life, and strive wisely and bravely to bring out all the resources of our soil and our industry. We must remember that peace, like war, and in some respects more than war, needs sagacity and generalship and combination. We are, in a certain sense, not merely a nation, but a family of states; and although we have no present fear of a new rupture between the states, we are not to forget that the war spirit may exist wherever hatred exists, and that it is the part of good citizens and good men to reconstruct the good temper and the good neighborhood of the states, as well as to keep the peace outwardly.

Perhaps we may call our own true peace policy a part of the international code that the world is looking for; and surely, if we are judicious in so adapting our laws, as, for example, our laws of electing Presidents and distributing the civil service, and regulating the industry of the country in such a way as to secure the tranquillity and prosperity of our republic, we can with a good face say our word of reconciliation to the belligerent nations of Europe. If we are one nation from many states, we may make our national motto a text for preaching to them the need of making less account of the old boundary lines, and carrying on the good work that has already been begun of constructing or reconstructing the United States of Europe. There probably has never been seen such an example of the spirit of conciliation in the victorious power as in this country within the last twelve years; and the heart of our people goes with the President in removing the last traces of the strife by recalling the national troops from the states most suspected of insubordination. There is good hope, certainly, of taking out the old roots of bitterness; and what we need more than anything else, to this end, is the bringing of the most judicious and patriotic men of all places and parties together to work for the common welfare. It will be well if positive Christian sentiment can be made to join in this service, especially that sentiment which feels that all men need to forgive as they need to be forgiven, and that our very frailty, self-conceit,

and self-will should further the very unity which they at first threaten, by teaching us that we are all very much alike in our perversity, and we ought all to agree in our sense of sin and our prayer for God's grace before the mercy-seat of the Eternal Judge. It is not necessary to advocate the union of church with the state in order to maintain the idea of being Christian in all relations, and to rebuke the folly and the wrong of so separating religion from civil life as to leave the affairs of government and the relations of rulers and parties wholly to worldly policy and human passion and selfishness. May God keep us and our America in his Spirit.

The outlook towards Europe is not at present very auspicious of peace; yet it is not well to accept the darkest prophecy as the wisest. It is not wise to take it for granted that we are on the eve of a great religious war, whether the belligerent parties are held to be the champions of the Romish church and the Protestant nations, or the Greek-Russian church and the combined powers of Turkey and Islam. As to the imagined war in behalf of Ultramontanism, there is no nation that is willing to march under that banner; and France, which could not keep the pope's temporal crown on his head when it was there, can have no motive to fight to put it back in a war which would endanger the pope's spiritual authority that power which no nation now ventures to assail by arms in this age of general toleration.

As to the Russian war with Turkey, there is no assurance that it will bring all Europe into the fray-little prospect of its being a war of all Christendom with Islam. Christendom is not inclined to elect Russia as her champion, or to make the Czar her commander of the faithful. The most civilized nations of Europe know too well the oppression of Poland and the genius of the Russian church and state to expect the millennium of peace and virtue from the conquest of Constantinople by Russia. It is probable, indeed, that the Turk must quit Europe before our century closes, and that his departure will come from other forces than bayonets and cannon, torpedoes and ironclads. If the Ter Sanctus,

as we hope and pray, is to be heard again in the church of Santa Sophia which Justinian erected, it must be under the influence of laws not less mighty and sacred than those which Justinian dedicated to the Christian God in his Institutes. If the Christian is to take the place of the Turk, it must be by restoring the manhood which was lost by the superstition and monkery that opened the way of Mohammed the Second to the city of Constantine. We must wait and watch for the new civilization that is to restore the Byzantine empire to Christendom.

We may justly add in conclusion, that these views of the wrong and the madness of war and the wisdom and duty of peace have received new confirmation from the events of the past year in both hemispheres. What an opportunity the great powers of Europe lost in not compelling Turkey to stop her misrule by peaceful arbitration, and what a frightful tragedy is the war-record which chronicles wounds, death, and demoralization in both contending nations, with little prospect of relief.

Brighter is the promise of our America. God bless our wise and worthy President, and his principle and his policy

of peace.

ARTICLE V.

THEORIES OF ATONEMENT.

BY PROF. JOHN MORGAN, D.D., OBERLIN, OHIO.

No. II.

In order to a clearer insight into at least some parts of this great subject, Atonement, I propose to review some of the theories which have extensively prevailed in the church, or have been proposed by theologians. Whatever of error there may have been in these theories, the doctrine of the atonement effected by Christ has under them exerted a glorious and beneficent influence, has been the deliverance from sin and condemnation of innumerable souls; and the theories have, therefore, naturally been most precious and sacred in the view of the beneficiaries. It cannot be in the heart of any good man to treat such feelings with disrespect, or not to cherish a kindly interest in them. But these respectful and tender feelings should not stand in the way of an honest and thorough examination of the theories, and a frank expression of the views, favorable or unfavorable, to which such an examination may seem to lead us.

In the primitive church there was no formal theory of the atonement. There is no such theory exhibited in the Scriptures. In no theoretic way it is merely said that Christ is our propitiation; that God has set him forth as such; that he died for our sins; that he is our ransom; that the saints wash their robes and make them white in his blood as the Lamb of God. The Scriptures leave the facts to their own influence. So the primitive church received the atonement, and rejoiced in the Saviour" with joy unspeakable and full of glory."

CHRIST'S DEATH A RANSOM PAID TO THE DEVIL.

The first theory that obtained extensive recognition was, that man having become through his sins the lawful captive

of the devil, and he being unwilling to let him off without ransom, and a ransom most costly, Christ the Son of God consented to ransom man with his life; that the devil gladly accepted this, hoping to contrive to retain his influence over man's heart; but that Christ outwitted the devil, by his death gaining a preponderating influence over the race.

This, I think, is the substance of the theory; but though for ages the theory of minds of the first order, no one believes in it now. It lies in the rubbish-heap of ancient nonsense. It is interesting to inquire how men, believing in such a theory, could work their moral nature under it.

1. It represented the deep guilt of man. He could not be the lawful captive of Satan unless he deserved to be so.

2. It taught that man is practically incompetent to save himself without a Redeemer.

3. It represented that God so loved the world as to give his only begotten Son to save it; and it presented also the great love of Christ for the race of man.

4. There was something interesting to the human mind in the respect it represented God as showing to the supposed rights of the devil, giving him his due.

5. It mainly left the facts of the gospel history to their natural influence.

We can hardly imagine that there were not many minds to which this strange theory was a stumbling-block. Be that as it may, we have all come to see that Satan could not have obtained a rightful power over any creature of God, and especially by the perpetration of the most outrageous wickedness. We see that to pay him for the surrender of man such a ransom, or any ransom at all, would have been not divine wisdom, but consummate folly.

This theory has hardly anything in common with the natural import of sin-offerings, unless the scape-goat be considered as an offering to placate the devil; which, though accepted by some modern writers, is received by comparatively a very small number. And the theory does not repre