however disguised or degraded,—the cruelty of caste and the bitterness of bigotry straightway take counsel among themselves how they may destroy her. Heaven help us! Divided as we are, into the hating and the hated, the oppressors and the oppressed, we have settled it, somehow, that we are of necessity at war with each other-that the welfare of one in some way depends upon the wretchedness of another. How much madness and misery would be spared if we could in any way learn that we are brethren. Thrice came Если The true Spirit of Reform. THE religion of Jesus, acting as a vital principle in power to do away All the individual heart, and thus leaving the entire mass of humanity, to this alone are we to look as of sufficient the evils that are now rife in the world. Just so far as the true spirit of Jesus is infused into the soul, and acts in the life of man, we know that sin, in its various forms of sensuality, oppression, and bloodshed, must disappear. reforms, which are not based on this corner-stone, are superficial; and, however goodly their proportions may appear to the eye of man, they want that firm foundation which will secure them against being undermined or overthrown by the force of adverse circumstances. "Other foundation can no man lay, than that is laid," for the building up of all that is really excellent and heavenly. But, while we acknowledge the omnipotence of true religion for the ratification of all social wrongs, we are not to rest in the inculcation of its abstract principles and outward forms alone. It is not enough that we ourselves become, or persuade our fellow-men to become professed disciples of Jesus; not enough that, in a general way, we urge the precepts of the gospel. The obtuseness of the human heart, when hardened by habit and early education, requires that we make particular application of the precepts of Christ, and address our efforts to the removal of specific sins: the sins of our own age and country. It may be that our brother, sincerely intending to act in the spirit of Jesus, is yet blinded by the force of habit, and fails to sce the sin in which he is living. If our position make us to see more clearly than he the course he should pursue, let us endeavor gently to remove the veil from his eyes, remembering how often our own vision is dimmed by prejudice and outward circumstances. In the moral, as well as in the natural world, we believe that God demands our active coöperation; and, as the farmer not only sows the seed, but roots out the weeds from among the grain, so are we to endeavor to eradicate from the broad field of the moral world those evil practices which obstruct the growth of the harvest of pure and undefiled religion. "The husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain." So are we obliged often to have "long patience," until we see the manifest blessing of God on our labors. But patient waiting becomes a virtue, only when combined with the exercise of our best powers in promoting the object of our desire. We must adapt our efforts to the express object which we seek to attain. Taking those spiritual weapons which are "mighty for the pulling down of the strongholds" of sin, let us assault the great evils of slavery and oppression of every name and kind, always marching under the banners of the Prince of Peace, whose conquests are achieved not by violence, but by the subduing power of Godlike love. Let us go forth, brethren, sisters, a feeble band though we may seem to the eye of man, yet strong in the assurance that the hosts of heaven are encamped round about us, and that "more are they that are with us, than they that are" on the side of the oppressor; and let us not falter until in God's own good time the word shall be spoken, not as, we |