favorable to the execution of the law itself. It is not sufficient solely to decree a reform; minds must be won over in its favor. It is often this kind of service that the House of Lords renders to England; its opposition serves to increase the popularity of the laws that it rejects.

Moreover, neither of the Chambers should be armed with a definitive veto. If a bill is voted twice in two successive ses-sions by one of the two Chambers, and twice rejected by the other, the members of the two bodies ought to meet in joint session, where the question would be decided by the majority, as is required by the Constitution of Brazil.

However, in order that the upper Chamber may be able to fulfill its useful and indispensable mission, it should represent neither wealth nor a stern conservative spirit, but wisdom, knowledge, tradition, foresight, and, in a word, the qualities that give loftiness of ideas and knowledge of facts. Such has been until now the character of the Senate of the United States, which enjoys more authority, and even popularity, than the lower House of Congress. And this Senate was not instituted to hem the course of progress, but rather to illuminate its course, and it has never been accused of retrograde tendencies.

In all urban communities in the Middle Ages the power emanated from the people, just as our modern institutions now wish it; but they represented the principal social elements, especially the trades constituted into guilds, not a shapeless crowd, and this régime was more really representative than ours.

The French Senate is better constituted than the Chamber, because the electoral body that appoints it is more intelligent than universal suffrage. We might add to it representatives elected from the grand organized centers of the intellectual and economic activity of the country, as academies, faculties, chambers of commerce, industrial associations, or trade syndicates. I cannot here examine the different modes of renewing the upper Chamber, but we will read with interest in this connection the later speeches of Lord Roseberry in the House of Lords, and the reform bill of the Italian Senate, discussed by Marquis Alfieri in a monograph entitled The Senate of the Kingdom of Italy. Let us not also forget that American democracy has granted to the Senate two great privileges fully justified, first, that of ratifying the nomination of important functionaries, and

especially that of foreign ministers and diplomatic agents, and, second, that of ratifying treaties, and thus controlling the foreign policy.

I therefore resume and conclude. What is called the Bonlanger danger will pass away, we may hope, but the peril which, far from disappearing, will be aggravated is, that which results from the general discontent produced by the detestable operation of the parliamentary régime.

In a country where parties, as in France, are radically hostile to each other, the best remedy is to renounce the cabinet government of monarchical England, and borrow from American democracy the system of ministers independent of parliamentary rule, by adopting at the same time the single or uninominal ballot and the partial renewal of the Chambers. And, far from suppressing the Senate, it should be strengthened by calling to it the men most capable of making good laws in the interest of all, and especially of the working classes, and granting to it, as in the United States, certain special attributes which presuppose maturity and foresight.

True patriotisin bids French Conservatives consolidate free institutions by reforms pointed out by experience rather than to lead the Republic into an abyss. The Republic will not allow itself to be throttled without a desperate resistance, sustained, perhaps, by a part of the army, and if, in this frightful struggle, authority shall find itself paralyzed but for a day or two, Paris might be burned more systematically than in 1871.

Let us suppose after this bloody conflict a restored monarchy; it would have against it a very powerful opposition, comprising all the republicans and all the partisans of the rival dynasty. It would then be able to reign only by means of a pressure. How long a time would the French people, who move in the first rank among civilized nations, support this régime?

The Monarchists assume a heavy responsibility in favoring the movement for a plebiscite, and in allying themselves with the Radicals in order to overthrow all ministries, so as to render impossible the maintenance of the Republic.

EMILE DE LAVELEYE.

ART. III.—THE HEATHEN: A SYMPOSIUM.

SALVATION OF THE HEATHEN.

Is there good reason for believing that any who have never known the historic Christ may be saved, and enter at death into the glory of God? In attempting to answer this question we must not ignore another, quite as important to be kept in mind: May such a heathen perish, and if so on what grounds can his damnation be justified? The evangelical theologian will scarcely be able to set forth a doctrine of heathen salvation without recognizing also a doctrine of heathen damnation. We submit a brief consideration of this subject in the following order:

I. All men are sinners and under the condemnation of death. This is a fact of observation and experience, as well as the explicit teaching of the Scriptures. The enormities of heathen sinfulness mentioned in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans may be found in various degrees among all nations, not excepting Jewish, Christian, and Mohammedan. According to Paul, all the world has become punishable (vπódios) before God, whose wrath is revealed in terrible opposition to all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Through the trespass of one man sin came into the world, and consequent condemnation has passed upon the entire human race. This curse is not to be thought of as having geographical distribution. In the populous centers of Christendom, and in speaking distance of the purest examples of Gospel light and life, are scores and hundreds as benighted as any in the depths of paganism. The great fact is, that there is no land, nation, people, or tribe that does not witness to the fact that all men have sinned and come short of the glory of God. This great fact is the basis of all questions of soteriology.

