian divisions for a deeper and fuller harmony.

God speed the blessed time when we shall no more see Peter and Paul and Apollos standing in the foreground, but "Jesus alcne," and be in Him and He in us, even as He is in the Father and the Father in Him!

PHILIP SCHAFF.

WORKING MEN AND THE EASTERN QUESTION.

I.

I

SHALL not claim any special understanding of this question for the working men of Great Britain. All I insist on is, that, as a class, they know as much of its merits as any other class of the community. In truth, taking all classes together, it may be said that of the whole range of subjects calling for the attention of our politicians, there is not one more dimly seen, or less understood on its real merits, than the question so fervently discussed just now and comprehended in the general term the "Eastern Question."

Before the recent lamentable outrages, nine out of every ten who now talk very earnestly on this Eastern Question, if asked what it meant, would have been puzzled to give an intelligible answer on any one of the many points that, taken all together, constitute this most puzzling political riddle; and now that the nation's attention is so strongly drawn in that direction, it is not the real Eastern Question as concerning Turkey and her provinces, Russia and her designs, that is seen, but a complication of horrors, of personal violence and wrong, that like a foul exhalation has arisen and spread itself over the whole matter; so altering its general appearance as to give it an aspect most fantastical and unreal. The political relation of Turkey to her provinces is not a new question, whilst the ordinary conduct of Turkish rulers to the inhabitants of these provinces has been a constant theme of discussion. Our writers and our speakers, when occasion presented itself, have never failed to blame the Turkish Government; but

our people have never troubled their heads much about the matter. And indeed, if they had they would have found themselves, as a rule, in the wrong, as those who undertook to instruct them were themselves profoundly ignorant of the exact condition of things in the Turkish provinces. The man whose bent was strongly religious had much to say about the unity of the Christian provinces, with the view of excluding Moslem rule, and constituting a kingdom on the borders of Turkey that might be a barrier against evil or wrong of any kind meditated by the Turks against the Christians. Whilst the political philosopher, with an anthropological turn of mind, dilated on the necessity of gathering together and uniting into a solid autonomy the populations of all these Turkish provinces, as a strong Slavonic state, which, with a distinct race, possessing similar ideas, and one in faith, would be important in the future for the safety of Western Europe.

But Governments cannot be expected to carry out the dreams and desires of men troubled with religious or philosophic fervours, and even should British statesmen in power desire to commit the nation to any particular enterprise of this kind, they are bound first to take note of the obstacles in the way, and the cost of removing them so as to secure success; and even supposing the practicability of any scheme they may undertake, it is their duty to forecast the advantage likely to be derived from it, and measure this with the cost of the undertaking. It is a fair presumption that the succession of statesmen we have had since Servia was severed, or partly severed, from Turkey by the revolt of 1804, under Kara George, have had this matter of the Turkish provinces many times under consideration. But as a practical fact these provinces remain still subject to Turkey. We have had in England a succession of ministers of the Crown, varying in wisdom and courage, and representing every political shade of thought, from extreme conservatism to a shadowy and uncertain radicalism; and I do not think that any one of them ever contemplated a war with the view of setting up a Slavonic nation as a barrier against the Turk in Europe, or with the view of obtaining a larger measure of justice or liberty for the inhabitants of these Turkish provinces. Would it not, I ask, be worth while to inquire why this has not been attempted? If it is a right thing to do now, it would have been a right thing any day during the last seventy years. There are, it is true, moments of supreme passion when nations, roused by some unbearable wrong, sweep away the barriers of law and custom, and assert some new principle in government at any risk. of life or any cost in money. These revolutions peoples and nations make sometimes for themselves; but they never ought to be attempted by one nation or people on behalf of another. It is only the extremity of the suffering that justifies the act, and

this being the case, though outsiders may sympathize and help those who are struggling against oppression, they have no right of initiation, nor is it for them to lead such struggles one step beyond or beside where the principal authors and actors mean them to terminate.

In this Servian case what we should have to discover before we attempted to act, is what Servia really desires, and how far the other provinces are prepared to act with her in resistance to Turkish rule, or in the creation of a political autonomy that would render the new power self-sustaining, and sufficiently agreed in policy to act effectively against the common enemy. It may be very true, as Mr, Gladstone says, on page 10 of his pamphlet, that the "Turk represented force as opposed to the law, yet not even a government of force can be maintained without the aid of an intellectual element, such as he did not possess." I admit this, and I imagine there is not a thoughtful Englishman living who possesses even the slightest knowledge of history, but will admit that there must be an intellectual element in physical force; or government, which means a general adaptation of moral forces for the production of particular ends, could not be carried on. But when Governments are established, and have been working through centuries with certain understood and acknowledged agencies, however limited or however distributed the intellectual element, they cannot be ordered out of existence at a moment's notice. It is very well to say, as Mr. Gladstone does on page 31 of his pamphlet

"I entreat my countrymen, upon whom far more than perhaps any other people of Europe it depends, to require, and to insist, that our Government, which has been working in one direction, shall work in the other, and shall apply all its vigour to concur with the other States of Europe in obtaining the extinction of the Turkish executive power in Bulgaria. Let the Turks now carry away their abuses in the only possible manner, namely by carrying off themselves. Their Zaptiehs and their Mudirs, their Bimbashis and their Yuzbachis, their Kaimakams and their Pashas, one and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear out from the province they have desolated and profaned. This thorough riddance, this most blessed deliverance, is the only reparation we can make to the memory of those heaps on heaps of dead; to the violated purity alike of matron, of maiden, and of child to the civilization which has been affronted and shamed; to the laws of God or, if you like, of Allah; to the moral sense of mankind at large."

I ask unreservedly whether there is any man in his sober senses who believes that a Government can be ordered out of its possessions in this fashion. A revolution could do this; a general rising amongst the Sclav populations might effect it; but England could not do it. It is all very well to tell the Sultan, his muftis, viziers, and pashas, to pack up their traps and be off out of Europe as an abomination and defilement unbearable any longer

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