The leaven of Popery, still works in both church and state. The hierarchies of England, Scotland, and Protestant Germany, alas! too fully substantiate the allegation, that "Oxford is not the only university, nor her tracts the only documents which show a profound sympathy with some of the bolder attributes and views of the papal power." That sympathy is clearly evinced on the continents of Europe and America; and what strange involutions and evolutions may yet further characterize its movements, the pages of the future alone can disclose.

The power of Protestantism, in some important points of view is comparatively feeble, greatly feeble: its strength lies in the great leading truths of the system: its feebleness is wholly owing to errors long cherished, and still sought to be retained as fundamental truths by many of its warmest friends and admirers. These errors make parties; for while truth is essentially attractive and conservative, error is necessarily repellant and devisive; and numerous as the sects that have impaired the Protestant influence and power, are the errors that have generated them. Every party has its truth, and probably its error too; for, even when truth makes a party, error not only occasions it, but generally infuses itself into the system. Good and wise men of all parties are turning their attention more and more to the causes and occasions of schism; and that too, from an ardent wish to fathom the occult causes of so much discord among brethren; in the hope, too, of discovering some grand scheme of union and fraternal co-operation in the cause of our common Christianity.

The last century terminated with the downfall of consolidated atheism in France, after a reign of terror, the darkest and most desolating written on the rolls of time. All Europe stood aghast at the awful spectacle, and saw in it developments of the tendencies of sectarian discords, that suggested to the reflecting and intelligent the necessity of some very important changes in the social system. One of the results was, that the present century was ushered in with the formation of one grand Bible Society, composed of various denominations, cherishing the truly magnanimous and splendid scheme of giving the Bible, without note or comment, to the whole family of man; so that every man might read in his own language the wonderful works of God.

This truly benignant scheme has in various ways already contributed to the introduction of a brighter and better era. The grand project of divesting the margin of the Sacred writings of the prophets and apostles of the cumbrous inscriptions of sectarian tenets and traditions, the dogmata of all schism, under the insidious pretence and title of notes and comments on the sacred text, has given a new impulse to the mind, because it has proposed the Bible to mankind in harmony with the great Protestant motto. A new and improved system of hermeneutics is another happy effect of the attempt to make every man more or less his own interpreter of the testimony of God. The improvements in sacred criticism, and in biblical philology in general, have already elevated the present century as much above the level of the last, as the sixteenth excelled the fifteenth in the grand developments of truth and of elementary principles of a new order of things.

No man living can fully estimate the exact momentum of the principles at work in his own time. The objects that obtrude upon his consideration are too near him to be seen in all their just proportions. Time, that great revealer of secrets, and infallible exponent of the wisdom of all human schemes, must pass its solemn verdict upon every human enterprize before its proper character can be fully and justly appreciated.

The

The points of debate on the present occasion, may to some minds not conversant with such matters, appear to embrace points extremely frivolous and unimportant. question, for example, of baptism, as respects its action, whether it shall be understood to mean sprinkling or immersing, is frequently made to assume no higher importance than that of a mere scuffle about the difference between a large and a small basin of water. It is, indeed, an elementary question; yet it may possibly have much of the fortunes of Christendom in its bosom. It stands in the whole Christian profession as circumcision to a Jew-as hereditary descent to a British lord, or the elective franchise to an American citizen.

Let no one undervalue the points at issue in the present controversy. Let no one be startled when I affirm the conviction, that in the questions to be discussed on the present occasion, the fortunes of America, of Europe, and the world

are greatly involved. Can that be regarded by the mere politician (to say nothing of the philanthropist or the Christian) as a minor matter, that gives to the pope of Rome one hundred millions of subjects every three-and-thirty years; and that, too, without a single thought, volition, or action of their own? Can any one regard that as a very unimportant ceremony which binds for ever to the papal throne so many of our race by five drops of water and the sign of the cross imposed upon them with their " Christian name!"

The omission of an h in pronouncing a word, became, providentially, the occasion of the slaughter of forty-two thousand Ephraimites in one day. The conversion of an o into an i, divided the ecclesiastic Roman empire into two great parties, which disturbed its peace, fostered internal wars, and exhausted its blood and treasures for a succession of several imperial reigns. And the eating of an apple brought sin and death into our world, and has already swept the earth clean of all its inhabitants more than one hundred times. Let no one, therefore, regard anything in religion or morals as excessively minute, or unworthy of the highest conscientious regard. There is sometimes more in a monosyllable than in a folio: a yes, or a no has slain millions; while a thousand volumes have been written and read without any visible disaster to any human being.

