gradually drop and disappear, first from the preaching, then from the creed, of Christian men. It will have no practical effect upon Christian experience, and be at last, by a refined and spiritual criticism, explained away. Is there no danger of this?

It may further be suggested, that the common absence of this doctrine from our pulpit instructions, may perhaps arise from defective views of salvation. Sin and its remedy are treated almost exclusively in their relations to the soul and its everlasting destiny. "The salvation of the soul," is the term and the end of popular preaching. And truly its redemption is precious. Great was the price paid for its ransom. Unutterable love was employed for its relief, and omnipotent power plucked it from the grasp of the foe. But is the soul alone the sufferer? Did sin nought else but lay this structure of divine skill in ruins? Had it no partner in its misery? Did it fall alone into the abyss of woe and condemnation? Nay. The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together. The blight fell upon the fair face of nature too. Life became the prey of death, and its bones are strewed around the mouth of the tomb. The grave swallows up its hecatombs of living victims. The bitter blast withered up the fairest flower that blossomed in the hand of God. The springs of social, domestic, and national life were poisoned at their source. Every relation for which the powers of man were fitted was rudely severed; hatred usurped the place of love; revenge murdered affection; strife banished peace. The earth was overrun with violence and blood. Not alone the soul suffered.

The entire being of man, in its every aspect, participated in the curse. By sin entered death. Death, temporal and spiritual, fastened upon humanity, and throughout its every member and part spread the virus of corruption. Co-extensive, therefore, with man's loss must be the remedy. The restitution of all things must accompany salvation. Mortality must put on immortalityman's primal destiny. The strictly mortal part of our nature must participate in the great salvation, and be conquered from him that hath the power of death. Hence the resurrection becomes a necessary and essential part of redemption. Without it the work of Christ would be incomplete, the restoration imperfect, and the temporary triumph of sin and Satan be made perpetual. But, in the resurrection, the relations of life will be reconstituted-the evils which now afflict society and universal nature removed. Affliction, pain, disease, weakness, and death, will no more characterize humanity. The bodily frame will be perfected in beauty, reflecting the glorified image of the Lamb, the Head of redeemed man. For salvation embraces the whole

being, personal and relative, individual and social, temporal and eternal, the earthly and the heavenly. The resurrection is as necessary to the redemption of the body as is regeneration to the redemption of the soul; both proceed from the death and rising again of Jesus. If, then, modern views of salvation be confined to the well-being of the soul alone, and its emancipation from the yoke of pride, passion, disobedience, and guilt; if there be an almost entire exclusion of the consideration of the burden of suffering lying upon the body, constituting, as it does, an essential part of man's nature, we may well conclude that the doctrine of the resurrection would be rarely preached, and the hope of its speedy approach seldom awaken holy gratitude and joy.

Further, the common notions of the future life may, perhaps, account for the absence of this topic as a prominent feature of modern pulpit instruction. It is supposed that man's future existence is one of entire incorporeity-one in which the spirit soars into the regions of the universe, disencumbered of any corporeal form or material organization. Nay, it is even thought that the embodiment of the soul in anything short of an inconceivably etherealized and impalpable form, would be a chain upon its activity, a weight upon its enjoyment. Its pinions would be so far clipped, and its free action hindered. The spirit's flight, it is supposed, will outvie the wings of the wind, and its motion, rapid beyond expression, meet with no resistance, nor be subject to any gravitating law.

