king; this is the view taken of the church in the New Testament, and between this and its opposite the difference is incalculable." That one difference makes the two extremes of our picture. Take away our simple faith in Christ as our atoning priest, and our respect and affection for all his disciples as our equals in the congregation of believers, and we must go to Rome to satisfy our conception of a consecrated order between man and God. Ecclesiasticism and evangelical faith cannot dwell in unison. He, therefore, who would successfully oppose the ecclesiasticism that overspreads the eastern world, must have no fellowship with its rudimental doctrine of a priesthood in the church of Christ.

II. A second source of this Paganized Ecclesiasticism is a false theology as to the nature of sin and of holiness, and the method by which a sinful character is changed into a holy character. Borrowing the sensuous philosophy of the old Paganism of the East, it makes sin lie, not in a state of will or in a voluntary state of the affections, but in an inherited vice of constitution, and in overt acts of greater or less turpitude. Hence the sinful essence and its putative sin must be counteracted by a putative sanctity conveyed through the sacraments of baptism and the Mass; and overt sins must be atoned for by a sliding scale of penances. Bodily mortifications and priestly manipulations must work over this vicious and depraved constitution. Given a depravity purely physical to be rectified by a physical regeneration, and the sacraments of the Greek and Roman churches are a logical necessity: and now, as before, the mind seeks for the highest impressiveness and the highest validity in the forms through which sanctification is dispensed, and in the power that grants it absolution.

He who would grapple with such a system, must rightly understand the nature of sin as "the transgression of the law;" and the nature of regeneration as an intelligent change from sin to holiness wrought in the mind itself, by obeying the truth through the Spirit. He must oppose to it something clearer, sharper, bolder, truer far, than the petrified formulas which a late prize writer' has set up against it clothed in the impenetrable mists of Scotch philosophy.

III. This system grows out of the substitution of the outward and the ceremonial in religion for the inward and the spiritual.

1 Gault.

This is the natural and the universal tendency of man in a state of ignorance and corruption. The devotional sentiment, uneducated in the sublimity of that worship announced at Jacob's well, seeks expression through outward symbols, and these in turn react upon the devotional sentiment. Had you asked an intelligent Roman of the age of Augustus, why he worshipped the statue of Venus or kept the Saturnalia, he would have answered, that he did not pay his homage to the statue, but to the divinity whom it suggested to his thoughts; and that the Saturnalia was a joyous and grateful recognition of the life-giving principle in the earth; and, should you ask an intelligent Roman at this day, why he worships the statue of Mary and keeps the festival of Christmas, he would answer, that he does not worship the image, but the image helps his conception of the Virgin intercessor, and that Christmas is a joyful and grateful recognition of the life and redemption brought to the world through Christ. Yet the old Roman was an idolater. What, then, is the modern Roman? Just in proportion as the mind turns away from an intelligent, personal communion with God, and looks for religious emotion to the outward and the visible; just in proportion as religion is withdrawn from the sphere of the intellect, the will, the conscience, and the heart, into the exclusive sphere of the imagination; does idolatry enter, whether it be in the temple or in the church. A religion of ceremony tends logically to Paganism. It was from this side that Art, born of Beauty and Truth, but corrupted by alliance with Paganism, in turn corrupted Christianity through her own degeneracy. With the early Christian church, observes an able critic,' the Saviour was represented "not like the gods of the Pantheon, catching the eye by outward attractions, but conquering the heart by the power of his word. ... Christianity repudiated every outward aid, which, by alluring the senses, was calculated to sully the purity of her office. . . . But the life and manners of Paganism had been too closely interwoven with artistic forms for the followers of the new faith entirely to disengage themselves from them." Accordingly, as Pagan art lost its representative character in the symbolical, Christianity appropriated its symbols for new ideas; and "Orpheus captivating the wild beasts of the forest by the sound of his lyre, appears very early as an emblem of Christ, and has in early frescoes a distinguished place with Moses and Elijah, with

1 Kugler, Handbook of Painting for Italy; edited by Eastlake.

Peter and John; while in mosaics of the baptism of Christ, in addition to the figures of the Saviour and the Baptist, the river Jordan is represented under the figure of a river-god rising out of the water to wait upon our Lord; an easy interblending of the Pagan with the Christian, though cherished conventional forms of art.

Thus as Justinian brought to the building of St. Sophia, in Constantinople, which he boasted more glorious than Solomon's temple, pillars of porphyry from the temple of the Sun at Baalbec; of granite from the demolished temple of Serapis in Egypt, and of verd antique from the temple of Diana at Ephesus, so was the whole Pagan world made tributary to the system of faith and of worship for which St. Sophia was erected; the sacred prestige of hierarchy, the metaphysical subtleties of doctrine, the pomp of ceremony, the embellishments of art, all wrought into. one stupendous system that overawes the hundred millions of mankind.

