perils that threaten society, liberty, the family, and religion. The signs and symptoms are favorable. The liberal and democratic press is advising rationalists, skeptics, and Christians who are only Christians, to range themselves under the official banner of Protestantism. The "Belgian Review" has an article entitled, "How raise an Altar against an Altar;" which shows the practical means of extending the Reformation in Belgium. The letters of Bouchard, counselor-general, openly abjuring Catholicism for Protestantism, have attracted much attention. Bouchard has already joined the Reformed Church. M. Turquet, republican deputy from Aisne, has just entered the Protestant Church with all his family, and it is said that his example will be followed by a whole village there. At Montmorin the work of evangelization extends to an entire community, and the Protestant place of worship is so crowded that hundreds leave the door. The little parish of Ain, tired of the demands of its curate, sent for a preacher of the Reformed Church, and, after having listened to him a few times, constituted themselves into a new Protestant congregation. In Belgium the political contests are now clearly drawn between Liberals and Ultramontanes. Some of the best minds in the land are now engaged in showing to the statesmen and the people the necessity of throwing off the Catholic yoke in school and Church. Many men of mark have embraced Protestantism and become members of the Reformed Church. These movements are rapidly spreading in that part of Belgium where, in the sixteenth century, the Reformation was violently repressed by the ferocities of the Duke of Alva. Congregations are being formed and churches built, and the demand is for pastors to supply them. In France men of all conditions and opinions are talking of the subject, and declaring themselves ready to join a movement to pass over to Protestantisin, which they consider far superior to the Catholicism in which they were raised. What prevents a great many is the fear of being singular, of making an excitement, and of exposing themselves to clerical wrath. Thus the individual conversion will be more rare than conversion in groups. What is needed, therefore, is to call every body to the glad tidings, and encourage them to form into Protestant communities. We must preach in the public squares, use the press in the form of books and journals, and have meetings to promote the great cause of religious democracy. We need a religious campaign, with a watchword that will harmonize with the present current of opinion, and open to it avenues of egress. If the idea of political conversions were admitted by both Protestants and republicans, and were to receive a vigorous start by the press, it would gain strength as a train of powder is fired by a spark. It has not cost many years to make France republican. With a campaign well conducted, it would hardly require more time to make France, which is only Catholic in name but anticlerical in fact, a Protestant France in fact. Napoleon said at St. Helena that France would have followed him if he had run up the Protestant flag. If Napoleon could have done this, why cannot a republican nation do it? There is something that is even stronger than triumphant Cæsars-it is the Idea. Why cannot public opinion, aided by the press and the platform, effect the boast of the despot? All that we ask of the Government would be neutrality. We ask the liberty of public assembly for this purpose, a privilege which would have given victory to the Reformers of the sixteenth century. We propose the formation of societies of good men, Protestants by faith and judgment, who would act as heralds in the work of evangelization, and gather all the sympathies floating in the atmosphere of intelligent and liberal France. These would be the missionaries of the word, and would form a center around whom the believing and the doubtful would group. They should open their doors to all loyal and sincere alliances, though composed of groping men. In the confusion of the start much base metal might flow in, but in time this could be separated from the pure. A first group being formed, curiosity would be excited, and men would slip in first with one foot and then with two. They listen, and, hearing only frank and encouraging words, prejudices would fall. On returning to their homes they compare the teachings of the two creeds, and, feeling themselves strong in the company of friends to assist them in bearing the anathemas of a powerless Church, they hasten to join their brothers, and the movement thus commenced cannot fail to spread. In this work we count on France, but we count also on God, on that powerful and eternal God, impartial Judge of human actions, irrefutable witness of the greatness of the decline of empires. With the knowledge of our suffering, may he put into the hearts of our brothers the conviction of the remedy! And may we, under his auspices, give, as did the people of America during their War of Rebellion, the example of the uprising of a great people. Let us ask of genuine Christianity the secret, less material than moral, of these sudden uprisings. With a common heart let us devote ourselves to the work of deliverance. Let us struggle with all our weapons to wrest our country from the detestable yoke of clericalism. Our children's children will then some day place on the façade of our ancient temples, purged of idols and given up to the worship of the Most High, that sentence which Rabelais had inscribed on the portal of his temple of the will: "Enter, and establish here the true faith." ART. VII.