Would ye know the Angel that could make
The dark wood seem so light,
And the cruel Giant that destroyed
All things so pure and bright?
ANGER is the Giant's name ; ·

He killed the birds and flowers:

He sorrows with his evil words
Far older, hearts than ours.

Would ye know the Angel that could drive
The cruel fiend away?

That gentle spirit ever comes

When the heart doth humbly pray :
And, like au Angel, by the hand

It leads us through the world,
And guides us to that hidden strand
Where sorrow's wing is furled.

CHRISTIAN ORGANIZATION.

S. W. L.

MAN is a social being; his Creator has endowed him with powers to be developed, with affections to be fostered, with aspirations after the pure and the good; but deprived of the society of kindred spirits his powers are stunted, his affections are blighted, his mounting aspirations droop their wing and pine. Deprived of that strength and encouragement which social union imparts, man loses the vitality and animation of mind without which he can seldom, if ever, become either great or good. It does not necessarily follow that he is to derive actual improvement from intercourse with his fellows; that he is to receive new ideas, or that those he possesses are to be placed in new lights; although these are undoubtedly advantages often to be derived from the collision or communion of different minds. But simply to find that others have thought the same thoughts, laboured in the same labours, and arrived at the same results as himself, who can overrate the encouragement imparted to the weary spirit by such knowledge? Exceptions there have been undoubtedly to this rule as to all others; but such exceptions only tend to prove the rule. Washington has been witnessed standing forth, though deprived by the jealous suspicions of his countrymen of the aid which he had a right

to expect, and which common prudence would have afforded him; to wrest his country's liberties, even at the sword's point, from a powerful and determined enemy. Howard has been found to devote himself, during the greater part of a lifetime, to an unwearied search for, and alleviation of human misery and suffering in every form and in every place; no hospital so dangerous, no prison so repulsive as to deter him from fathoming their depths; the boundaries of Britain were no boundaries to his benevolence. Yet are these rare though glorious examples. Men of the ordinary standard, to do good effectively and permanently, must work together; single and unaided effort too frequently terminates with the life of its author, and its results die away and are forgotten.

What would be man's state in utter solitude it is difficult to say, there have been so few well attested cases; but it is not too much to affirm that it would be little if anything raised above idiotcy. The next grade in the social scale is that of the savage, and he surely cannot be looked upon as a very favourable specimen of human nature. He has virtues it is true; virtues which perhaps are rarer in a more cultivated state of society; but whence their possession ? Because he has never been exposed to temptations. Let him be brought to the test, and then how often has it been seen that his innocence might more properly have been written ignorance; his sobriety the absence of liquor, his integrity his ignorance of money Utterly selfish is he, and his highest virtue is revenge; he is the very incarnation of pride.

Let us

The social principle is the foundation of all improvement, both physical and moral. It not only presents the end, but it provides the means and animates to their use. look around on society and see to what comforts, what blessings, what enjoyments, it gives rise. What we do not owe to it would be more easy to count; for the others, their name is Legion. We cannot raise our eyes from the ground, we cannot walk abroad, we cannot rise in the morning, we cannot lie down to rest at night, without being forcibly reminded of them. If we look back to the early history of Christianity, we shall see the same lesson written even more impressively. Jesus Christ, he who "spake as never man spake," who was gifted with powers surpassing those of mortality, who, specially chosen and ordained by his Almighty Father for his high and holy work, might well have dispensed with the aids necessary to ordinary men, not only did not disdain to avail himself of the assistance to be derived from

social union, but, on the contrary, the sending out the seventy through the cities and villages into which he would himself enter, and the institution of the apostleship, present perfect specimens of Christian Organization. The Saviour with that unerring power which he possessed, of reading the heart of man, selected as his missionaries and apostles, men eminently fitted for his purpose; he imparted to them the objects of his mission, and sent them forth to preach, and they returned to him rejoicing; they formed a company with one heart and one mind, praising God and having favour with all the people. It is true we do not hear much of the apostles going out to preach during the life of Jesus, but the reasons are evident. So long as the Master remained on earth they were to be with him, learning of him, drinking in from his lips those divine lessons of truth and mercy and forgiveness which he was sent on earth to proclaim, so that when his pure and spotless life should have drawn to its close, and his course on earth be terminated, they might be ready to take up the good work where he left it, and carry it on in its glorious course of blessing and rejoicing to all the children of earth.