The missionary who would successfully encounter such a system, must oppose to it, both in his teachings and in his life, the simple, severe, sublime spirituality of the Gospel. With all charity for the individual votaries of the system, he must on no account fraternize or compound with the system itself. His office is neither to reform the system nor aggressively to subvert it; but to evangelize the people, to convert individual souls to Christ, leaving to God the issue of schism and of overthrow. To priestly sanctity he must oppose a humble spiritual life; to priestly incantations the simple preaching of the Gospel; to the symbols of art, the truths of doctrine and the virtues of obedience; to the organism of hierarchy, the equal fraternity of believers; to ceremonialism, faith; to ecclesiasticism, Christ. In the person and the teachings of the missionary, the theology of Jacob's well goes forth alike against Jerusalem and Gerizim; against Mecca, Athens and Rome. And he who sat on Jacob's well goes with it in the power of an endless life. In the power of that life the cause of missions stands, and by that power it shall prevail. Every adversary shall be slain by the word of his mouth. As Pharisaism and Paganism have perished from the track of Christ and his Apostles, so shall this Paganized Ecclesiasticism perish from the track of the missionary of the cross.

Courage, then, ye who would bear that standard back where first it floated on the shores of the Great Sea. Let not the VOL. XI. No. 44.

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desolation of Antioch, the vassalage of Jerusalem, the drivelling superstitions of Athens, the apostasy of Rome, shed over you the blight of despondency, as if Paul himself had labored in vain and the work of missions had proved a failure. It was meet that the Mystery of Iniquity should work upon the grandest scale that it might work itself out for all time, and thus, amid the woes and execrations of the world, work out its own destruction. This long apostasy but paves the way for your speedier success. Fear not to meet it with the simple preaching of the Word. For thus shall that Wicked be revealed in his true character of deceit and infamy, "WHOM THE LORD SHALL CONSUME

WITH THE SPIRIT OF HIS MOUTH, AND SHALL DESTROY WITH THE BRIGHTNESS OF HIS COMING."

ARTICLE VI.

NOTES UPON THE GEOGRAPHY OF MACEDONIA.

By Rev. Edward M. Dodd.

THE region about the head of the Sinus Thermaicus, embracing a portion of Thessaly, is both sacred and classic ground. There was situated Thessalonica and Berea, and there are Olympus and the Vale of Tempe.

Thessalonica was originally called Thermae (whence Sinus Thermaicus), afterwards Thessalonica, and now Selanik by the Turks, Salonique by the French, Salonieco by the Italians, Salonica by the English, and still Thessalonica by intelligent Greeks and by the missionaries.

It is situated at the head of the Gulf of Salonica (Sinus Thermaicus) on the north north-eastern shore, upon the slope of a range of hills rising from the sea-shore, its lower walls washed by the waves, and its Acropolis crowning the hill-top. Thus situated, it presents a striking appearance from the sea, surrounded with its white-washed walls, displaying its domes and minarets, and enclosed on either side by its vast burial places.

It has at present a population variously estimated at from 60,000 to 80,000; of these one half are Jews; a few, of almost all other nations under heaven, and the remainder, half Greeks and half Turks.

There can be no doubt that this site of the city has remained unchanged from the apostles' day, and, indeed, much longer. While the upper part of

the walls in many places consists of Turkish repairs, the lower tiers of masonry show the large hewn and bevelled stones of ancient times. The chief street even, passing between the two chief gates on opposite sides of the city, is unchanged, for there remains two triumphal arches of Roman work, which span it, one near its gate. Few eastern cities have so many ecclesiastical remains as Thessalonica. All of the principal mosques were formerly Greek churches; and at least two of them were originally Pagan temples, converted into churches on the introduction of Christianity, and to mosques at the Turkish conquest. Their form and masonry prove this. One of these is called Eski Metropoli (the old Metropolitan), a mixture of Turkish and Greek not uncommon there. A sketch of it may be seen in the Missionary Herald for July, 1836. It is a rotunda; its inner diameter eighty feet, the walls eighteen feet thick below (perhaps hollow), and fifty feet high. The upper part of the walls and the dome may have been added by Christians, but there can be no doubt that the main building is older. M. Cousinery considers it a temple of the Cabiri, whose rites were of Phoenician origin. Within, the dome and niches are adorned with representations of saints, animals, etc., in Mosaic and Greek inscriptions to explain them. This, of course, was a Christian addition. The Turks have not destroyed these figures as they often do.

In the yard of this mosque stands another curiosity of no little interest. It is one of the ancient pulpits or Suara, cut from a solid block of white marble, with several steps cut in it to ascend it. It is much broken and defaced, though the sculptures upon it are in good taste.

Another of these ancient Pagan temples, which became a Christian church, and afterwards a mosque, is called Eski Djuma (Old Friday).

Among the most interesting of those built since the Christian era, is the mosque of Sophia, very similar in architecture to St. Sophia at Constantinople, and said by the Greeks to be built by the same architect. Its name indicates that it was a church dedicated to the Divine wisdom. Here, also, contrary to the usual custom of Turks, the figures in Mosaic of saints and palm-trees, and the Greek inscriptions, remain undestroyed. They contrast strongly with the simplicity and barrenness of Turkish worship. Here is another of the ancient pulpits, not like that at Eski Metropoli, turned out of doors, but in a conspicuous position in the mosque. It is cut from a solid block of verd antique, and is much more perfect than the other, though plainer. To add to its interest, the Greeks tell you that St. Paul preached from it!

This mosque, and the surrounding yard, are much lower than the street on either side. You ascend a slightly inclined plane to the principal gateway, which is quite massive, but of a height altogether disproportionately low. It is evident from the girth of the pilasters, that they must have been twentyfive or thirty feet high, but they are now only about ten. The conclusion is irresistible, taken with other appearances, that the street has gradually been raised by accumulations of rubbish fifteen or twenty feet, and thus