very far less lewd, less coarse, less violent and offensive, than the language, the morals, the manners which prevailed in the days of Swift and Bolingbroke among the profligate classes. of fashionable life in St. James'-street and Mayfair. And as to all sections of reputable society to-day-the better artisans, the middle classes, the higher ranks-who can doubt the immeasurable advance and improvement which has taken place? Nor would the contrast of to-day with former times be greatly less striking if the comparison were taken with the early years of the present century instead of the first half of the last century, with the age of Fox and of the famous Westminster elections, the period preceding the wider development of the Evangelical movement in the Church of England and the matured influence of Wilberforce and his fellows. Infidelity, vice, and intemperance were at that time fearfully prevalent in English society.

We seem, indeed, to be living comparatively in a new world. Let us think of the world surrounding Walpole; let us think of Jack Wilkes and his times; or, again, of the moral and social aspects of the Regency and of the ten years preceding; and then consider the progress of the last fifty years, and the Christian tone and aspect of the present age. There are many drawbacks now-there is much inconsistency, there is flagrant immorality, there is not a little daring unbelief; but yet, as a whole, how immeasurably superior is the present time! I have referred already to the contrast between the Parliament of to-day and the Parliament of those former periods. Now, among our foremost statesmen, on either side of either House, how many are there of the highest Christian character, men of Christian profession, Christian zeal and activity, Christian life and spirit. Let us only think of the three men who in succession have held the great seal of the kingdom. Three successive Lord Chancellors have been earnest, devout, and active Christians; two of them having been engaged for more than one generation in such works of lowly and practical Christian service as, in the case of men of such position and accomplishments, best represent the example of Him, who, in stooping down to wash His disciples' feet, left to His followers the injunction that they should do to others as He had done to them.

Perhaps there is no fruit of the complex civilization of our age which so fully, so faithfully, with such delicate accuracy of representation, reflects the character of the age, as our leading journalism. Judged by this test, as there is no country in the world which, measured by a Christian standard, can compare with our own, so there has never been an age to

compare with the present. Our leading daily and weekly journals, our most influential monthly and quarterly vehicles of opinion and discussion, are distinguished by a standard of moral principle, by a sense of moral responsibility, by a generosity in the construction of conduct, by a tenderness in dealing with motives, by a reverence of tone in regard to religious subjects, which can only be properly described as Christian, and the beauty of which can only be appreciated by reverting to the journalism of former generations, or by reference to that of other countries even at the present time. In these results we see the Christian progress, the Christian culture and influence of England compendiously represented. There are, of course, journals more or less disreputable; but then they are disreputable, they have comparatively little influence, they in no way lead the country. In a sense, therefore, they may be referred to as exceptions which prove the point on which I am insisting. There may also in one or two journals of considerable pretensions, and of influence among an important though limited class, be a strong taint of unbelief; but as yet this is mostly disguised, and the journals are not very widely read.

Some, indeed, there probably are who, passing over more. than two centuries at a bound, would take us back to the earlier part of the Carolan age, whilst others would take us to the Commonwealth, for a time when Christianity, as they believe, held a far superior position in this country to that which it holds to-day. Doubtless, there may at first appear to be some plausibility in such a view, but it certainly will not bear investigation. If a high form of Christianity had really taken a strong hold of England as a whole in the first half of the seventeenth century, England could never have become what we know it to have been for thirty years. before the close of that century. Doubtless, there were great divines, and noble Christians, heroic men and heroic women, brave, pure, and gentle, both among Anglicans and Puritans, among Cavaliers and Commonwealthmen. The names of Jeremy Taylor and John Howe, of Bishop Hall and Richard Baxter, of Lucy Hutchinson and Mrs. Evelyn, of Eliot and Fairfax and Falkland, are sufficient to bring this truth home to our recollection and appreciation. But what of the ordinary parish priest, the ordinary squire, the ordinary farmer or yeoman, the ordinary peasant of those times? It is certain and most evident that the elaborate sermons which remain to us from that age, ponderous with abstruse theology and lavishly brocaded with learned allusions and Greek and Latin quotations, could never have been prepared with the thought

of yeoman, or farmer, or peasant, or even country squire, before the mind of the preacher. They were the works of the learned few for the learned few-for men of scholarship and parts and high position, in an age when the novelty and the comparative rarity of learning made almost all learned men to be more or less pedantic. The average country parson had but a slight tincture of such learning-often, indeed, as extant records show, had none at all. He was mainly such a parish priest as had been the ordinary type in King Henry's reign, save that the forms and offices which he used had been changed. And as for squire, or yeoman, or farmer, or peasant, there is no reason to suppose that their manners or morals had greatly altered since the days of Chaucer, whose Canterbury Tales so vividly reflect to us both the manners and the morals of his age. The shires and parishes of England in the days of Charles the First showed a form and a degree of Christian culture, such as it was, immeasurably inferior to what is now to be found in church and chapel and meeting-house, in Sunday-school and day-school, under the instructions and influence of tens of thousands of ministers of all denominations and hundreds of thousands of devoted men and women, fellow-helpers of the clergy, throughout all the towns and villages of England.