After the death of the Saviour we find the principle of social union in full activity in the Christian Church, growing with its growth, and strengthening with its strength. The apostles did not isolate themselves from each other, or neglect to found different churches, or cease to visit them when formed. On the contrary, they travelled from one to another, they corresponded with them, and with each other. The institution of the deaconship and general arrangement of the Christian churches, formed further steps in the same direction, made with the concurrence and under the direction of the men, who from the teachings of Jesus himself, had imbibed his fullest spirit, and become qualified to convey that spirit to the world at large. If we quit the apostolic age and descend the stream of time, we find a system of organization widely ramified in the Christian body; each separate church forming a community of itself, but those churches for general purposes associating together, each represented by its pastor, or presbyter, or bishop as he was indifferently named, the whole presenting a perfect realization of what ought to be the motto of all religious and educational associations, “To aid, but not to interfere."

Such was the early Christian Church, and such continued to be its Christian liberty, union, and love, till, in an evil hour,

Constantine the Great saw in it a power which might prove a most valuable engine of state-craft and chicanery, and the pernicious and unhallowed union between Church and State was effected. As if prophetic of the consequences which were to ensue from this melancholy change, immediately upon its completion the troops of Constantine were led to battle under the banner of Christ; a banner bearing that cross, the emblem of his sufferings and his patience, that cross upon which he hung in agony, while his dying lips uttered the words, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do;" that cross, from that time forth, became the signal of blood, outrage, and desolation, of war with all its attendant miseries and iniquities; a tool of statecraft, an instrument of human ambition, letting loose all the demons of avarice, revenge, and bigotry, to prey on this fair world and convert it into an Aceldama of the souls and bodies of men. Such was the baptism of state churchism, and amply has it redeemed the pledge. Alas! for Christianity, doomed to be disguised under the hideous mask of Roman Catholicism. Alas! for humanity, still to be the sport and victim of unrelenting and relentless masters of its faith and practice, its kings and its priests, its "Lords many and Gods many.'

We should take care, however, to avoid the fatal error of confounding what may be supposed to be the inherent defects of a system, with the evil uses to which, by the perverse ingenuity of man it may have been applied. We should remember that in morals as in physics, the power of an agent for evil, generally proves its efficiency for good, under careful and prudent direction. The helm which saves the ship from driving on a lee shore, should the Pilot sleep for an instant, may prove the means of her destruction. The wind and the sails which impel her over the boundless ocean, inay, in an unguarded moment, plunge her into its fathomless depths.

Doubtless objection to religious union and organization, arising from the evils which have been thereto conjoined, is deserving of consideration. If the social principle has been the instrument of many blessings to the human race, it has also too often been a scourge and a curse. It has been the tool of a tyrant's despotism, the minister to a bigot's fanaticism; but what then? Are we to reject the use of a thing merely because it is liable to abuse? What one power belongs to humanity, what advantage is possessed or can be

attained, which might not be cast away for a similar reason? If we were to try every gift bestowed upon us by a wise and beneficent Creator by this standard, we should leave ourselves very few, if any, for which to thank him. What medicine is there which may not become a poison; rather ask what poison is there, which, in the hands of a wise and skilful physician, may not become a medicine? Besides, what sort of argument is it to allege that the advantages presented by social union have, in former times, been converted into means of oppression and coercion, both of body and mind, and therefore religious union and organization. should now be dreaded and discarded? Are men never to be wiser ? Are they never to become better? Why are we struggling and hoping? Why set ourselves in opposition to the rest of mankind ? If we look for no result from our labours, better abandon them at once, and cease to strive against the current, if such a disheartening doctrine and result be the end of all our efforts, of all our anxieties. But it is not so, there has a change come over the face of the world. What though the church of Rome has brooded over the minds of men like a dark and dreary incubus, checking every effort at mental enlightenment, and laying its heavy fetters on the mind struggling for intellectual freedom? What though the Churches of England and Scotland have done their best to follow in the same unholy course? What though the followers of Ignatius Loyola have spun their web of fraud and wile around society in every country in Christendom, until the name of Jesuit has become a byeword for craft and guile, and a bugbear to frighten children withal, the children of ignorance and superstition? What though an Inquisition has sat at every man's table, interposed between him and his nearest and dearest social and domestic relations, dived into his heart, almost read his very thoughts? What though a Napoleon police has even outdone the far-famed engine of Roman Catholic tyranny ? Have we not likewise had an Anti-Slavery Society? Wilberforce and Clarkson were indefatigable, but their efforts were fruitless until they had gathered around them a band of noble and devoted adherents to the cause of the emancipation of the Negro, and then they succeeded; aye, even in the very teeth of self interest itself, the most powerful passion that can sway humanity, they compelled a numerous and an influential body of proprietors to yield up their misnamed property in man their brother. Have we not had a Bible