The greatest debate in the annals of time, so far as consequences were involved, was upon the proper interpretation of a positive precept. The fortunes, not of a single nation, of an empire, or an age, but of a world, were staked upon its decision. The parties consisted of two persons; the word in debate was die, and because of the misinterpretation of it one of the parties lost Paradise, and gained labour and sorrow, and death.

In this world, we have great little matters, as well as little great matters. To the former class belong the affairs of kingdoms, empires, and of all time: to the latter individual purity, holiness, happiness. To infinite space, an atom and a mountain bear the same proportions. In the presence of endless duration, a moment and an age are equal. If then, by a drop of water and the sign of the cross, Gregory XVI. sits on yonder gorgeous throne in the midst of the vatican, worshipped by more than one hundred millions of human beings; and if the Protestant Pedobaptist Churches in

America annually increase more by the touch of a moistened finger than by all the eloquence of their seven thousand ministers, then, I ask, is not so much of the present discussion as pertains to that single rite, of transcendant importance to this nation and people, whether contemplated in their ecclesiastical or political character?

In justice to my respondent, and his church, I must distinctly state, that this community are not at all indebted to me for the present discussion. It originated with our zealous and indefatigable Presbyterian brethren, who have ever been forward in the great and good work of religious controversy; and, as an apostle commands us to render honour to whom honour is due, we must award to them the honour of the present debate and all its happy influences on this community.

The present interview, when solicited by Mr. Brown, was indeed acceded to on my part with an expressed and covenanted understanding, that it was to be a frank, candid, full, and amicable discussion of the great points of difference between us; that each party was to affirm and maintain what it taught, and thus give to our respective communities authentic views of our peculiar tenets, as far as they may materially conflict with each other; and thus furnish the public with a book containing the numerous and various arguments by which our respective tenets may be assailed and defended.

That the discussion should have all authority with the people, it was stipulated that, in case of a single combat, one person should be chosen as the oracle of the party with whom I would enter into a formal debate on all these questions, and that other ministers should be present as helps and counsellors. I am happy in having the assurance that my friend, Mr. Rice, appears here in consequence of that agreement as the elect debatant, chosen by his brethren while assembled at synod; and he is not only one of the five persons chosen at the meeting of the synod, but he is the one chosen by the other four, and commended to my accep tance by Mr. Brown, one of his electors, in the following words:-"We have selected the man to whose hands we think proper to commit the defence of our case. His standing is well known in Kentucky and out of it. We will not select another." To add to my satisfaction, he is also aided

and sustained by a learned cohort of divines of high standing in the Presbyterian church, and not by these only, but doubtless by many others, present and absent. Such an array of talent, learning, and piety, would seem to authorize the confident expectation that, if those tenets of his party from which we dissent, can be convincingly maintained and made acceptable to this community, it will now be done.

In addition to all this, I am assured that my friend, Mr. Rice, is not compelled into this discussion by the mere authority and importunity of his brethren; but that he enters into the business as one that has long and ardently panted to render some distinguished service to the church of his ancestors and of his adoption, and to deliver himself fully on the great question before us. It is our singular good fortune to meet on this arena a gentleman exceedingly zealous for the doctrines and traditions of his church; and who, for one year at least, if not for several years past, has been in the habitual preparation for this occasion.

So desirous of merited applause, and so untiring in his zeal and devotion to ancient orthodoxy, he has been in one continued series of conflicts, wrestling with tongue and pen, entering the lists with all sorts of disputants, Baptists and Reformers, old and young, experienced and inexperienced; and, in amicable discussion, breaking numerous lances upon the brazen shields and steel caps of such members of the church militant as either foreordination or contingency threw in his way, and on these very subjects now before us. Neither his devotion to the cause of truth nor his labours of love have been confined to Kentucky; but, in his pious opposition to heretics and heresies, like one of old, he has pursued them even unto foreign cities. Nashville yet resounds with the praises of his zeal and the fame of his achievements in the cause of Presbyterianism. If, then, flaw or weakness there be in that series of arguments and evidences that I am prepared to offer on the present occasion, or if my facts and documents are not true and veritable, I have every reason to expect a full detection and a thorough exposition of them: but should they pass the fiery ordeal of the intense genius and vigorous analysis to which they are now to be subjected, may I not, in common with those who espouse them, repose on them arguments and proofs irrefragably strong and enduring? The questions to be discussed on the present occasion