"I chastise my body and bring it into subjection." In exhorting the Corinthians, he says, "Let us exhibit ourselves as the ministers of God. . . . . . in labors, in watchings, in fastings, in chastity." †

What has Protestantism to say to this most prominent virtue of Christianity, self-denial? Does it hold up the life of Jesus Christ as the model life to men? It is silent, or if it speaks, it is in the language and tone of contempt. It says to those who would copy the life of Jesus Christ that they wish to get to heaven by their own righteousness, or that "they are actuated by a morbid desire after perfection."

Alas, if the Bible be a true record of the life and doctrines of Christ, the less one has of Protestant Christianity, the better Christian.

Protestantism is inadequate to meet the wants of the Christian heart, because it has no room or expression for Christian asceticism.

We condemn Protestantism as not being the Church of Christ, because it fails to represent Christ; fails to give us a divine authority in her teachings, fails to produce Christian virtues + 2 Cor. vi.

* 1 Cor. ix.

in the hearts of men; fails to guide the soul in the way of a Christian life; fails in not claiming the power of pardoning sin; fails by not believing the real presence of Christ upon earth; fails by abandoning the soul at death and beyond the grave; and fails, finally, in not giving an expression to the virtues which lead to Christian perfection.

A Christian Church that does not represent Christ in his life and offices is false, and to be looked upon as an imposition and a sham.

All that Protestantism can do is to make men feel more painfully their religious wants; but in attempting to satisfy the wants that it has excited, it fails most signally.

Like

"The meteor blaze

That soon must fail, and leave the wanderer blind,
More dark and helpless far, than if it ne'er had shined." *

Alas, how many earnest souls have been moved, by reading the Gospels, with the desire to imitate the divine life of Christ in the practice of heroic virtue, but have found opposition, contempt, and ridicule, where they expected

* Beattie.

sympathy, encouragement, and succor! how many sincere and conscientious minds have been forced to exclaim on account of the false light in which Protestantism has placed Christianity, "If this be Christianity, then I am no Christian;" thus showing, by their repudiation of this false Christianity, that they were, though they knew it not, all the truer followers of Christ! How many young, ardent, and generous souls have been led into the Protestant ministry wishing to devote themselves to the service of their Divine Master, and in the course of time all the higher and holier feelings of the soul have been wasted away or stifled in them! how many are still vainly struggling to realize them in the midst of opposition! how many have given up the battle in despair! how many have become infidel in heart, though Christian in

name!

This is thy work, O Protestantism, and the thousands of hapless souls whom thou hast deceived by thy promises of truth condemn thee, as a barrier to their perfection, a mockery to their hopes.

XVII.

The Church and Rome.

*

*

IF

"Look into the Church from the market square:

Nothing but gloom and darkness there!
Shrewd Sir Philistine sees things so:

Well may he narrow and captious grow,
Who all his life on the outside passes.

"But come, now, and inside we'll go!
Now round the holy chapel gaze;
"Tis all one many-colored blaze;
Story and emblem, a pictured maze,

Flash by you:-'tis a noble show.

Here feel as sons of God baptized,

With hearts exalted and surprised!"

GOETHE.

there be upon earth such a thing as the

real Church of Christ, it must teach the same

teachings, it must live the same life, it must

work the same works, it must image, express, and body forth Jesus Christ himself. As He was the Teacher and Redeemer to the generations in which he lived, so must his Church be the Teacher and the Redeemer to all generations of the world until the end of time.

We have tried Protestantism, and found it wanting. It is inadequate to satisfy the wants of the heart, or to meet the demands of the intellect. Protestantism does not represent Christ.

What now shall we do? What hope remains, or is there any left? Is the idea of the Church a dream? Is Christianity a delusion? Was Christ a mistaken enthusiast ?-a merely human philosopher, whose system must die out when his personal influence has had time to pass away? At any rate, we will be honest; and to be honest and Christian men, and yet to be Protestant, we cannot.

What shall we do? Shall we wait for another helper than Christ to come? Alas! the world has had a long opportunity, so far as time is concerned, to find a greater helper than Christ ; and many centuries may roll on without the sign of a new Saviour.