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which might seem to be copied from some evangelical writer of our own day. He speaks of the wisdom of God which

Has found a means of fully satisfying his justice, which suffers no impurity, and at the same time of restoring to human nature its perfection. His mercy equalled his justice when he was voluntarily crucified, and made full satisfaction for us. . . . The man-God, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, has paid the whole debt, and, at the price of his blood, shed upon the cross, the gates of heaven were opened to all believers.

Luther published one of his works in Germany, and said, in his preface: "Although some theological mud still adhered to the feet of that holy man, he nevertheless maintained justification by faith alone without works; and he was burned by the Pope. But lo, he lives in blessedness, and Christ canonizes him through us, even though Popes and Papists shall burst themselves on that account."

Had Savonarola met with the Reformers who were coming forward, and become acquainted with their doctrines and their aims, he doubtless would have heartily joined hands with them. Had his life been prolonged, he would of necessity have drifted further and still further away from the popery of his age. This was what we have seen in the case of other zealous reformers. There was a very great difference between what Luther was in 1512, and what he had become in 1517 and 1520. He had grown rapidly between that day when he went to the Scala Santa at Rome, to ascend it on his knees, and those other days when he nailed his famous theses on the doors of the Schloss Kirche at Wittenberg, and when he burned the Pope's bull outside the gate of the town. One by one the fetters of his once venerated system fall from the reformer's limbs. It is only by degrees that he learns what work he must do, and girds himself to do it. Savonarola's views and feelings toward the papal system and the Pope's claims were very different in 1498 from what they were even in 1492. While honestly wishing to respect the system and to render submission to its head, he was daily driven into an attitude of more decided hostility to both. We can readily infer from the course which he was compelled to take what was the position which he must eventually have occupied. But he was cut speedily down, and others were raised up to carry forward the work in which he so earnestly labored.

It is scarcely necessary to moot the question as to the propriety of claiming him, as some seem anxious to do, as a good Roman Catholic. It would seem that the Pope had settled that. In his own letter he calls him a "son of perdition." At his martyrdom, the

Bishop of Vasona officially degraded him, and separated him "from the church militant and triumphant." Bishop Romolino, the Papal commissioner, pronounced him "a heretic and schismatic." In their letter reporting their success to the Pope, his commissioners say: "We found that friar, or, rather than call him either friar or man, we should say, that most vile, many-footed beast, filled with all kinds of wickedness." How they could absolve such an one from all sin, and assure him of his deliverance from purgatory, and of his speedy entrance in the garb of spotless innocence into heaven, as Romolino did in the name of the Pope just before he suffered, is a question which we leave to the Jesuits to answer. How any one in full view of all the facts of the case can claim him without a blush as a good Roman Catholic, is a marvel. He was one of that very large class who were taught by the Spirit and the word of God, and separated from the moral corruption and the grosser doctrinal errors of the Church of Rome, and were at length thrust out by its adherents, and burned as heretics. Are such to be called Roman Catholics? Emphatically, no. Were they then Protestants? Technically they were not; but if to bear clear and pointed testimony against the sins and errors of the Papacy makes one a Protestant, then were they really such. It is enough, however, to say that they were Christ's, and that they honestly and earnestly sought to serve and honor him. This we can say of Savonarola. The grace that shone so brightly in his life was the fruit of the Holy Spirit. The errors that clung to him may be traced to the imperfection of human nature, to the church in which he was reared, and to the age in which he lived.

PHILADELPHIA.

GEO. W. ANDERSON.

FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION.

POLITICAL economy, like ethics, is a practical science, because it

has to do with practice, or actions, or, rather, transactions. But why a science? Because its laws, or doctrines, can all be deduced from a single principle-and that the principle of self-love. It is the science of business, and we can always predict how one will act in any business transaction, if we can ascertain the view which he takes of his own interest. And beyond this, it is the province of the science to lay down, ideally, the rules according to which men ought to act out of regard to their own interest. For this principle of self-love needs enlightenment and direction in many cases. An ignorant man, who takes narrow views of what is for his own interest, will pay but little regard in his business transactions to the rights and interests of others; while the man of large intelligence, above the control of tradition and prejudice, sees that his own interests are bound up, more or less closely, with the interests of others, and hence conducts his business on much broader principles. And yet, no less than the ignorant man, he is governed by what he regards as his own interest on the whole. He may see, that in order to live and thrive himself, he must let others live and thrive; but in all this his sole object is none the less to thrive himself. He may see that honesty is the best policy, and hence adopt it as a principle of action; but should he go beyond this, and adopt the principle of doing business and making trades