Whether the language of Scripture may be susceptible of this interpretation, we will not now inquire. It is at least certain, that the future and immortal life there portrayed is one founded on whatever is joyous here. It is everywhere described as an existence from which is excluded all that distresses, annoys, disturbs the happiness of man on earth. It is a continuation, or perpetuation, of present being, released from sin, sorrow, and death. It is not a change in the nature of being, but in the manner of its realization. The man remains, morally and intellectually, the same in all essential matters, certain accidents only of the present life being withdrawn. If, therefore, he lays down in the grave his natural body, at the resurrection he receives a spiritual body-a body still; assuming corporeity, he is no longer subject to corruption-nevertheless, it is a body, though incorruptible. The new heavens and the new earth will no more be dissolved or cursed; yet will they be earth and heaven still-mansions prepared for the disciples of the Redeemer. But if it be taught, or supposed, that the soul, in all its immateriality of essence, enters upon a state of perfect and final happiness, of active enjoyment, needing no vehicle by which

to express its joys, or convey its deep unutterable gladness, how can it otherwise be, than that the resurrection shall seldom be thought of, and its advent remain unlonged for? Will it not be regarded as a breach upon perfect bliss, and a descent from the high and ennobling destiny of the pure and unfettered spirit?

Finally, and briefly. We may refer to another subject most intimately connected with the resurrection, and which, with that, has almost ceased to be the hope and joy of the Christian. We refer to the second advent of the Lord. True, it is preached, but chiefly as the day of fiery indignation, of solemn and awful judgment. A glance at the narratives and epistles of the gospel will show that His glorious appearing was a period of glad anticipation by the primitive church. It stood connected with their longed for rising again. At that signal should be rent the cerements of the tomb-the grave give up its dead. Then, in the twinkling of an eye, the living should be changed, and they who sleep in Jesus rise to immortality. Then all sorrows should end, death be swallowed up of life. Hence the frequent encouraging words uttered by inspired men, their earnest admonitions to wait patiently the coming of the Lord, while yet hasting unto and looking for the fulfilment of that blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour. But since we have lost the desire for resurrection, the coming of the Lord has lost its charm, and not a few begin to say, Where is the promise of his coming? The resurrection, and the Lord's advent, are either spiritualized away, or deferred to a period so remote as to be of no practical moment whatever. Nevertheless, yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Destructions shall come to a perpetual end. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

VI. THE MENNONITES OF THE PFALZ.*

IN the lowlands of the ancient Palatinate of the Rhine, now forming a portion of the kingdom of Bavaria, are to be found, scattered through many hamlets and villages, the members of some seventeen congregations of evangelical Mennonites. Under the constitutional government of that country, they enjoy liberty of conscience and of worship; and though few in numbers, they are characterized by the simplicity of their manners, their attachment to the faith of their fathers, retaining, in the midst of much outward prosperity, their love

* Katechismus der Christlichen Lehre; zum Gebrauch in den evangelischen Mennoniten-Gemeinen: von JOHANNES MOLENAAR, Prediger der ev. Mennoniten-Gemeine iu Monsheim bei Worms. Leipzig. 1841. (8vo. pp. 142.)

to the truth, a pure discipline, and the faithful ministry of the word of God. Their traditions point to Switzerland as their fatherland, whence their ancestors fled, from bitter persecutions, to the fastnesses of the Wasgau, the ancient Vosges mountains, there to seek the freedom denied them, in the seventeenth century, by the Protestant pastors and magistrates of the cantons Basle and Berne. These churches consist almost wholly of peasants. Many families, through several generations, have retained the farms on which they first settled, and by the practice of agriculture, to which they confine themselves, both support their families, and preserve much of the singularity, neatness, and gentleness of manners which distinguished them in former days. For a long period they were accustomed and content to assemble in each other's houses, and not till the year 1770 were any chapels erected among them. At that time a considerable revival took place. Three buildings for worship were erected, with the assistance of their brethren in Holland, at Sembach, Meyerhof, and Freidelsheim, and several works translated for the benefit of the youthful part of their congregations, as well as for the instruction of the elders. Previous to this, their knowledge of books was almost entirely confined to the word of God. In its holy page, they found sufficient instruction to satisfy the simplicity of their minds, and pure rules of action on which to form their lives. The French revolution broke in upon the quietude of their homesteads, and opened the way for an increase of literary taste and acquirement, as well as for modern luxuries and refinements.

