UNUM CORPUS SUMUS IN CHRISTO. THE AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE TUB GENERAL CHRISTIAN CONFERENCE, UNDER THE AUSPICES AND DIRECTION OF THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE FOR THE UNITED STATES, IN VVASHNGTON, D. C., DECEMBER 8, 1887, BY REV, JANIES NX. KING, D.D. CLARIFICATION I. Historical. II. We are a Christian Nation. III. Distinctive Christian Ideas. IV. Voluntary Support of Christian Institutions. V. ' Higher Education. VI. The Common Schools. VII. The Christian Sabbath as a Civil Institution. VIII. Financial and Material. IX. Numerical Evangelical Strength. X. Roman Catholicism. XI. Missions. XII. Utilized Energies of Womanhood. XIII. Race. XIV. Freedom of the Press. XV. Latent Powers. XVI. Divine Promises. XVII. The Power of the Holy Spirit. [Within the prescribed limits of a paper oil this occasion we can only give the points of a discussion, without any considerable elaboration.') THE OUR COUNTRY. I. Historical. The Christian resources of our country rightfully claim all there is of Christ and the Bible in our history, government, laws, institutions, homes, and hearts. And this embraces all that gives permanency to justice and efficacy to mercy and dignity to man and glory to God. We liave the cumulative resources of the education and Christian teaching of the near as well as of the remote past We are the heirs of modern as well as of ancient history. We have the powers at our dis- posal to dictate what the immediate and, with that, what the remote future of our country shall be. When De Tocqueville, some fifty years since, returned to France and reported in permanent form the results of his wise and philosophic study of our institutions, he said: “Although the travelers who have visited North America differ on many points, they all agree in remarking that morals are far more striet there than elsewhere. It is evident that, on this point, the Americans are very superior to their progenitors, the English.” This same political philosopher said: “The new States must be religious in order to be free. Society must be de- stroyed unless the Christian moral tie be strengthened in pro- portion as the political tie is relaxed ; and what can be done with a people who are their own masters if they be not sub- missive to Deity ? It cannot be doubted that in the United States the instruction of the people powerfully contributes to 4 the support of the democratic Republic ; and such must always be the case, I believe, where the instruction which enlightens the understanding is not separated from the moral education which amends the heart. “The sects which exist in the United States are innumerable. They all differ in respect to the worship which is due to the Creator; but they all agree in respect to the duties which are due from man to man. Christian morality is every-where the same. Christianity, by regulating domestic life, regulates the State. Every principle of the moral world is fixed and determinate. Religious zeal is warmed by the fires of patri- otism. “The greatest part of British America was peopled by men who, after having shaken off the authority of the pope, ac- knowledged no other religious supremacy. They brought with them into the New World a form of Christianity which I cannot better describe than by styling it a democratic and republican religion. This contributed powerfully to the estab- lishment of a republic and a democracy in public affairs; and, from the beginning, politics and religion contracted an alliance which has never been dissolved.” These utterances, as intelligent citizens, we do well to med- itate. Refugees from civil and religious persecutions founded the nation, and the legitimate offspring of such a parentage was civil and religious liberty. Almost every thing worth possessing in our institutions was secured for us by our Christian ancestors. Let us hesitate before we surrender the fortresses that are the foundations and defense of our insti- tutions. The State, under our form of government, historically and in fact, has to recognize Christian morality as the basisof its own existence. And, therefore, while it exists for secular and civil pur- poses, finds itself substantially the creature of Christianity; and whenever it has found itself engaged in a struggle for its • defense or existence it has never issued from the struggle until it has adopted for its war-cry some principle that has had its birth in Christian morality. Professor Atwater, of Prince- ton, has said: “Morality enters into the very being of the State as the impelling and final cause of its formation. Its o very end is to promote tlie prevalence of justice by self-im- posed laws, imposed in tlie exercise of its own tree activ- ity l»y its own constituted authorities, and not by any alien power.” Church and State co-exist in this land, but they are not wedded. They have their individual work to perform. The secular interests are guarded and promoted by the State ; the moral and religious interests by the Church. And yet so closely are they related to each other that the State depends for its existence upon the character given its citizenship by the Church, and the Church in turn receives protection