versed. By the Truth, the atonement is applied by Christ on the cross; by Rome, it is applied by the priest at the altar. Hence it comes to pass that that which is free in the gospel doctrine of the atonement is limited by Rome, and that which is limited in the gospel doctrine of the atonement is free in Rome. The gospel offers the atonement to all who approach in obedient faith. Rome limits it to those to whom the priest communicates. The gospel limits the atonement to those spiritually united to Christ. Rome enlarges it to all who are technically united to the church. And the consequences are tremendous. The gospel is deformed by reversing its conditions and man is imperilled by making his religion to consist in a submission of the lips, and not a conversion of the heart.

And then, finally, so far from theological certainty being secured at Rome, the late council has accumulated about the approach to the papal see a mass of doubts and difficulties the greatest that any religious faith has yet had to remove. Contrast, for a moment, the points of belief demanded by the gospel with the points of belief demanded by Rome.

By the gospel I am required simply to believe that Christ Jesus died to save sinners, and that such a sinner am I.

But by Rome I am required to believe, (1) that the "rock" spoken of in Matt. xvi. 18, was St. Peter, though the sense is non-natural, and though of the numerous primitive Fathers, including Origen, Crysostom, Hilary, Augustine, Cyril, and Theodoret, who have commented on this passage, there is no one who even hints such an interpretation; some of them applying the term to Christ himself, some of them to the body of the apostles; and yet, if I do not believe that the rock was Peter, I am anathematized; (2) that the "rock," in opposition to the consent of the early Fathers, and to all sound criticism, includes with Peter, his successors in the see of Rome; and if I deny this, I am also anathematized; (3) that Luke xxii. 32, where our Lord prays that Peter's faith fail not, contains an assurance of infallibility to Peter's successors, although such a view was not even suggested

until the seventh century; and if I do not believe this also, I am anathematized; (4) that each single pope has been infallible, though popes have contradicted each other, and some popes have been deposed for heresy, and others have pronounced their predecessors to be heretical, and others have been dissolute sceptics; and yet, if I do not believe in this infallibility of each single pope, I am anathematized ; (5) and then, if on the authority of the council which declares these anathemas, I believe all this, I must also believe that there has been an actual succession of duly consecrated popes from St. Peter's day to the present; though this involves the most laborious historical research in periods where the deepest obscurity prevailed, and the grossest fabrications abounded; (6) I must believe, also, that each decree of each of these popes is right, including the decree that condemned Galileo, the decree that declared America to be the perpetual fief of the kings of Spain, and the decree approving of the massacre of the Huguenots; for if I disbelieve in either of these decrees then the whole doctrine of infallibility falls: (7) and then, if I decide affirmatively all these points (and to decide either negatively explodes the whole system), and if in this way I arrive at a human tribunal capable of communicating to me this supposed certainty and rest, I find myself at the monstrous conclusion that the pope must first certify to me the existence of a God, before I can assure myself of the existence of a God to give authority to the pope.

In some of the Swiss lakes are still to be found traces of men who, to avoid the agitations of the mainland, formed for themselves dwellings built on stakes at some distance from the shore. It may have been that dread of a superior civilization drove them to this step; it may have been that desire for seclusion and rest made them seek an abode thus insulated; but if they thus sought quiet and security, quiet and security were not thus obtained. The enemies they thought to escape could pursue them still. The storms and avalanches that swept the shore descended no less fiercely on the lake. And then a peculiar danger was theirs. On

the land the solid earth was beneath them, and this, at least, could not give way. But on the lake their dwellings rested on a multitude of wooden piles; and if either of these should rot, or should be struck down by storm, or be cut by an enemy, then the whole edifice tottered. And not unlike this is the condition of the romantic retrogressionists who seek Rome for peace. They abandon the solid ground of simple, self-evidencing faith. And they take refuge on a theological platform which rests on hundreds of props, the destruction of either of which is the destruction of the whole. And on. one if not all of these, the storm may any day irresistibly strike. And then comes the wreck of absolute unbelief.