for the advantage of others, every one would feel that he had wholly abandoned all sound business principles. One may, indeed, in all his business transactions, have in view-as I have no doubt many dothe ultimate devotion of his acquisitions to some benevolent end. But this is a very different thing from actually conducting his daily business upon benevolent principles-indeed, it is diametrically opposed to such a procedure; since he would, by acting upon this principle, deprive himself of all means of promoting any noble object, by frittering away his property from day to day among unworthy men, who would take the advantage of him.

An enlightened self-love, then, which regards the rights of others, and their good also, as far as their good does not conflict with our own, is the only sound principle upon which business can be conducted. And if this be true of individuals, it must be true of nations. The public policy of a government, then, should aim to promote the true interests of the greatest possible number of its subjects, and never can be justified in aiming to promote those of a mere minority.

Such being the great and beneficent principle on which the science of political economy is founded, it cannot be considered an unsuitable subject for discussion in a religious Quarterly. Dr. Chalmers, in the preface to the volume of "Lectures on Political Economy" which he delivered while holding the Chair of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh, says: "I cannot bid adieu to political economy without an earnest recommendation of its lessons to all who enter upon the ecclesiastical profession." In like manner, Bishop Whately expressed the opinion that "no theological seminary should be without its chair of political economy;" while the Rev. Dr. Bethune, in an address before a literary society of Yale College, spoke of political economy as "that philanthropic science which, next to the gospel, whose legitimate offspring it is, will do more than anything else for the elevation and fraternization of our race." I make no apology, therefore, for occupying a few of these pages in discussing some of the leading doctrines of the protectionist school of political economists. If these doctrines shall be found to favor the interests of the majority, let them stand; if not, they must fall.

I. The first maxim of this school which I name is, that the stimulus of protective duties is necessary in order to develop certain manufactures and industrial pursuits which are essential to national independence, and hence that it is good policy for a government to impose such duties on the importation of those foreign articles which naturally compete with these manufactures.

This is one of the most plausible, and I may add, one of the most

tenable maxims of the school. It is readily admitted even that there is a grain of truth in it. And yet I cannot regard it as an entirely sound principle. The industry of a young nation, especially if occupying a new country, must necessarily be of the simplest kind. If left to the guidance of natural principles, it will take a direction determined partly by the wants of the community, and partly by the nature of the soil, climate, and other opportunities connected with their situation. The more immediate and pressing wants for food, clothing, and shelter, will secure their first attention, and will be supplied, according to the opportunities of their situation, from the soil, from the ocean, from the rivers, or from the forest. And these same wants, as they are the first, so they continue to be, in every generation, the great controlling wants of every society. Food, clothing, and shelter-what is there in life which does not either consist in, or in some way pertain to these! The cave, or the rudely constructed cabin, which shelters the savage or the pioneer, in the course of generations is gradually enlarged and adorned, till it becomes the magnificent palace, supplied with costly furnishings of couches, chairs, carpets, tables, tapestry, books, statuary, and everything which the heart can desire. So the roots and acorns of primitive times are transmuted at length into the sumptuous dishes which tempt the appetite of the merchant-princes of the later ages; and the garments of skin or bark, which cover the nakedness of the barbarian, in the lapse of time re-appear in the comfortable, comely, and elegant costumes of the civilized period. At the same time the church, the school-house, and the public hall, are but shelters for particular purposes and occasions; while the store and the office and the work-shop, the highway and the railroad, the tool, the machine, the ship, the engine, the draft animal, and the domestic animal, are but means for supplying, or ministering to, one or the other of these three great wants of our nature.

Industrial pursuits, then, originate in the primitive wants of our nature, and continue in every stage of progress to be stimulated by the same wants enlarged. At the same time, the particular industrial arts, or ways of supplying these wants, are largely determined in every community by the conditions imposed in the nature of the soil, climate, etc. In every community the soil, climate, and other conditions, are more favorable to certain pursuits than to others. These, then, are the pursuits which they should follow, and which they will follow, if not diverted from them by unnatural influences. If left to themselves, men are sure to take the easiest and most effectual way to satisfy their wants-just as sure as the missile is to take the course

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