undation of Christianity, the
great religious crisis in the sixteenth century which divided the Church
and Europe between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, and finally
those different anti-Christian crises which at different periods and in
different countries have set in question and imperiled Christianity
itself, but which dangers it has ever surmounted.

The third _Meditation_ will be a survey of the present internal and
external condition of the Christian religion. The regeneration of the
Roman Catholic and Protestant churches at the commencement of the
nineteenth century will be exhibited. The author will then describe the
impulse imparted by the Spiritualistic Philosophy, and the opposition it
met with in Materialism, Pantheism, and Skepticism. He will conclude by
exposing the fundamental error of these systems as the avowed and active
enemies of Christianity. In the _fourth_ series there will be a
characterization of the future destiny of the Christian religion, and an
indication of the course by which it is called upon to conquer
completely the earth and then to sway it morally. M. Guizot, having
spent his life in political excitement, now resolves to occupy his
remaining years in aiding the cause of religion. "I have passed," says
he, "thirty-five years of my life in struggling, on a bustling arena,
for the establishment of political liberty, and the maintenance of order
as established by law. I have learned, in the labors and trials of this
struggle, the real worth of Christian faith and of Christian liberty.
God permits me, in the repose of my retreat, to consecrate to their
cause what remains to me of life and of strength. It is the most
salutary favor and the greatest honor that I can receive from his
goodness."

We may now ask, What is the fruit of the labors of MM. de Pressense,
Guizot, and their heroic coadjutors? Is the spirit of French
Protestantism against them, and are the majority of the clergy yielding
to the insinuating arguments of the skeptical school? These questions
are satisfactorily answered by the recent action of the French
Protestant Conferences. The Conferences are not composed of members
formally admitted, but of the pastors and elders who attend the spring
anniversaries, and choose to participate in them. The General Conference
includes all denominations of Protestants; the special, only the
ministers of the Lutheran and Reformed churches who constitute together
the National Protes