them, except in form. It is strange and uncandid to say, that we UN-church those, who (in our sense of the word) do not even pretend to be Churches. This charge of want of charity generally proceeds, too, from those who ought certainly to be the very last to bring it forward. They are our commonest assailants who themselves so gloomily narrow the circle of possible salvation, as to affirm that all shall inevitably perish, except that exceedingly small number whom they esteem in their peculiar sense, “spiritual,” and “converted.” We, on the contrary, whatever we think of the Church’s Privileges, hold with St. Peter, that “in every nation he that feareth GOD, and worketh righteousness, is accepted of HIM;” {105a} and yet we are thought “uncharitable.” Far from condemning on so tremendous a scale as they will venture to do, we pronounce no judgment personally on any:—and yet they call us “uncharitable.” Doubtless we see unspeakable danger in the very idea of differing or dissenting and departing from the CHURCH {105b} as descended from the Apostles of CHRIST; but methinks there is no bigotry in saying that.—“Now may the GOD of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one toward another, according to CHRIST JESUS!” And now, at the close of this review of the objections urged by vain man against the firm, abiding truth of GOD, it seems impossible wholly to repress the feeling which rises, on looking back on such melancholy indications of mental perversity.—The view of a series of such objections to such a Truth, accompanied as they are by a guilty host of unnamed minor objections, taking shelter beneath them, is almost enough to dishearten the Minister of CHRIST. It seems as if there were arranged side by side all the elaborate tokens of a Father’s most tender care for a reckless family; and of their thankless contempt for his love and watchfulness. The very design of CHRIST’S Ascension was to give “Apostles and prophets” to his people; {106} but now there are objections to them all.—It were surely a revolting task to take by the hand the young but corrupted heir of some princely domain, and lead him through the stately halls of his fathers, and find him heartlessly sneering at their massy and unbroken grandeur, and treating with a rude contempt the mighty things and the noble of past times—“Objecting” to every thing! Mocking the now useless towers and unneeded battlements—Objecting to them as ‘contrivances of cowardice.’ Or pointing to the chapel, to the Cross, or to some ancestral effigy of Prayer—“Objecting” to them as symbols of decaying superstition! It would be miserable to witness such a wretched lack of natural piety in the heart of a child.—But is there not some parallel to it in what is seen among us, whensoever we “go about our Spiritual Zion, telling the towers thereof; marking well Her bulwarks, and considering Her palaces, to tell it to the generation following?” We