from the State for its property and from interference with its wor- ship and instruction. Our experiment has proved that re- ligious freedom is the best friend of genuine Christianity, and that it is also the best foundation for a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.’' The voluntary principle is here the aggressive energy of Christianity. While we have no established national Church, with obligatory mem- bership, and no taxation for the support and promulgation of any creed, and while citizenship and political rights are inde- pendent of Church membership, we are not a nation without religion. The union of Church and State is a different ques- tion from the union of religion and the State. Union in both of these cases is possible, but separation of religion from the State is impossible. A learned law writer has said, “ Those things which are not lawful under any of the American con- stitutions may be stated thus: 1. Any law respecting an es- tablishment of religion. 2. Compulsory support, by taxation or otherwise, of religious instruction. 3. Compulsory attend- ance upon religious worship. 4. Restraints upon the free ex- ercise of religion according to the dictates of the conscience. 5. Restraints upon the expression of religious belief.” It is not toleration which is established in our system, but. religious equality. We accept this summary when construed in the light of our history. II. We Are a Christian Nation. Every government necessarily has some form of religion recognized in its state institutions, and is molded by its power. Historically we are a Christian nation. The divine 6 authority of the Bible is certainly taken for granted in the very make-up of our government. Every officer, from the President down to the lowest official, is inducted into office under the solemnity of an oath on that volume. The Chris- tian religion and the morality that it teaches, in one way or another, permeate all our institutions. Every thing in our political system indicates the recognition of the principle that the Bible is the common standard of right and wrong in morals. In all the evidences of the prevalence of relfgion in a nation we present an array most formidable. Look upon our Christian churches and Sabbath-schools; upon our col- leges and seminaries of Christian learning; upon the distribu- tion and study 0/ the Bible, upon the sacredness of the Sab- bath ; upon the unstinted beneficence and multiform charities — almost all the overflow of Christian love. Government requires the Christian oath as the standard both for entering upon the duties of citizenship and office-holding. American jurispru- dence, as well as English common law, rejects the testimony of atheists, because an oath has no meaning, no sanction, in the mouth of one who does not believe in a just God and a future retribution. Government appoints days of thanksgiving, fast- ing, and prayer. The Congress of the nation and the army and navy have their chaplains, with the salaries paid from the national treasury. States exempt church property from taxation and employ the ministers of religion in all their penal, reformatory, and beneficent institutions. The State punishes offenses against God and religion, such as Sabbath-breaking, blashphemy, perjury, sacrilege, religions imposture, and viola- tion of burial places. Now, legislation is the expression of human sentiment, and it would seem to be the shallowest kind of pettifogging to claim that the legislation in these directions of a Christian people was dictated by a desire simply to lessen human evils regardless of the fear and favor of God, whose expressed will taught man that they were not only evils but sins. Dr. Woolsey, in noticing the legislation in these directions, savs : “ On the whole, while laws against irreligious acts notice them in part on account of their human evils, I cannot help finding in them another element, proceeding from relig- ious feelings themselves, from reverence for the divine Being, 7 irrespective of their injury to human society. Man, in his legislation, cannot get rid of his sentiments; even in the later attempts at legislation, when the limits are more exactly drawn between that which il injurious to society in some spe- cific way and that which is sinful, the sentiment will assert its right in defining crime or enhancing punishment.” Christianity constitutes the most important part of the common law of the land. It is the strength of the law be- cause it is intrenched in the sentiments and affections of the people. President Dwight, of the Columbia College Law School, has recently written : “ It is well settled by decisions in the courts of the leading States of the Union that Christianity is a part of the common law of the State. Its recognition is shown in the administration of oaths in the courts of justice, in the rules which punish those who willfully blaspheme, in the observance of Sunday, in the prohibition of profanity, in the legal establishment of permanent charitable trusts, and in the legal principles which control a parent in the education and training of his children. One of the American courts states the law in this manner: ‘Christianity is and always has been a part of the common law of this State. Christianity without the spiritual artillery of European countries — not Christianity founded on any particular tenets — not Christianity with an established Church and titles and spiritual courts, but Chris- tianity with liberty of conscience to all men.’ “ The American States adopted these principles from the common law of England, rejecting such portions of the English law on this subject as were not suited to their customs and institutions. Our national development has in it the best and purest elements of historic Christianity as related to the government of States. Should we tear Christianity out of our law we would rob our law of its fairest jewels, we would deprive it of its richest treasures, we would arrest its growth, and bereave it of its capacity to adapt itself to the progress in cult- ure, refinement, and morality of those for whose benefit it properly exists.” Goldwin Smith says : “Not democracy in America, but free Christianity in America, is the real key to the study of the people and their institutions.” 8 III. Distinctive Christian Ideas. The distinctive Christian ideas and teachings of the Word of God belong to our invoice ; individual liberty and the increased value set upon human life, honor to womanhood, and her eleva- tion and emancipation, and the consequent elevation of man as this is recognized. From the moral necessities of the case the benevolence of the country is in Christian hands, or the off- spring of Christian thought. Only Christianity is benevolent. Modern legal beneficence had its birth in Christ. The con- nection is inseparable between the Christian Church and all those institutions which have the relief of human wants and the promotion of human well-being for their object. The spirit of Christian love foresaw that there would be permanent liabil- ities to suffering and want in this changeful and uncertain world of ours, which no extemporaneous charity could adequately ;meet. And this foresight has gladdened many a sad and weary heart, in spite of the abuses which human ignorance and indo- lence have permitted. Hence, out of Christian faith have arisen all over the land the institutions for the relief of sin- cursed and ignorance-cursed humanity. It is this power work- ing with us “with a force unchanged and unwasting, upon which democratic institutions are based, with educational, phil- anthropic and missionary enterprise. The hospitals for the sick, the asylums for the aged, the homeless and the orphan ; the consecrated ministry of skill and genius to the blind and the deaf, as the fruit of which the blind become readers by their fingers, while the old miracle of the Lord seems repeated as the dumb are taught to articulate; the ministry to the insane and the imbecile, and which has been carried in our time to such superb consummation ; the ministry to even the criminal classes, who might seem severed by their offenses from further claim upon society, but for whom the plans of prison reform are incessantly at work” — all these illustrate the exhaustless Christian resources born of the new conception of man’s duty to man. Dr. Storrs writes: “ In Virgil’s fourth eclogue, written, per- haps, forty years before Christ, he hails with song the birth of a child who is to restore the Golden Age. His figures seem caught from the prophecies of Isaiah. The boy of whom Virgil 9 is supposed to have written was imprisoned by Tiberius, and starved to death in his solitary dungeon. The child of whom Isaiah wrote now leads, in triumph toward unreached ages, the aspiring and hopeful civilization of the world. In 1 1 is name is the hope of mankind. In the sign of his cross Christendom conquers.” This Christianity “has shown in itself the power to reconcile, to liberate, and to. set forward nations, with a steadiness and a strength which had certainly before been unknown in the world.” “ It has never been more signally declared than in recent years in amended legislations, expanded philanthropies, widened missions. It has made the enlightened and aspiring Christen- dom of to-day the fact of chief importance, therefore, in the progress of mankind; its true glory is that it has wiped the tears of sorrow from the eyes of its disciples and has comforted hearts which were desolate with grief; that it has given celestial visions to those who dwelt beneath thatched roofs and has taught a happier humility to the proud ; that it has shed vic- torious tranquillity on those who have seen the shadows of death closing around them, and has caused to be written over their graves the lofty words of promise and cheer, ‘I am the Resur- rection and the Life.’ “This is the diadem of this religion, sparkling with gems lucid and vivid, such as never were set in any philosophic or poetic crown. Because of these effects, and not merely for its influences upon cosmical progress, men have loved this religion with a passionate intensity beside which all other enthusiasms were weak. Because of these, if for nothing else, it will live in the world till human hearts have ceased to beat.” All beneficent conceptions of the fatherhood of God and! the brotherhood of man had their orjgin in the Christian, religion, and in their hold upon man constitute a part of our • resources. The Christian conceptions of God. of man, of man’s duty toward God, of man’s duty to man in politics and society,, and the duties of nations toward each other, are the germs, from which spring all the beneficent powers of the highest civilization. Christianity improves man’s condition by regenerating him, 10 and does not seek to regenerate him by improving his condition. It has forced upon the mass of our populations the sense of the necessity of righteousness in the spirit, as the source and the safeguard of righteousness in conduct, and has lifted into new purity the most depraved, who seemed abandoned of God and man. When its perfect purposed supremacy in the world is accom- plished, there will be societies and governments as pure as the Sermon on the Mount, and as supreme over sin and evil as the incarnate Lord. IV. Voluntary Support of Christian Institutions. While we are a Christian nation, absolute separation of Church and State is one of our principal resources of strength. Voluntary conditions have been proven here to be the best promoters of a pure religious life among the people, in that Christianity here has made greater progress in an equal period than in any other land or age. Voluntary Protestantism is the very genius of republican government. Dr. Dorner, after visiting this country in 1873, said : “ Columbus was encouraged by the hope that the new land would serve the honor of our Redeemer. This is not accomplished in the sense of Columbus — through the conversion of the heathen — but in a far higher sense. The discovery of America has a connection in time and spirit with the Reformation, for, as it were, a new land arose from out the sea to serve as a bulwark and a reserve for the Church of the Reformation. The Americans feel already that they have a special mission ; namely, to march in their fresh, earnest way, into the fight against the skeptical and the su- perstitious, at the same time showing -Christianity in a new light, as a living force which needs no outward human aid in order to make itself respected, but which free spirits most need.” Dr. Schaff says : “ In the United States, where all denomina- tions are equal before the law, and stand on the same voluntary footing of self-support and self-government, the Christian activ- ities keep pace with the enormous tide of immigration and the intellectual, social, and commercial growth of the people; and churches, schools, colleges, seminaries, libraries, home and 11 foreign missionary societies, and all sorts of benevolent institu- tions are there, by the joint zeal of the different denominations, multiplying with a rapidity that has no parallel in the annals of the past.” V. Higher Education. The higher educational resources of the country are largely under Christian control. There are 370 colleges and universi- ties in the United States, with 3,000 professors instructing 35.000 students. About SO per cent, of the students are in de- nominational colleges, and 94 per cent, of the students in de- nominational colleges are evangelical. Institutions for higher education in the United States, under control of evangelical churches, have in attendance, so far as can be ascertained (with at least one tenth not reporting), over 58.000 students, with property and endowment funds valued at over $34,000,000. It is possibly not an extravagant estimate to put the number of youth who are students in the advanced educational institutions of the churches at 175,000. There are 120 theological seminaries of evangelical churches in the United States, with 4,000 students, and the rate of per cent, of increase of students in literary and theological insti- tutions over the increase of the population is higher than at any period in our history. VI. The Common Schools. Fenelon says : “ Moral education is the bulwark of the State.” The idea of the common school is traced to an act of the colonial legislature of Massachusetts in 1642. At first it was a strictly Church school, in charge of the minister of the township, and the children were carefull} r taught in the orthodox faith. The school-master was next to the minister. The religious require- ments were incorporated in the laws. The present and former generations of the population have been educated in schools that were never merely secular. In fact, we have not attempted purely secular education until recently, and that only to a very limited extent. While there has been no national system of public schools in the past, and while uniformity has proved it- 12 self to be, perhaps, both impracticable and undesirable under our form of government, it is to be hoped that the Christian senti- ment of the people will see to it that the future develops no purely secular system of education for our citizenship. And while the local-option plan, leaving the whole question of the character of the instruction to the local school boards, to be de- cided by them according to the composition and wants of the community, is likely to prevail, it is to be hoped that the friends of Christian morality will come to the defense of the right of the children and youth to a kind of