II. The mediation of Christ has made salvation possible for all men. The gracious provisions of redemption, in declaring the righteousness of God and opening the way of salvation to fallen man, are co-extensive with the curse of sin. This proposition stands or falls with the doctrine of unlimited atonement. If Christ truly died for every man, then is every man included

in the gracious provisions of that vicarious sacrifice. No one doubts that Christ's passion was of sufficient intrinsic value to redeem all men, but some think that those Scripture texts which speak of his loving his own people and giving his life for them imply that the saving provisions of the cross are limited only to the elect-his flock, his sheep, his Church. This opinion, however, is at best an inference, and cannot be allowed to set aside numerous express declarations that he gave himself a ransom for all. The universal statements are not inconsistent with special appeals to his people which aver that he gave his life for them; but to affirm that his dying for his people is inconsistent with his dying for all men is purely gratuitous. For not one of the special texts affirms that he died only for the elect, while the whole drift and spirit of the biblical revelation favors the doctrine of universal atonement.

This unlimited atonement magnifies the righteousness and love of God, and provides for the salvation of all, but it does not necessarily secure the salvation of any. With the worldwide redemption other provisions are associated, and certain conditions essential to its appropriation are clearly stated in the word of God. Therefore, we maintain that the meritorious mediation of the Lord Christ has made salvation possible to all, but does not absolutely secure the salvation of any.

Along with this doctrine of atonement stands the truth that there is no other ground of salvation. There is no other name given under heaven-no other gracious means or provision by which either Jew or Gentile, civilized or uncivilized, can attain unto the glory of God. As all have fallen under the condemning curse of sin, so the free gift of atonement in Christ makes possible to all justification unto life. And the omnipresent Spirit convinces human hearts of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.

III. Salvation through Christ is attainable only on condition of faith and obedience toward God. The New Testament teaches that salvation is God's gift, not on account of meritorious works which man may hope to do, but through faith as a means.* In the economy of grace Christ becomes the end of

*This is the teaching of the familiar passage in Eph. ii, 8: "By grace have ye been saved through faith, and this (rouro, that is, the being saved, not the faith, which would have required the feminine avrn) not from yourselves; God's is the gift." So Ellicott, Alford, Meyer, De Wette, and Braune.

the law for righteousness to every one who believes. Such a faith in the soul of man is the fruitful source of all religious life and activity. It is defined in Heb. xi, 1, as an assurance of things hoped for, an evidence or conviction of things which are not seen. By means of this the hungering and thirsting spirit of man takes hold on God. Whether it be exercised in the heart of Paul, or Abraham, or Rahab, or Jephthah, or Socrates, or Gautama, its inmost essence and spirit consists in an assuring trust of the soul in things hoped for and unseen. We know of no word of God which forbids the belief that any and every sinner, whether Jew or Gentile, whether blessed with Christian light or dwelling in heathen darkness, who exercises such a faith shall be saved. Such faith is the saving condition, as the atonement of Christ is the saving ground of any man's attaining unto life eternal.

IV. Sufficient light for the exercise of such saving faith is given to all who know enough to choose good and refuse evil. We need not encumber the discussion with the question of children dying in irresponsible infancy, or of idiots, or of that large company of human beings, to be found alike in Christendom and heathendom, who seem as little capable of moral judg ment as the unthinking animal. The above proposition is warranted by the following considerations:

1. Man is a religious being. There is no nation or people that has not some religious system, or some method of seeking to nourish the spiritual life. There is a universal consciousness of dependence on some higher power, together with a sense of obligation and moral desert. To this fact Paul refers when he speaks of the heathen showing the work of the law written in their hearts. Rom. ii, 15. What may be known of God is manifest in them, because God has shown it to them. Rom. i, 19. John's gospel (i, 9) also declares that the eternal Word ministers some measure of the true light to every man coming into the world. The sacrifices, rites, ceremonies, pilgrimages, and speculations noticeable among the scattered nations are additional evidences of man's religious nature and longings. He must have a most unworthy and unscriptural view of the fatherhood of God and the wisdom of Christ who supposes that the hundreds of thousands of millions of such religious beings who have never been permitted to hear the Gospel message of sal

23-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. V.