CHRISTIANITY AND CIVIL LAW.

In the United States, public opinion, whenever it is deemed necessary, is expressed in positive law, and this leads the Rev. Dr. John Tatlock to say that the general regard for the Christian religion and the general desire for its preservation may be, and will be so expressed, as far as is thought desirable. In some other countries religion is considered a proper subject for legislation to a far greater extent than in this. In them religious orders are established and their support provided for by law. Here other, and, it is thought, wiser councils have prevailed, and religion is left to maintain and extend itself by its own vitality and force. It is, however, recognized by the laws as one of the great public interests, which it is the object of government to secure, and is protected against open interference with its practice. It is, by the general consent of the people and by its general prevalence among them, an element in the "general welfare," specified in the preamble of the National Constitution, which it is the declared purpose of the constitution to promote.

In this country legislation on this subject has been exceedingly moderate and restrained. The Christian religion asks no aid from the laws; no positive legal measures for its support and propagation. All it requires is to be let alone, to be permitted to live and flourish as it may, without molestation, to be protected against all hostile interference with the common rights of its professors and all obstructions to its free exercise and practice. And this modest and just claim is allowed by the laws. It has been repeatedly affirmed, on the highest legal authority, that Christianity is part of the common law. By this it is meant that Christianity is recognized as a common interest of society, and certain offences against it are punished by the common law. And as this law, much more than statute law, is the expression of long-established opinions and usages, its cognizance of this class of offences shows how long, and how fully and generally the right of the Christian religion to legal protection, among the people professing it, has been admitted.

On this ground, our wholesome Sunday laws are justified. The

Sabbath being an institution of Christianity, its protection is necessary to the maintenance of the Christian religion, as one of the great interests of society. The outward observance of the Sabbath promotes the material prosperity of the state, and in general aids the cause of good government, but an outward respect for it is essential to the support of religion as a social benefit, and it is, therefore, entitled to the protection of the law.

CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE.

From the Bible the world's greatest writers and musicians have drawn their loftiest themes.

Of Dante, Hazlitt has remarked that "he is indebted to the Bible for the gloomy tone of his mind, as well as for the prophetic fury that exalts and enkindles his poetry."

"It would have required but little literary acumen," says Rev. Dr. William H. Perrine, "to discern in Shakespeare's Macbeth the character of Ahab, and in his Lady Macbeth the character of Jezebel. Southey's Chariot of Carmala follows in the track of Ezekiel's vision of wheels.”

Shelley, who wrote opposite his name on hotel ledgers atheos, it was rumored, was drowned, because he had a Bible next his heart. "It would have been no wonder," said Byron, "he was such an admirer of its diction.”

Of Pope, the most artificial of the true poets, the accomplished Warton has said, "His Messiah owes its superiority over Virgil's Polio entirely to the Hebrew Scriptures."

Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey inhaled the very atmosphere, basked in the sunlight, and spoke at times the very language of the Bible.

Voltaire says of the story of Joseph: "Considered only as an object of curiosity and literature, it is one of the most valuable monuments of antiquity. It appears to have been the model of all Oriental writers. It is more pathetic than Homer's Odyssey; in almost every part it is of admirable beauty, and its conclusion draws forth tears of tenderness."

Carlyle, another skeptic, says of the Book of Job: "I call that,

apart from all theories, one of the grandest things ever written; and again, "Such living likenesses were never since drawn; sublime sorrow, sublime reconcilement; oldest choral melody in the heart of mankind-as soft and great as a summer midnight-as the music of this great world with its seas and stars-there is nothing written of equal literary value." Says the infidel Rousseau, the incomprehensible Rousseau: "Look at the books of the philosophers with all their pomp, and how inferior when compared with the gospel!"

Again the spirit, if not the letter of these precepts create the foundation of all that is mortal in song, for music in all the realms of its power has been enriched by the infusion of the spirit of this blessed book. The great pieces of the masters Handel, Hayden, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Mozart, were on Bible themes. Handel's grand piece is the "Messiah," and it is said of him that "he excelled in sacred music and reached by its inspiration the highest sublimity that is capable of attaining."