instruction that recognizes their responsibility and immortality, and reminds them of the fact that our institutions are the fruit of the Chris- tian faith. The public-school system, pressed into secular uniformity, cannot meet the moral needs of our mixed population, and can- not meet the demands upon a Christian people or promote the interests of genuine Christian morality. Christianity must solve the question of the education of the masses upon Christian, and not upon secular grounds. We are about convinced that the time has come when we must demand that the State, assuming to teach its citizens as a preparation for the responsibilities of citizenship, must not only recognize Christianity as the religion of the people, in comformity with historic and judicial precedent, but must re- quire the teaching of Christian morality wherever education is supported by taxation or by State grant. And not only must we insist upon the common schools teach- ing Christian morality", but when the State (as with us) enters upon the questionable work of higher education, and seeks to prepare teachers for their work in the common or higher schools, then we must put the salt of Christian morality in at these fountain-heads or make up our minds to forfeit the respect both of God and of good men, and invite a reign of irresponsibility and immorality. We are told that history gnd precedent have nothing to do with this question in its present demands for solution. As well might the individual say that birth and educational opportunity have nothing to do with determining present duty. We are told that we must keep retreating until we reach tenable ground. This is the cry of the enemies of righteous govern- 13 ment and of humanity, and it ought not to be echoed by the level's of goodness or of God. Is it not time for the populations that give character to our civilization and stability to our Government to assert them- selves? Is it not time to return to the foundation-principles upon which our liberties and integrity as a nation rest? Is it not time to banish this sickly sentimentality that, under the hypocritical concession of religious freedom, retreats in the presence of secularism, of Jesuitism, and of atheism ? VII. The Christian Sabbath as a Civil Institution. Deluz, of Geneva, says: “At the very foundation of the question of the Lord’s Day, which we seek to enforce, is noth- ing less than physical and spiritual health, family and Christian life, national prosperity, and the advance of the kingdom of God.” We have the Sabbath with its sanctions protected by law in almost all of the States. The civil Sunday could not stand a decade without its Christian sanction by the consciences of the God-fearing whose power placed the legal safeguards on the statute books. It is a physical boon; it enhances social and family life; it saves many from incessant groveling in low and depressing employment ; it breaks in upon the anxious restless ambitions and rivalries of life ; it tones down distinctions between rich and poor, capitalists and laborers; it gives breathing-time which, at the least, may be used aright. It is used by multitudes as an opportunity for religious duties, where they are met by the Word of God, believe and are saved. As a witness for God, a memorial of bliss and a promise of enduring rest pro- vided by our loving heavenly Father, the day itself possesses power for good. VIII. Financial and Material. It is estimated that with our agricultural, mining, and man- ufacturing resources at all adequately developed we can sustain and enrich a population of 1,000,000,000. Our present wealth as a nation is estimated at over $50,000,000,000, constituting 14 us, while the youngest, the richest nation on the globe. At least $10,000,000,000 of this wealth is in the hands of members of evangelical churches. Emerson says: “We live in a new and exceptional age. America is another name for opportunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of the Divine Providence in behalf of the human race.” Providence has placed the material as well as the spiritual resources within our grasp, and has promised to back us with omnipotence. It is for us to say what shall be the issue of the experiment. Dr. Strong says : “ For Christians to apprehend their true re- lation to money, and the relations of money to the kingdom of Christ and its progress in the world, is to find the key to many of the great problems now pressing for solution. Money is power in the concrete. It commands learning, skill, expe- rience, wisdom, talent, influence, numbers. It represents the school, the college, the Church, the printing-press, and all evan- gelizing machinery. It confers on the wise man a sort of omnipresence.” Dr. Buslmell says: “Talent has been Christianized already on a large scale. The political power of States and king- doms has been long assumed to be. Architecture, arts, consti- tutions, schools and learning have been largejy Christianized. But the money power, which is one of the most operative and grandest'of all, is only beginning to be; though with promising tokens of a finally complete reduction to Christ and the uses of his kingdom. That day, when it comes, is the morning, so to speak, of the new creation.” No man has been authorized by the Master to dictate to man the measure of his capacity to give money. The basis of Christ’s judgment of man’s stewardship is not what a man gives, but what he withholds. An enlightened mind, a cultured con- science, and a sanctified heart, can only determine the extent of the Christianized moneyed resources of our country. The consciousness of stewardship in the use of money was never either relatively or actually so general as now, implying a rising tide that hastens on to flood ; proving the potency of Christian love in human hearts to conquer selfishness and to create a spirit of sacrifice. 