We feel it right to call the attention of the Christian reader to this subject just now, seeing that the enemy is making a vigorous effort to revive the monastic system in our midst under various forms. Indeed some have had the temerity to tell us that monastic life is the only true form of Christianity. Surely, when such monstrous statements are made and listened to, it becomes us to look at the whole subject in the light of Scripture, and to call upon the advocates and adherents of monasticism to show us the foundations of the system in the Word of God. Where, within the covers of the New Testament, is there any thing, in the most remote degree, like a monastery, a convent, or a sisterhood? Where can we find an authority for any such office as that of an abbot, an abbess, or a lady-superior? There is absolutely no such thing, nor the shadow of it; and hence we have no hesitation in pronouncing the whole system, from foundation to top-stone, a fabric of superstition, alike opposed to the voice of nature and the voice of God: nor can we understand how any one, in his sober senses, could presume to tell us that a monk or a nun is the only true exponent of Christian life. Yet there are those who thus speak, and there are those who listen to them, and that, too, in this day when the full, clear light of our glorious Christianity is shining upon us from the pages of the New Testament.[13] [13] We must accurately distinguish between "_nature_" and "_flesh_." The former is recognized in Scripture; the latter is condemned and set aside. "Doth not even nature itself teach you?" says the apostle. (1 Cor. xi. 14.) Jesus beholding the young ruler in Mark x, "loved him" although there was nothing but nature. To be without natural affection is one of the marks of the apostasy. Scripture teaches that we are dead to sin, not to nature, else what becomes of our natural relationships? But, blessed be God, we are called to obedience. We are called to "hear"--called to bow down, in holy and reverent submission, to authority. And here we join issue with infidelity and its lofty pretensions. The path of the devout and lowly Christian is alike removed from superstition on the one hand and from infidelity on the other. Peter's noble reply to the council, in Acts v, embodies, in its brief compass, a complete answer to both.--"We ought to obey God rather than men." We meet infidelity, in all its phases, in all its stages, and in its very deepest roots, with this one weighty sentence, "We ought to _obey_;" and we meet superstition, in every garb in which it clothes itself, with the all-important clause, "We ought to _obey God_."