"The creation" has given Hayden his immortality. "I was long about it," said he, "for I wished it to last long." He was right. It will last forever. A few years before his death, the Dilletanti Society, of Vienna, concluded their winter concerts with a splendid performance of this "Creation" to which Hayden, then much weakened by age, was himself invited. Fifteen hundred persons, among whom were the nobility of Austria, and the elite of Europe, thronged the galleried Odeon, a towering cloud of witnesses, who, during the performance, were agitated like the ocean in a tempest, every flash of a solo or burst of a thundering chorus bringing showers of tears from their uplifted faces. In their midst sat the glorious old man, his soul swayed by the harmony he had himself evoked, until at the passage “It was light," overwhelmed by the current of his emotions, with hands and streaming eyes uplifted to heaven, he exclaimed "No, not from me, but from thence does all this come!" He was right, again, for that which is so well adapted to waft the soul to heaven doubtless first came on shining pinions from out its glittering portals. Beethoven's "Christ on the Mount of Olives," Mendelssohn's "Elijah" and "St. Paul" were from the same source, and Mozart,

the least religious of the great musicians, led nearer the spirit world in his later days, exclaimed in his dying moments, as the raptures of heaven were falling round him, "I just begin to see what might be done with music!" Heaven-inspired music has raised its loftiest notes and died away into its sweetest measures in unison with the melodies of the Bible.

CHRISTIANITY AND ART.

What has been said of literature and music is equally true of painting. The precepts of the Bible have illustrated all the galleries of art. The religion of the Bible is the prolific mother of the fine arts in their highest and purest development. "They lend to her," says Chateaubriand, "their terrestrial charms, and she inspires them with her divinity; music writes her hymns, painting describes her mournful triumphs, sculpture meditates with her over the tombstones, and architecture builds for her temples as sublime and mysterious as her own thoughts."

The Grecian writers record an incident, handed down from antiquity, which is treasured up as the origin of the art of painting. It was this: a young female, who, gazing upon the figure of her lover upon the opposite wall, sketched his outline with chalk, and thus produced from a transient fancy, an art of the most perfect illusion. But the Christian school has been under the tuition of a greater instructor, even the Divine Artist himself, who, moulding together a little dust in his magnetic hands, pronounces the words: "Let us make man in our image!" We have, then, received the first model from the hands of the infinite Jehovah, who presented to the world this splendid picture of spiritualized clay, animated by the breath of the Creator. There is in error, as well as in truth, a power which constrains silence; both, when carried to the extreme point, enforce conviction-the first negatively, the latter affirmatively. Therefore, when we hear that Christianity is the enemy of the arts, we remain silent from astonishment; for we are at the same time reminded of Michael Angelo, Raphael, the Caracci, Domenichino, Lesueur, Poussin, Couston and a number of other artists, whose names alone would fill volumes.

The Fathers of the Church lavished profuse encomiums upon paintings, such as the picture of "Abraham's Sacrifice," "The Last Judgment," "The Nativity," "The Flight in the Desert," "The Descent from the Cross," and hundreds of other sacred pictures. Who can but admire them? Christianity everywhere portrays to us virtue and misfortune; but polytheism is a description of unhallowed mirth and prosperity. As for our religion, it is our own history; it is for our perusal that these lessons from so many tragical scenes are preserved. We are figures in the pictures which the pencil has transmitted to us. The religion of Jesus Christ presents some of the grandest scenes which sculptors have carved or painters transferred to canvas.

CHRISTIANITY AND SCIENCE.

There is no conflict between Christianity and science. The conflict, if there is any, is between the theorists in theology and science. There are theologians who dabble in science to their hurt, and scientists who assail religion to their own shame. This need not be. Science and religion are handmaidens, but each has a different mission in the world. The one has to do primarily with matter, and is cool, hard, calculating and exact. The other has to do fundamentally with spirit, and is warm, zealous, tender and persuasive. Both certainly may be true, and as far as they are true, are equally entitled to respect. "The ascertained facts of natural science," says Dr. John B. Drury, "are as deserving of regard as those of philology or archæology. Some reject evolution, because it contradicts their interpretation of some passages of Scripture. Others declare the authority of the Bible overthrown, because their traditional views of Bible teaching are overthrown by scientific discoveries. It is more wise to let each interpret the other and to seek for the points of agreement. The Bible is the word of God, and nature is the work of God, and time will prove their entire agreement. We can wait with confidence for clearer light. It should not surprise or trouble us if we cannot at once bring every detail into accord, our knowledge being yet so imperfect. It is much in favor of the probable truthfulness of evolution if it is