In the year 1805 was held their first general assembly. It took place at Ibersheimer Hof, about ten miles from Worms. To this gathering came all their pastors and elders, beside the representatives of other churches in Alsace, and from Neuwied. Regulations were made for the better exercise of discipline in the several congregations; yet preserving the independent action of each individual church. In the year 1807 a similar assembly was held. Its most important business was the adoption of a liturgy, or form of prayer, prepared by one of their most honoured teachers, Valentine Dahlem, of Wiesbaden. It contains various directions relating to spiritual and ecclesiastical matters, and a considerable body of prayers adapted to various occasions. This book is now generally used among them, and, by its means, a greater unity of worship attained in their assemblies. In the year 1838, the number of persons belonging to the seventeen congregations of the Palatinate, were reckoned at about 3,400.*

During the revival above mentioned, a translation was made of a catechism, published in Amsterdam in 1746, by John Deknatel, preacher to a Mennonite congregation of that city; from whose evangelic labours and simple piety these Rhenish churches derived great

* For most of the above particulars, we are indebted to the Jaarboekje voor de Doopsgezinde Gemeenten in de Nederlanden. 1838 en 1839. By Professor H. S. Muller, of Amsterdam.

blessing. To this was added some extracts of a work by Gerhard Roosen, pastor of a church at Altona, near Hamburg. The brevity and somewhat ill-arranged order of this catechism, the growing wants of the churches, and the antique style of this manual, rendered necessary the production of a work more suited to their present condition. Hence the publication now before us. Its author is the Rev. John Molenaar, pastor of the Mennonite church at Monsheim, near Worms, and one of the few educated men amongst them.

In his preface, the author thus speaks of his labour for the benefit of the children and the neophytes of the various congregations for whom it is prepared :

"In respect of doctrine, nothing will be found here other than that which the above named men have presented in their works to the evangelical Mennonite churches. The author proposes nothing new, but gives the old, and yet new, the everlastingly continuing new, precious, and worthy glad tidings, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.' Far be it from us to forsake the faith of our fathers, when we no more use their manuals whereby they received instruction in the faith! Every one who dispassionately, and with Christian feeling, shall test this book by Scripture, will be convinced that it contains but one main principle, confessing, with our fathers, one Lord, one faith, and one baptism; or, to use the words of Deknatel, 'redemption through the blood of the lamb, whereby even children can alone be saved;' and that no other foundation is laid than that is laid, Jesus Christ. Which foundation, indeed, must be laid and pondered, by the merciful assistance of God and our Saviour, that children may be no more children, nor be rocked to and fro by every wind of doctrine; but that all, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, may come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the full age of Christ;' and that all may grow up into him, which is the head. And then, ought we not also, as our fathers, gladly make a confession of our faith, and give to every one an answer who may demand the foundation of the hope which is in us, especially at a time like the present, when it is more than ever necessary, decidedly and frankly, to confess the Word of the Cross,' 'to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness?' to which word, our fathers, as to the foundation pillar of the Church of Christ, immovably adhered, and which, therefore, we, so much the more, must, with decision, hold fast and confess."-pp. 3, 4.

After a catechetical introduction, the author proceeds, in five sections, to give instruction in the Christian faith. First: Of God the Father, the Creator; the fall, and the preparation made under the old covenant by law and promise for salvation. 2. Of the Son of God, Jesus Christ; of his person, office, and of redemption through him. 3. Of the Holy Spirit; of his being and operations; of the church of God, and the holy sacraments. 4. Of sanctification; of the Christian life, of prayer, and of conduct. 5. Of the perfecting of salvation, or the last things; of death, the end of the world, and everlasting life.

It will be interesting to our readers if we condense some of the most important of the doctrinal statements contained in this catechism; whereby they may be assured of the purity of sentiment and attachment to the truth on the part of these brethren in the faith.

Our author commences by pointing out that all Christian instruction has for its end the attainment of salvation through faith in Jesus