—THE REVISED METHODIST HYMNAL. By the revised Methodist Hymnal is meant the collection of hymns made and set to music by the Committee of Fifteen, appointed by the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church under authority imparted by the General Conference held in Baltimore in 1876-a Committee selected from the eastern, middle and western sections of the Church, in view of their estimated efficiency and adaptability for the task. SUCCESSIVE REVISIONS. This revision of the standard hymnic manual is the sixth that has been made sinee the introduction of Methodism into the United States of America. The first American hymn book was used for eleven years, the second for twenty-four years, the third for twelve years, the fourth for twenty-one years, the fifth-now supplanted by the completed work of the revisershas been in use for twenty-nine years. Thus the average age of each revision is less than twenty years. Churchly experience forbids the expectation entertained by the five Bishops who signed the address prefixed to the revision of 1849, that another will not be required for "generations to come." The "generations to come" will, doubtless, provide for their own lyrical needs. The business of the General Conference, and of the Committee appointed under its auspices, was to provide for the wants of the present generation. This they have done to the best of their ability. Neither time, nor labor, nor careful thought has been spared in the preparation of as perfect a thesaurus of sacred lyrics as the size of a convenient and portable volume will allow. REASONS FOR THE SIXTH REVISION. Every book, and every revision of a book, ought to have a raison d'etre, a sufficient justification for its existence. Especially is this true of hymnic revisions. Changed conditions, new necessities, enlarged demands, warranted all former alterations, and amply vindicate the one just accomplished. The fifth revision, though nominally the joint work of the Revs. D. Dailey, J. B. Alverson, J. Floy, D. Patten, Jun., and F. Merrick, with whom were associated Messrs. R. A. West and D. Cramer-author of the excellent work entitled, "Methodist Hymnology"—was mainly the product of Dr. Floy's tireless energy and assiduous application. Nor is it any disparagement to the labors of one so noble and gifted that many believed the volume, as it left his hands, contained grave imperfections and defects. They contended that, however grand and beautiful as poems some of the included compositions may be, they are none the less unsuited to the demands of public worship. Though favorites for private devotion, they are ineffective as instruments of praise and prayer by the great congregation. The peculiarly difficult metrical structure of many condemns them as unavailable. Others are destitute of special merit. Again, some are purely didactic and comparatively void of devotional spirit, while others include expressions repugnant to good taste and objectionable to judicious criticism. 449. "Me, in my blood, thy love pass'd by, And stopp'd my ruin to retrieve; Wept o'er my soul thy pitying eye; Thy bowels yearn'd, and sounded,—Live! " has been repeatedly adduced as a glaring example. Another class is composed of commonplace hymns that have every-where failed to win popular favor, and are rarely used as vehicles of religious thought and aspiration. Yet others are so closely akin in thought, style, and diction, that some may wisely be spared to afford room for others of equal merit, varied character, and wider adaptation. Keen scent for doctrinal heresy also detected, or thought it detected, unsoundness in some of Charles Wesley's hymns, probably written before Moravian instrumentality led him out of lifeless formalism into the light and liberty of the children of God. His baptismal hymn, No. 258, must have been composed under the influence of his faith in baptismal regeneration—an unscriptural tenet, energetically repudiated by John Wesley, and no less thoroughly by his disciples. If the prayer embodied in that hymn, "Make the unconscious lepers clean," conscientiously expressed Charles Wesley's convictions as to their moral state, it certainly contrasts strongly with the words of the Lord Jesus: "Suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Honest objections were raised to the statement in hymn 397: "Ne'er was a heart more base And false than mine has been; Can every one truthfully sing these lines? They give utterance to feelings of deepest self-humiliation and contrition; but are they in harmony with literal fact? Such questioners would fain restrict the poet's license, and force him to sing within the bounds of mathematical precision. From their stand-point this and kindred verses do seem to "lean too much toward Calvinism." They do not wholly harmonize with the doctrines of Scripture, or with those of evangelically Arminian theology. Hymn 1006 "leans too much" in the opposite direction-toward Universalism : "Rejoice, ye that love him; his power cannot fail; The triumph of evil will shortly be past, |