15 IX. Numerical Evangelical Strength. The evangelical churches number 112,714, with 83,854 ministers and 12,132,051 communicants. Multiply this number of communicants by 3], tbe lowest multiple used by discreet statisticians, to get the number of adherents of evan- gelical Christianity in our country, and we have 42,404.278. These churches have accommodations for 25,000,000 people, with a property valuation of $600,000,000. X. Roman Catholicism. This is an Evangelical Alliance, but in estimating tbe Chris- tian resources of our country we cannot in justice ignore the Latin or Roman Church. It has vitality in so far only as it is Christian. And this is equally true of Protestantism. Its wholesome restraints upon ignorant multitudes, its benevo- lences, its ministrations to the sick, afflicted and poor, and its care for neglected childhood are all commendable. It lias already in multitudes of its membership and adherents yielded to the molding influences of the public schools, and to the transforming power of republican institutions. It is far better for its adherents to be under its influence than to be unchurched and unbelieving. Say what we may con- cerning its defects, deplore its corruptions and traditions of men and its political power, yet multitudes of those who bow at its altars are there because they are feeling after the Christ ; and can we doubt that he emerges from the mummeries and, putting aside the intervening priest, touches the bruised souls and feeds tbe hungry hearts ? The Roman Catholic Church has in our country 154 hos- pitals with 30,000 inmates; 320 asylums with 40,000 inmates; it cares for 20,000 orphans ; it has 124 Jesuit and other col- leges and institutions of high grade with 19,000 students ; it has 577,000 students of all classes under its instruction, and its church buildings and other edifices number about 4,000, with a church seating capacity of 3,000,000. It claims as members and adherents 7,000,000 of our popu- lation, and it has property valued at $70,000,000. 16 XI. Missions. The demands for Christian work of our extended domain and the composite character of our population have so broadened our scope that our people are more and more realizing their obligations to send the Gospel to all the foreign nations that contribute to our population. And every dollar, and Bible, and missionary we send abroad, in accordance with the divine law, increases the wealth of 'the remaining resources. The invoice of our Christian resources in organized form can only be approximately tabulated. Local, national and denomina- tional societies for home, city and foreign missions, for the pub- lishing and distributing of tracts and Bibles, for promoting Sunday-schools, for advancing temperance and education, for providing outlets for all conceivable forms of benevolence, utilizing a mighty host of workers — of these the onl} r accurate record is kept on high. The foreign missionary societies of the evangelical churches have in the field 2,500 missionaries; the laborers of all classes number over 13,000; the communicants, 332,000; mission scholars in their schools, 152,000 ; and they now contribute about $3,000,000 annually for their support. About $4,000,000 annually are contributed for home mis- sions. This is an inadequate representation, because it does not include the uninvoiced amounts given by local home mis- sionary organizations, and individual church efforts in the cities and centers 'of population. The steady movement upward in benevolence places momentum in the invoice of our resources. In 1850 the receipts for home and foreign missions were $1,232,000. In 1886, $7,000,000 ; an increase calling for gratitude, but not for special congratulation, and certainly not for boasting, when we consider the undoubted fact that about $10,000,000,000 of the wealth of the country is in the hands of members of evan- gelical churches. It must be in justice, however, remembered that a multitude of these church members are the subjects of missionary benefactions, and the limited number who do give are also contributors to all other benevolent and philan- thropic causes. 