entire change in the moral aspect of society: but where, now, a corruption as rank festers even under the profession of Christianity as was ever seen in the days of heathen Corinth or Paphos. Such is Northeastern Africa; such is Western Asia; such is Greece; such is Italy; and such, in fact, is the most of Europe.

A fifth illustration, alas, is furnished by the moral history of our own beloved New England.

Our forefathers, with all their faults of bigotry and intolerance, were a godly people: a devout, self-denying, frugal, industrious, and humble people. But, as generations have come and gone, the virtues of the sires have shone less and less brightly in the sons; till now, in impiety, infidelity, luxury, and licentiousness, we seem fast treading the downward road by which the people of other times and other lands have sunk to debasement and ruin.

Now, in every instance it would seem that the element of evil had proved an overmatch for the element of good: that neither the primeval, nor the patriarchal, nor the Mosaic, no, nor yet the Christian dispensation, has been able to furnish to the world an element of conservativeness sufficiently powerful to resist its downward progress to corruption. Such is the imputation which the enemies of religion seem justified by

its history in casting on every form of it which has claimed an origin from heaven.

The Christian religion-the last and the most perfect dispensation that God has givenappears as powerless over a great portion of the world where it is professed, as did ever the religion of any other professedly divine dispensation which went before it: and we might almost add, as powerless as any religion acknowledged to be the mere invention of men.

Take Italy, for instance. Looking over that land in its present moral aspect and comparing Italy as it is, nominally Christian, with Italy as it was when pagan, we might ask, What better is Italy, now, under the religious sway of her christian" Pontifex Maximus," than she was under her pagan?

Take Asia Minor and Greece: countries favored by the preaching of apostles; the seats of the churches of Galatia and Ephesus, of Corinth, of Philippi, of Colosse, and Thessalonica, the original possessors of the Pauline epistles and the churches of Philadelphia, Smyrna, Thyatira, Laodicea, Pergamos, and Sardis, to which were directed epistles from Christ and what do you find there now?

You find, not Christian churches, but one mighty religious organization, called a church, embracing the entire Greek population; whose

offices and ministry, and the moral character of whose membership, have witnessed no change for ages, because they are believed to have attained a development which admits of no improvement.

"The people," says a late American traveller,* "6 are furnished with numerous substitutes for the pure Gospel; are riveted to dead forms; believe themselves to belong to the only true church, and heirs of salvation because they are baptized, have been on a pilgrimage, or have done some supposed work of merit; and are resting perfectly satisfied with their state and prospects."

The right to membership is inherited by birth. Baptism with them is regeneration. By the catechisms of the church they are taught that it cleanses both from original sin, and from sins deliberately committed: and it is a common saying among them; that a man baptized goes not to hell. The priests claim to be invested with mysterious power from heaven. The people regard them as having, by virtue of their office and without regard to their personal character, the power of pardoning sin, and the entire control of their eternal destinies.

A scene, which is of annual occurrence on the shore of the Bosphorus, will, perhaps, give a more distinct idea of the present state of Greek

* Dr. Hawes.

Christianity than any general description can do. It is called the baptism of Christ!

A strong guard of Turkish soldiery are found assembling at early dawn upon the shore, and forming into a hollow square. The votaries of the crescent are gathered to keep the peace among the followers of the cross! A procession is soon seen advancing from the church, with furious singing and flaming torches, bearing high above the heads of the multitude, who are bowing and crossing themselves, a train of pictures; the foremost of which is that of the Virgin Mary; then of the Saviour; after which that of the Baptist; and then the Spirit in the form of a dove. A shout from Mussulman spectators a shout of indignant curses upon Christian idolatry-mingles with the hymn to the Virgin, as the procession moves onward to the shore.

The Bishop, arrayed in gorgeous apparel, and crowned with a mitre of silver and gold, and bearing in his hand a cross, is borne aloft on a kind of throne by the abject multitude, that his sacred feet may not touch the earth.

As he passes, they are pressing with uncovered heads to kiss, if they may, but the hem of his garment; too happy if they may meet his eye, or get in the direction of his lifted hand; and

eagerly asking each other, after he has passed, if they have caught a blessing!

The files of Mohammedan soldiery open to receive the Christian procession of bishop, priests, and pictures; and close again to guard them from the too near approach of their worshipers.

The hollow square, of which the military on the shore form a part, is completed on the water by boats, and sloops, and lighters anchored side by side, and densely filled with men, women, and children.

On the shore, in the centre of this vast multitude, stand-abhorrent and blasphemous spectacle!-six naked men as the godfathers of Christ, in this ceremony of his baptism !!

In this instance, however, not an image in human form but a simple cross is made the representative of Christ. The bishop, standing on the shore with his naked attendants at his side, and balancing the cross in his hand, while the multitude stand hushed in breathless expectation, suddenly hurls it into the sea. The godfathers plunge into the flood, and rush, in furious struggle with each other, to seize it and bring it to land. And this, this compound of absurdity, idolatry, indecency, and blasphemy, is "The Baptism of Christ!" The successful competitor in the struggle for the cross, after swimming through the circle of boats to give the women