To go beyond this certainly is not warranted by apostolic example.

This view removes the chief difficulty out of the way of infant Church-membership, and seems to us entirely to relieve the question. As the adult may enter the Church before regeneration, so may the infant. There is, therefore, no need for the sacerdotal magic of baptismal regeneration, nor for the invention of congenital regeneration. Parents and children may both enter before regeneration.

This, however, is a negative statement of the case. Both adult and infant may enter without regeneration, but how do they resemble each other on the positive side? What is their positive qualification for Church-membership? We answer, their common receptivity. Both are in the best possible condition to receive the lessons and the life of Christianity. The seeker of religion, laboring to renounce sin and waiting for the inward liberating word, has reduced sinful resistance to the minimum. He is eagerly, consciously, prayerfully receptive. And the infant, though all unconscious, is thoroughly and only receptive. The two differ in the mode of their receptivity, but not as to its substance. Both are as thoroughly receptive as is possible in their respective states.

Here then, as it seems to us, is a logically consistent theory of Church-membership which meets and refutes at once the Baptist, the High Church, and the modern Pelagian theories, and brings both infant and adult into the Church and into covenant with God on the same general platform. Neither is required to be regenerate before entering, and yet both are presented at the altar or at the font thoroughly receptive, ready for such holy lessons and influences as each is capable of receiving.

I am not conscious of having been drawn to these conclusions by my relations to the Methodist Episcopal Church, and yet, the conclusions being reached, I see that they are only a theory upon which Methodism has practiced from the beginning. The declaration of Methodism, persevered in for more than a hundred years, is, that "the only condition required of those who join us is a desire to flee the wrath to come and to be saved from their sins," and that this desire be evidenced by a certain course of life. The General Conference before the last attempted an innovation upon this original practice of the

Church. It puts the question to the candidate for admission into full membership, "Have you saving faith in our Lord Jesus Christ?" as though it meant to make an affirmative answer a condition of reception. But this it cannot mean without coming into conflict with the whole previous history of the Church, and indeed not without setting the Discipline of the Church against itself. Look at the fact that a probationer, socalled, in our Church enjoys all the means of grace just as a full member does. He can be baptized, which itself is admission into Christ's Church; he can come to the Lord's table, which is the sign of continued membership in the Church; he can attend the class-meetings and love-feasts, the peculiar privileges of Methodism, as well as the rest of the means of grace. Public admission into full membership is a formality, however solemn; the reception of the sacraments and sharing in the other means of grace are the realities of Church-membership. The probationer is, therefore, a real member of the Christian Church, and in order to be such nothing is demanded of him but an earnest receptivity, which is expected to lead on to the new birth. The theory we have propounded is, therefore, the theory of Methodism. It admits to Church-membership both infants and adults, without demanding that either shall have been previously regenerated. It will not repel the receptive, seeking adult, but will receive him at once, and let him come to consciousness of divine life in the Church. It will not repel the receptive infant of the Christian household, but will receive it and let it grow up into Christ, and come to assured experience among the sanctities of the house of God.

Having thus established what we venture to call a logically consistent theory of Church-membership, including both infants and adults, and shown that the practice of Methodism conforms to it, allow us to remark in conclusion that, as the family was constituted with a view to infant Church-membership, so infant Church-membership was meant for Christian nurture. This is its whole significance; without this it amounts to nothing but a list of names. The children of the Christian family are not merely to be trained for religion but in religion. Their depravity "does not stand, as the Pelagians do vainly talk, in the following of Adam," but is a dark and fearful reality in their nature, and yet, by means of their vital union with the Church

through the genuine Christian family, the process of renewal may begin almost with life; and the first aim of the Church ought to be to save all her own children. That is the ideal toward which we ought to work, and, in the growth of holiness and wisdom in the Church to which we must yet come. When it does come, the Church will double her numbers every few years out of her own bosom, and her power in the world will be well-nigh irresistible.*

ART. IV. MOHAMMEDANISM IN WESTERN AFRICA.