17 XII. The Utilized Energies of Womanhood. The broadest opportunities for the exercise of the gifts and graces of Christian womanhtnd constitute one of our mightiest modern resources of strength. The mourners and comforters of the race, as women have always been, making up two thirds of the membership of the Christian Church, they were the last faithful friends of the Nazarene at Calvary and the first preachers of his resurrection, hi leading souls to Christ, in self-sacrificing ministrations to the diseased, the poor and the sorrow-stricken, in mission fields, in molding the character of youth, in temperance, and in all reforms based on the well- being of man, and in mitigating the horrors of war, genuine Christian womanhood is exalting the gospel ideal of steward- ship, and that without unscxing herself or trenching upon the well-defined scriptural prerogatives of man. Aside from the multiform works of Christian women in home directions, women’s foreign missionary boards are now supporting about 1,000 missionaries and teaching about 20,000 pupils, and ministering to a great multitude of sick and distressed, in heathen lands. XIII. Race. Christianized Anglo-Saxon blood, with its love of liberty, its thrift, its intense and persistent energy, and personal independ- ence, is the regnant force in this country; and that is a most pregnant fact, because the concededly most important lesson in the history of modern civilization is, that God is using the Anglo-Saxon to conquer the world for Christ by dispossessing feebler races and assimilating and molding others. Dr. N. G. Clark says : “ The English language, saturated with Christian ideas, gathering up into itself the best thought of all the ages, is the great agent of Christian civilization throughout the world, at this moment, affecting the destinies and molding the character of half the human race.” In our country, the ends of the earth, with all forms of civil- ization, come to us, and this Anglo-Saxon blood, baptized by the Spirit of God, can impart its own virtue to the amalgam, producing “ a more powerful type of man than has hitherto ex- isted, a civilization grander than any the world has known,” 18 and that, not as the result of conquest by wars, but conquest by assimilation. XIV. The Freedom of the Press. Evangelical Christianity must gladly accept and utilize the irrepressible publicity of the nineteenth century, never reviling nor restricting the liberty” of the press, except when it com- mits offenses against natural rights. It is one of our principal sources of power. The right solution of social and political questions closely connected with Christianity necessitates that every voice should be heard save that of open and criminal re- volt. Repression would retard solutions. De Pressense says : “ Perfect liberty of thought is of the first necessity, not only for what is good and true, but for that which is false and bad.” Jeremiah records for God : “ The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream : and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord.” Error refutes itself in the act of showing itself. A hidden evil is the only incurable one. Milton said: “Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose upon the earth, so truth be among them we need not fear. Let her and falsehood grapple; who ever knew her to be put to the worst in a free and open encounter?” The religious press, and very much of the work of the secu- lar press, in furnishing religious intelligence and in the discus- sion of public questions from the Christian stand-point, as many, if not most of them, do, a9 educators of the public conscience, are among the most 'powerful agencies for Christian civil- ization. There are published in the United States nearly 15,000 newspapers and periodicals, about 9,000 being published weekly. The entire circulation would probably reach 25,000,000 of copies, while the entire number of copies would exceed in a single year 2,000,000,000. Of religious newspapers and periodicals there are about 700, circulating more than 120,000,000 of copies annually. The relative increase in the circulation of the religious press is in advance of the secular press. 19 The receipts of the religious publication houses of the evan- gelical churches have reached an annual average of $5,000,000. XV. Latent Powers. * Among our resources we must count the latent power in the individual Christian lives, which is mightier than the developed and revealed. This is also true of the latent power in num- bers and in capacity for work in our churches, and in the latent financial resources of our membership. Let the nominally Christian people of this country go to praying, and then go to living and acting in accordance with their prayers, provided only they close their praying with the Lord’s Prayer, and this nominally Christian nation would speedily become actually Christian, and instead of assembling to determine how best to defeat the devil, we should soon assemble to welcome the de- scending Lord back to a world that crucified him, but now made ready to crown him. Pentecostal blessing would liberate all these latent energies. When shall these dry bones live and move? XVI. The Divine Promises. The Christian resources of our country are made up of the invoice of all of Christ's possessions in this goodly land, and of all of Christ’s promises. “The kingdoms of this world” are his. “All power is given unto” him “in heaven and in earth;” but the question is, How much does man, the steward, concede to Christ, the Master and proprietor? We must not forget that we are to act as though we