ARTICLE II.

THE POSITION AND METHODS OF THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR.'

BY REV. E. H. BYINGTON, BRUNSWICK, ME.

THE progress of society depends upon men of intellectual strength and culture. The chiefs of the savage tribe are the strong men, like Red Cloud; but the wise man must take the place of the strong man before civilization is possible. These intellectual leaders need a special discipline. Hence the college and the university, not for the many, but for the few who have been endowed by nature with abilities for leadership. As the wants of society are various, there are a number of distinct departments of action for these educated leaders. Each department rests upon some permanent want of society. There has always been a necessity for a class of public men, in distinction from private the leaders and teachers of men, physicians, lawyers, ministers, and interpreters of nature; men of poetic abilities, which are of power, as Milton says, "to imbreed and cherish in a great

1 This Article is the substance of an Oration delivered before the Alumni of the University of Vermont, August 3, 1870.

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people the seeds of virtue and public civility"; the founders and preservers of states; and last, but not least, the ministers of religion. The men who fill these various offices constitute the scholars of the nation.

But the question is a fair one, whether there is any need of a permanent class of learned men. The system which has produced them aims at the advancement of society in general intelligence and culture. Its results are cumulative. Each generation is advanced a little beyond that which preceded it. The extension of knowledge among the people of this country has raised the standard of the common mind. Private men now read scientific works, which used to be found only in the libraries of scholars. Everybody reads, and everybody discusses, the highest questions in science, philosophy, and divinity. Is it necessary, in such an age, to have a class of professional men, who are elevated above the masses of the people by superior knowledge? Is this quite in accordance with the principles of our institutions? Is it not better to expend for popular education the funds which are used to sustain the higher institutions of learning? Are not the people outgrowing the need of professional men? Is not the time coming when every man will be his own doctor and his own lawyer and his own religious guide?

There is an apparent force in such views; but there are certain permanent facts which check the inference. For, will not children always need teachers? Will any advance in general intelligence cause reading and writing to come by nature? And if we are still to need teachers, who shall teach the teachers? Do not the lower schools depend upon the higher — the primary school upon the academy, and the academy upon the college? Is there not action and reaction between the parts of the system, so that the higher shed influences upon the lower, even as the heavens shed rain? And do not the highest inspirations ever come from above, so that the progress of intelligence among the people depends upor

1 Reason of Church Government. Milton's Works, Vol. i. 146.

the advance of the scholarship of the learned class? And on other grounds, is not the need of the highest possible knowledge and skill a permanent need? Is it not true, for example, that diseases become more complicated as civilization advances, so that the intellectual man needs a much higher degree of medical skill than the man whose development is chiefly physical? Was it found, during our civil war, that men without a military education were successful leaders of armies? Have we yet a surplus of statesmen? What answer is suggested by the congressional debates, or by our systems of finance, or by the present course of trade? Does the condition of the currency indicate that the republic has no longer need of trained financiers? And what is the inference from the results of reconstruction in Georgia? What from the condition of the shipping interest? How is it in literature? Have we a crowd of men with "the vision and the faculty divine"? Has the glory of the age of Shakespeare been eclipsed by the lights of our time? Do we go for the highest and purest inspirations to the new books or to the old? The books which the world will not willingly let die—are they the books of the nineteenth century, or of the seventeenth? Are the foundations of theological science so well laid that there is no further need of divines? Are men in public and in private life controlled by well-defined principles more than in the olden time? Is modern speculation tending toward a more quiet and restful and hopeful spirit- toward sweeter and more consoling views of the highest interests toward "calmer seats of moral strength," or is the tendency toward unrest and doubt?

I am sure that no careful observer of modern life will deny that so far from being able to dispense with the trained teachers and leaders of men, we need them more and more. If the people read more, and question more acutely, so much the greater need of wise men to furnish a popular literature, and to solve the questions which are new for every generation of inquirers. As our civilization grows more complicated,