GEORGE SALE has prefixed to the title-page of his able translation of the Koran the following motto from Saint Augustin: "Nulla falsa doctrina cst, quae non aliquid veri permisceat." Recent discussions and investigations have brought the subject of Mohammedanism prominently before the reading public, and the writings of Weil, and Nöldeke, and Muir, and Sprenger, and Emanuel Deutsch have taught the world that "Mohammedanism is a thing of vitality, fraught with a thousand fruitful germs;" and have amply illustrated the principle enunciated by Saint Augustin, showing that there are elements both of truth and goodness in a system which has had so wide-spread an influence upon mankind, embracing within the scope of its operations more than one hundred millions of the human race; that the exhibition of gems of truth, even though "suspended in a gallery of counterfeits," has vast power over the human heart. The object of the present paper is to inquire briefly into the condition and influence of Mohammedanism among the tribes of Western Africa. Whatever may be the intellectual inferiority of the negro tribes, (if, indeed, such inferiority exists.) it is certain that many of these tribes have received the religion of Islam without its being forced upon them by the overpowering arms of victorious invaders. The quiet development and organization of a religious community in the heart of Africa has shown that negroes, equally with other races, are susceptible of moral and spiritual impressions, and of all the sublime possibilities of religion. The history of the progress of Islam in

* We insert the above article in cordial respect for the eminent character of the lamented writer, and not from any coincidence with its views.-Ed.

this country would present the same instances of real and eager mental conflict, of minds in honest transition, of careful comparison and reflection, that have been found in other communities where new aspects of truth and fresh considerations have been brought before them. And we hold that it shows a stronger and more healthy intellectual tendency to be induced by the persuasion and reason of a man of moral nobleness and deep personal convictions to join with him in the introduction of beneficial changes, than to be compelled to follow the lead of an irresponsible character who forces us into measures by his superior physical might.

Different estimates are made of the beneficial effects wrought by Islam upon the moral and industrial condition of Western Africa. Some are disposed to ignore altogether any wholesome result, and regard the negro Moslems as possessing as a general thing only the external appendages of a system which they do not understand. But such a conclusion implies a very superficial acquaintance with the state of things among the people. Of course cases are found of individuals here and there, of blustering zeal and lofty pretensions-qualities which usually exist in inverse proportion to the amount of sound knowledge possessed-whose views, so far as they can be gathered, are no more than a mixture of imperfectly understood Mohammedanism and fetichism; but all careful and candid observers agree that the influence of Islam in Central and West Africa has been, upon the whole, of a most salutary character. As an eliminatory and subversive agency, it has displaced or unsettled nothing as good as itself. If it has introduced superstitions, it has expelled superstitions far more mischievous and degrading. And it is not wonderful if, in succeeding to a debasing heathenism, it has in many respects made compromises, so as occasionally to present a barren hybrid character. But what is surprising is that a religion quietly introduced from a foreign. country, with so few of the outward agencies of civilization, should not in process of time have been altogether absorbed by the superstitions and manners of barbarous pagans. But not only has it not been absorbed, it has introduced large modifications in the views and practices even of those who have but a vague conception of its teachings.

Mungo Park, in his travels seventy years ago, every-where remarked the contrast between the pagan and Mohammedan

tribes of interior Africa. One very important improvement noticed by him was abstinence from intoxicating drinks. "The beverage of the pagan negroes," he says, "is beer and mead, of which they often drink to excess; the Mohammedan converts drink nothing but water." Thus throughout Central Africa there has been established a vast total abstinence society; and such is the influence of this society that where there are Moslem inhabitants, even in pagan towns, it is a very rare thing to see a person intoxicated. They thus present an almost impenetrable barrier to the desolating flood of ardent spirits with which traders from Europe and America inundate the coast, and of which we have recently had so truthful and sadly suggestive an account from a missionary at Gaboon. †

Wherever the Moslem is found on this coast, whether Jalof, Foulah, or Mandingo, he looks upon himself as a separate and distinct being from his pagan neighbor, and immeasurably his superior in intellectual and moral respects. He regards himself as one to whom a revelation has been "sent down" from heaven. He holds constant intercourse with the "Lord of worlds," whose servant he is. In his behalf Omnipotence will ever interpose in times of danger. Hence he feels that he cannot indulge in the frivolities and vices which he considers as by no means incompatible with the character and professions of the Kafir or unbeliever. Nearly every day his Koran reminds him of his high privileges, as compared with others, in the following terms:

Verily those who believe not, among those who have received the Scriptures, and among the idolaters, shall be cast into the fire of hell, to remain therein forever. These are the worst of creatures. But they who believe and do good works, these are the best of creatures; their reward with their Lord shall be gardens of perpetual abode.

Whoso taketh God and his apostle and the believers for friends, they are the party of God, and they shall be victorious. §

But there are no caste distinctions among them. They do not look upon the privileges of Islam as confined by tribal barriers. or limitations. On the contrary, the life of their religion is aggressiveness. They are constantly making proselytes. As early as the commencement of the present century the elastic * Park's Travels, chap. ii. Mr. Walker, in "Miss. Herald," Feb. 1870 Sura xcviii. § Sura v.