without seeing that we utterly abjure the warlike spirit, and deplore war, under all circumstances, as a cruel and dreadful infliction. If we have occupied ourselves chiefly in vindicating some Resistance, and not in extolling Peace, or re-echoing the condemnation of battle-loving propensities, it is because the latter topic is superfluous to all except those whose greatness or gains arise from other men's sufferings. Upon these an angel's eloquence would be lavished in vain. It would rejoice us to see a Christian abhorrence of rapacity and violence influential over the world at large; but of this we despair, until the Christian Peace-party shall avoid the extravagances which we have been pointing out. To justify some wars of defence, is the first condition requisite for that soundness of view and power of Truth, by which the lovers of Peace must triumph. ON THE CHRISTIAN LAW OF DIVORCE. [1858.] THE HE position assumed by a notably large part of the Anglican clergy against the re-marriage of a divorced woman is singularly opposed to that of our laity, and as it may appear, highly unreasonable. It rests on a very narrow basis of apparent verbal authority; nay, as I believe, on a total mistake of the question put to Jesus by his disciples and of the reply elicited from him. The Jewish husband notoriously had the right of divorcing his wife without the intervention of any Court or Public Officer, at his own mere will; just as has the Mussulman husband now, only under the restriction of restoring the wife's dowry and personal ornaments. Indeed the ancient Latin husband had the same arbitrary right; he had only to say: "Take thine own property to thyself," and it was a legal divorce. The Jewish husband was used to utter some vague formula, such as: "I have found uncleanness in thee," which might mean much or nothing; and this sufficed to warrant his action. The disciples, we are told, accordingly asked Jesus, whether it was right for a husband at his own single will to divorce a wife for every cause; i. e., "quamvis ob causam;" for any or every cause, whatever he judged sufficient. The question evidently had no allusion to a Court of of Law, and its legitimate power of divorce. Jesus simply replied, that one cause and one only justified the husband in the use of this legal power; viz., if the wife were unfaithful to his bed. In Matt. xix. 9, the words are explicit; and cannot be overborne by the vaguer version given elliptically in Mark x., where this unique reason which justified the husband in taking the law (as we call it) into his own hands, is omitted. Naturally and reasonably, where no adequate ground exists for divorce, Jesus condemns re-marriage with another; but this cannot in any case affect the duty of a Court of Law or National Legislative Body to enact fit grounds of Divorce and also of Re-marriage. Gentile Christians are not under the Mosaic Law. For one who avows the strictest submission to the authority of Jesus, there is nothing in his reply beyond a disapproval of arbitrary divorce at the wilful pleasure of a husband. Our law gives to a husband absolutely no such power; therefore his reply can in no way concern us. THE RELIGIOUS WEAKNESS OF PROTESTANTISM. [1858.] IT T is humiliating to every Protestant to look on the map of Europe, and see the vast surface which is covered by Catholicism, and the numerical weakness of its nobler adversary. In less than forty years from its feeble origin, Protestantism made its widest European conquests; and thenceforward began to recede, nor ever again recovered the lost ground. Through the whole of the eighteenth century Protestant doctrine might have been preached with little molestation in the greater part of Europe, yet nowhere did it extend itself. Neither in Ireland, where a victorious Government was long bent to reduce Catholicism by severe and unjust law (in which they were far less successful than Catholic kings in their bigoted violences); nor in France, where unbelief laid the national religion prostrate and stripped the Church of its revenues; nor in the dominions of the Emperor Joseph II., who resolutely put down Romish pretensions, while remaining in communion with the Church; nor even in his kingdom of Hungary, where the two religions co-existed in much good-will; nor under the Prussian monarchy, and elsewhere in Germany; nor in Tuscany, under the enlightened Leopold II.;in short, nowhere at all has Protestantism, even while she had a fair field and leave to speak the truth, been able to win anything perceptible on the field of history from her Papal antagonist. We submit, that this is a phenomenon too broad, too uniform, too decidedly marked, for any reasonable man to pass by as insignificant. And it is the more remarkable, because side by side. with this religious weakness, Protestantism has more and more displayed its political and social superiority. Notoriously the Protestant cantons of Switzerland are superior in industry, neatness, and abundance to the Catholic cantons of the same land; while climate, soil, and race are the same. A similar distinction has often been observed between Catholic and Protestant farmers in Ireland. England, the largest Protestant State in Europe, has been the richest and perhaps the best ordered