er to Mr. Maxwell,
the doctrine that the Church is bound to be quiet about every sin which
the civil government adopts and whitewashes. That the Christian
Spectator should indorse the Doctor's sentiments on this point is still
more worthy of remark than that he should utter them. Indeed, I judge
from what you say on the 68th and 69th pages of your book, that you are
yourself opposed to calling in question the morality of that which civil
government approves. But, to doubt the infallibility of civil
government,--to speak against Caesar,--was manifestly held to be quite
as presumptuous in the time of the Apostles as it is now.

Another reason why an Apostle would probably have deemed it hopeless to
attempt to persuade his disciples, immediately and directly, of the sin
of war, is to be found in the fact of their feeble and distorted
perception of truth and duty. We, whose advantage it is to have lived
all our days in the light of the gospel, and whose ancestors, from time
immemorial, had the like precious advantage, can hardly conceive how
very feeble and distorted was that perception. But, consider for a
moment who those disciples were. They had, most of them, but just been
taken out of the gross darkness and filth of heathenism. In reading
accounts which missionaries give of converted heathen--of such, even, as
have for ten, fifteen, or twenty years, been reputed to be pious--you
are, doubtless, often surprised to find how grossly erroneous are their
moral perceptions. Their false education still cleaves to them. They are
yet, to a great extent, in the mould of a corrupted public opinion; and,
as far from having a clear discernment of moral truth, as were the
partially unsealed eyes which saw "men, as trees, walking." The first
letter to the Church at Corinth, proves that the new principles
implanted in its members had not yet purged out the leaven of their old
wickedness; and that their conceptions of Christian purity and conduct
were sadly defective. As it was with the Corinthian Christians, so was
it to a great extent with the other Christians of that age. Now, if the
Apostles did not directly teach the primitive believers that wars, and
theatres, and games, and slavery, are sinful, it is because they thought
it more fit to exercise their ignorant pupils chiefly in the mere
alphabet and syllables of Christianity. (Acts xv, 28, 29.) The
construction of words and sentences would naturally follow. The
rudiments of the g