believed the fact that all our resources are essentially Christian. They belong to God, whether we admit it or not. “ This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” “All things are possible to him that belie veth.” “If God be for us who can be against us ? ” “ How shall he not with him freely give us ail things?” Inspiration perfectly answers its own question. “For all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come ; all are yours ; and ye are Christ’s ; and Christ 20 is God’s.” No wonder the Apostle cries out in holy triumph in the face of foes, “ I can do all things through Christ which strengthened! me.” Ilis abiding presence inspires us; the memory of his past dealings impels us ; the promise of his coming draws us. W e are encompassed about with omnipotence. Let individual Chris* tians stand shoulder to shoulder, not inquiring of one another whence we came, and how we are called, but rather what we desire and whither we are tending. Our symbol a Cross, stand- ing luminous by the side of an empty grave. Hoc signo vinces. “ Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” When these truths become the common experience of individual Christians the millennial light will burst over the mountains. XVII. The Power of the Holy Spirit. “When Jesus ascended up on high and led captivity cap- tive,” he “ gave gifts unto men.” “ When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, he shall testify of me, and ye also shall bear witness.” “Ye also.” The Iloly Spirit is not our accompaniment; we are his. The office-work of the Holy Spirit is more intelligently and more extensively recognized in religious effort, as the sole de- pendence of the Church for effective work, than has been the case in centuries. This has given tone and character and po- tency to religious experience, and heroism and endurance to religious zeal. It has inspired the thought and experience of the priesthood of believers with its personal dignity and personal responsibility, taught by evangelical Protestantism, and has expanded it into spiritual and practical results, with the higest type of piety and personal godliness yet attained by relatively large numbers in any age. It has inspired this con- ference, with the universal approval of good men, of all vari- eties of evangelical thought of the new plans and purposes for utilizing dormant Christian energies, and Christianizing the thoughtless and neglected, and for massing the forces of right- cousness. Resources of history, character, money, machinery, educa- 21 tion, numbers, the press, a chosen race, and the divine prom- ises, are all necessary instruments, hut they are strengthless and useless for good, either singly or in combination, until baptized by the Holy Spirit ; then, singly, they take on strength, and, massed, they become as omnipotent as God. These human appliances, wielded by the Iloly Spirit sent by Christ, shall become like him, sweet in sympathy, pure in holiness, vital with love. If from this time forth in this capi- tal city, where is located the fountain of our country’s law and the throne of our nation’s power, if in this favored land the saved sons of men would put on the whole armor of God ; it all the daughters of Zion would clothe themselves with the beautiful garments of salvation, and, baptized by the Holy Spirit, would move together for the renovation of a heritage once uncursed with sin, no pen or pencil could picture the result. Godless temples would tumble, incense burning to unknown gods would be quenched ; air polluted with blas- phemy would be purified ; ignorance would flee away ; the floodgates of intemperance would be closed ; the fires of pas- sion would be quenched, and fountains of bitter tears would be dried up. Every hill-top would glimmer with the light of truth and every valley show the temple of our God. “ In the wilderness would waters break out, and streams in the desert, and the ransomed of the Lord would come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their head, and sorrow and sighing would flee away.” “Come, Holy Ghost, our hearts inspire; Let ns thine influence prove; Source of the old prophetic fire, Fountain of life and love.” In our centennial year the French people proposed to place, and have since placed, at the gateway of our commerce, upon an island in New York Harbor, a bronze statue of lib- erty more than a hundred feet in height, standing upon a pedestal of the same elevation. This majestic statue towers by day against the sky, while by night streams of light radiate from the head. It is the first object seen by those who come down to the sea in ships as they approach our coasts from every clime, telling them the story of our free 22 institutions. Let us pray that Jesus, the great Liberator of our race, may so get the mastery in this nation that the immigrant coming to our shores and entering the gateway of our liberties shall find his eyes looking first upon works of righteousness ; and that the first sound that greets his ears shall be a voice crying, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” Then shall we not only rejoice in the centennial of our national liberties, but in the millennium of Gospel liberty.