country, certainly that which stretches its power farthest. Nowhere else, not even in despotic countries, is the executive Government more energetic through the prompt obedience and concurrence of the citizens; nowhere else, not even in Switzerland or the United States, do the citizens exercise their right to criticize and to thwart the Government with a more loyal submission of the ruling powers; nowhere is there less desire of violent revolution than there has been for two centuries together in Protestant Great Britain (for the ejecting of one Catholic king does not here concern our argument); nowhere is there a country which, in proportion to its millions, is fuller of all the elements, mental and material, which kings desire and patriots extol. In Canada, where the two religions come into equal competition, the superior energy of Protestantism in everything that constitutes the grandeur of nations is manifest. Now it is a familiar fact, that such worldly superiority does in itself tend to the progress (at least to the superficial extension) of the religion in which it is found. It cannot be said that Catholics, like Turks, are so fanatically wedded to their creed as to be proof against all refutations; for it is notorious that in Catholic Spain, France, Germany, a disbelief in the national religion is very widely spread through the higher and middle ranks-a disbelief which sometimes pervades the ruling powers themselves. Yet, though they may cast off the Romish faith, they seldom or never adopt that of Protestants. Probably all men who are thoughtful enough to abandon the Catholic Church, are also well informed enough to be aware what are the true causes of the energy, wealth, and intelligence of the Protestant nations; that it does not arise from the positive creed which they still hold, but from the private liberty which accompanies this creed or from the energetic public administration which this liberty enforces and maintains. In fact France, though nominally Catholic, vies to a great degree with England in all national developments; and the causes are evidently either purely political, or inhere, not in religious faith, but much rather in religious scepticism. Out of that unbelief, which by the great French revolution of the last century broke down the power of the Church, has arisen much of the vigour of modern France; no part of it can be reasonably ascribed to the positive creed. Evidently then it is to the negative side of Protestantism that Protestant nations owe their energy and freedom, so far as the cause is ecclesiastical at all. It will further be observed that Russia, having a creed which from a Protestant point of view is in its essence neither better nor worse than Romanism, and being without the individual freedom which is to us so precious, nevertheless is on the whole flourishing within and powerful without, because of the energy of its central executive; an energy which is upheld by summary proceedings of the Royal House from within to secure an able occupant of the throne. In short, on the very surface of history is a broad fact, which is perpetually overlooked by the panegyrists of ecclesiastical Protestantismnamely, that while all Europe was still Catholic, every State was prosperous in a near proportion to its freedom, and the freest displayed exactly those points of superiority of which England or Prussia may now boast. Look to the Spain of Ferdinand and Isabella a nation profoundly Catholic; in fact, more Catholic then than now-for unbelief had not as yet pervaded its higher ranks, as in later days. The Parliaments of Arragon, of Castile, of Valencia were more spirited than those of England at the same time. The municipalities were as well ordered and as independent; the local authorities as active and as responsible to the local community; the public law as efficiently sustained; the industry was as intelligent, as persevering, and as highly rewarded by wealth or rather, in all these matters Spain then took the lead of England. Her poetry and other literature was in advance of ours; she had a celebrated school of painting, while we were strange to such art. By the patriotism, high spirit, intelligence, faithfulness, and mutual trust of Spaniards, Spain then stood at the head of all Europe, and lent to her subsequent monarchs-Charles of Ghent, and his son Philip II.— an enormous power which their despotism first lessened and soon undermined. Spain has undergone no change of religion. Evidently then, it is not Catholicism which in itself has been her bane; but the despotism which, to sustain the Catholicism, has crushed her intelligence and forbidden her activity. Nearly the same remarks may be made on Bohemia. Turning to another country, Belgium, we see a people which-although not without violence from its princes preserved to Catholicism in the struggle of the Reformation has yet on the whole retained its local freedom with singular success under Catholic and despotic houses; and since 1830 has become a wholly independent State, with a free Royal Constitution. Thus, to speak roughly, we may say that Belgium has never lost either her freedom or her. Catholicism. And she has all along been a highly industrious, energetic, prospering country-not indeed intellectually promi |