Master's command is imperative, and the evil of sects among Christians is insignificant in comparison with the evils resulting, for time and for eternity, from ignorance of the only religion that can sanctify and save the sinful soul. It will not do to carry to the heathen only so much of Christianity as all sects are agreed in; for that would be wrong in principle and impracticable in fact. It will be found impossible to draw the line of division between catholic essentials and sectarian nonessentials. What shall the translator do, if he must not commit himself on the question of baptism? What shall the pastor of the mission church do, or, if that office be declined out of regard to this principle, what shall the instructor of the future pastors of the mission churches do, when his opinion is asked, or his instructions sought, by those whom he is training for pastoral service, in regard to the scriptural way of baptism, the proper subjects of it, the qualifications for the communion, the scriptural form of church government? Must the literature of the christian world be carefully concealed from the native converts, lest these agitating questions should be suggested to their minds? Nay, that would be a bootless labor, if it were not a grievous wrong,-for those questions would not fail to arise of themselves, only perhaps a little later, if they were not thus suggested from without.

It will not do to put any such fetters upon those servants of the Lord whom we send forth to preach the gospel to the heathen. They must keep back nothing that is profitable for their newly converted brethren; (the Apostle does not say that he kept back nothing that was essential, Acts xx: 20;) they must declare to their converts the whole counsel of God, as they understand it. They must instruct them to the best of their ability, in all the parts of the Lord's will, without presuming to judge for them how much it is best for them to know of the things which are freely revealed by the Lord to his people. To do otherwise would be to sanction the conduct of those Southern tyrants, who have reduced the fulness of Divine revelation to a meagre oral gospel, as sufficient for the poor negro. To do otherwise, would be to act on a principle incompatible alike with purity and peace, with loyalty to

Christ, and with harmony among his people. For all harmony and mutual respect and charity among Christians must be founded in honesty-in the unreserved recognition of the fact that they do differ, and the unhesitating admission of the principle that they have a right, as before each other, to differ,—a right to differ, but not a right to quarrel, or to hate or revile each other.

But this discussion has drifted us away somewhat from the subject of missionary policy, and borne us to the borders of the great questions of Christian liberty and Christian union,questions which this is not the place to discuss. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions has substantial claims to the respect and gratitude of the Christian world, but it may not claim the glory of having successfully solved the problem of conducting Christian Missions on a catholic basis, on which all evangelical Christians can consistently co-operate. As a matter of fact, the solution has not been successful, even within the very partial limits within which the experiment has been confined: and if it had, success in such a compromise of Christian truth (for it could be nothing else) would bring no glory. We remember reading, many years ago, when the Armenian converts were first persecuted, and cast out from the corrupt church of their fathers, the expression of rejoicing, on the part of the missionaries, that they were now at liberty to organize their converts into separate churches. We read this expression then with sorrow and surprise, and we are of the same mind still. Those excellent and noble men, how could they persuade themselves that they were not at liberty to form pure and scriptural churches until after a corrupt and unscriptural church had excommunicated and anathematized their converts! The apostles of our Lord, the primitive missionaries, conducted their labors on no such principle of accommodation. Their language is, not only in matters of doctrine: "If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed;" but also in matters of form and church order, "so ordain we in all churches," 66 we have no such custom, neither the churches of God."

Vol. xxxiii.-24.

What a change has taken place in the moral aspect of the world since the American Board, the earliest of our great missionary organizations, began its beneficent work. Europe, Asia, Africa, America, all are very different now from what they were then. And the difference in all is such as to afford cause for joy and gratitude to every Christian heart. Asia and Africa had only been visited by the first faint streaks of that moral dawn which has now expanded into a broad belt of light across the one continent, and a broad band of light around the other. In Europe and in our own country there was, undoubtedly, then as well as now, much sincere piety; there were many devout, active and accepted servants of God; but the heathen world was sadly and guiltily neglected, and the influence of evangelical religion, in Europe especially, was much less than it is now. How much has been learned. too, from the experience of half a century, in regard to the best modes of missionary labor, in regard to schools, to native assistants and native pastors, and the education best adapted to make them efficient helpers in the missionary work, in re-. gard to the number of missionaries necessary to secure the evangelization of a district or a nation; and, in a word in regard to all the principles, modes, and appliances of missionary labor. And in bringing about this happy change, God has honored our brethren connected with the American Board with a very large and blessed agency. He raised up men of ardent Christian zeal, to begin, so far as this country is concerned, the work of missions, and to lay the foundations in heathen lands, and men of large Christian wisdom and foresight, to devise plans and determine principles for making the missionary organization at home as efficient as possible. And when, on the evening after the Jubilee, the missions of the Board were represented by a gathering, at the house of one of the secretaries, of returned missionaries speaking no less than twenty languages,--more than twice as many, probably, as were spoken by the Apostles on the day of Pentecost,—these servants of the Lord must have felt that He had indeed wrought great results by their means. May He continue to

bless them more and more, with multiplied converts, enlarging fields of labor, and still expanding liberality and zeal.

Our own missionary Jubilee is at hand. Let us celebrate it with grateful joy, for we, too, have abundant occasion to exclaim, "What has God wrought!" Let us prepare for this sacred festival, by liberally enlarging the scale of our regular contributions, so that our Jubilee may indeed be a year of release to all our missions from the restraints with which our want of liberality has bound them. Let us be provoked by the example of our brethren of other denominations, to more bountiful giving; and let us, while we bid a hearty Godspeed to all who are carrying the light of the gospel, according to the measure in which they enjoy it, to the nations that are in darkness, adhere faithfully to the principle which has distinguished us hitherto, of carrying out, wherever our missions. are planted, the entire plan of the Christian church, in all the beauty and simplicity of its scriptural polity, and in all the exactness of its positive institutions. And may the Lord, in his own good time, so plentifully pour out his Spirit upon his people in all the continents and in all the islands of the sea, that they shall come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.

ARTICLE II.-THE MOHAMMEDAN SYSTEM IN ITS RELIGIOUS ASPECTS AND TENDENCY.

[BY REV. G. W. SAMSON, D. D., PRESIDENT OF COLUMBIAN COLLEGE, D. C.]

(Concluded from page 358.)

Against the doctrine of Christ's divinity Mohammed reasons and expostulates and denies, as seems best to suit the humor of the hour. Thus in the ivth chapter he exclaims. "Say not, There are three Gods; forbear this; it will be better for you. God is but one God. Far be it from Him that he should have a son. Unto Him belongeth whatever is in heaven and in earth; and God is a sufficient protector. Christ doth not proudly disdain to be a servant unto God." Again (ch. vth) he says: "They are infidels who say, Verily God is Christ the Son of Mary; since Christ said, O children of Israel, serve God, my Lord and your Lord; whosoever shall give a companion unto God, God shall exclude him. from Paradise. They certainly are infidels who say, God is the third of three; for there is no God, besides one God. Christ the son of Mary is no more than an apostle." The language thus used by Mohammed would seem more intensely opposed to vital Christianity, were it not for the fact that the corrupt Christianity of his day and land seem to teach that the three in the Deity referred to by him were the Father, the Son and Mary. This is distinctly brought out in the vi.th chapter, where Mohammed writes: "When God shall say unto Jesus at the last day, O Jesus, son of Mary, hast thou said unto men, Take me and my mother for two Gods beside God? he shall answer, Praise be unto Thee! It is not for Me to say that which I ought not. If I had said so, surely Thou wouldst have known it; Thou knowest what is in Me, and I know what is in Thee; for thou art the knower of secrets. I have not said unto them any other than what Thou didst