Such, then, is the result of Christian progress in this country. Christianity has leavened the whole life of the nation; it has given a high tone to society, to the press, to Parliament; it has filled the country with life. In one form or other it has entered every parish and regulates every public organization. It has moulded our institutions; it has inspired and organized our philanthropy-an all-embracing philanthropy; it makes its voice heard in every detail of local government as well as in every great passage of public life; it has raised England to an unparalleled eminence among the nations. Its most rapid strides of progress have been made during the past fifty years; its most energetic efforts, among all sects and classes, have been put forth during the generation now drawing towards a close; it was never so universally active, so zealous, so thoroughly organized as at present; never did it carry its energies and its efforts so boldly and so successfully into the most neglected quarters.

as now.

Why, then, if all this be true, or if anything like it be true, should we hear every now and then words of despondency, should we be able yet oftener to detect tones of misgiving, in what some Christian men have to say, in what they venture to forecast, about the future of our religion and

our faith? Let us review what appear to be the causes of these words of despondency, these tones of misgiving, and endeavour to judge how much there may be of reason for the doubts and fears of these Christian men.

I pass over with a bare mention one source of despondency and misgiving, which, however, is very real and affects a considerable number of Christian people-I mean a certain pessimism of tendency or of theory. Some good people always look on the dark and dismal side. They do so in business and in their family affairs. Naturally, therefore, they look on the dark side and are full of despondency as to the affairs of the Christian Church and the future of Christianity. No other aspect would attract them; no other expectation would be congenial. Others there are who hold a pessimist theory as to the future of Christianity. Their exegesis of Scripture, their interpretation of the prophecies, are settled according to this theory. A "sanguine despondency" is their habitual temper, gives animation to their life and inspiration to their eloquence. The influence of these classes of Christians is by no means small, and has helped more than a little to diffuse a tone of gloom over certain circles of earnest Christian people in their anticipations of the future.

Passing, however, over such influences as these, it will probably be agreed that the causes most likely, and likely with the most reason, to awaken foreboding as to the future of Christianity in this country are connected with the condition of our Universities, of our literary circles, of our schools of philosophy and science. It is believed by many, and not without some apparent ground, that the outlook for the future in the directions I have already indicated is really alarming. I wish to adduce some considerations which, I hope, may avail to mitigate, if not to remove, that alarm.

I must, however, first make an admission. I admit, then, that in the independent intellectual activity of the country there mingle powerful tendencies towards unbelief, tendencies which incline men to assume an attitude of antagonism to Christianity. I have already in the opening paragraphs of this address intimated some of the reasons for this tendency. Anti-Christian feelings, alienation of mind from the Christian revelation, which in former times would have taken other forms of opposition, are now free to take the form of professed unbelief.

Infidelity is no longer regarded by the law and society as a form of sedition. Persecution, secret or open, legal or social, is at an end. Criticism, moreover, and intellectual questioning, in all departments, are the passion of the age.

Under these circumstances Christianity, which touches every department of thought and lays its blessing or its ban on every act and circumstance of life, could least of all expect to be exempt from the keen scrutiny of awakened, daring, self-willed intellect. And the schools of intellect, the workshops of inquiry, I mean our Universities, themselves emancipated from all tests and from all restraints, could not but be chief centres of such questioning as I have described.

What is still more to be noted is that the very prevalence of the Christian life could not but lead to the spread of critical and unfriendly questioning as to the claims of Christianity, and to the development of an infidel propagandism. There could not be such intense action without corresponding reaction; such peremptory and all-invading claims without rebellion of spirit being stirred up in the "carnal mind"; such missionary aggression and propagandism as that of Christianity among all classes during the last half-century without provoking infidel aggression and propagandism in return. When Christianity was torpid, and only known by its creeds and forms, infidelity was a latent foe. The intense life of Christianity has stirred and quickened its enemies into activity. The signs, therefore, which some construe as ominous of future danger and reverse to the Christian Church are themselves, in great part, only the consequences and evidences of the triumph of active Christianity in this modern age of stir and life. Like the wash and the wake which the swift steamer leaves behind her as she rushes through the sea, and which seem to be sweeping backwards as if in resistance to the grand vessel's advance, these signs of antagonism serve, in effect, to measure and to mark the line and rate of progress to which they are opposed. Like the backwater or counter-tide on some portions of our southern coast, they are themselves the result of the great and true tide-sweep to which the law and set of their own movement seems to be opposed.

These considerations, however, would not avail to quiet our apprehensions for the future if there were reason to fear that the school of critical or philosophic or scientific thought in our Universities and elsewhere would be permanently alienated from Christianity and the Christian faith. I cannot admit such a fear. I think there are clear reasons why we must come to a contrary conclusion. Philosophy, in certain schools, and at certain times, has seemed again and again to revolt from the Christian alliance, but it has always come back again. The recent revival and spread of a masquerading materialistic scepticism in this country was due to special causes, and is already beginning manifestly to decline. The