WHAT is Christianity? This is a question, which, during the last eighteen centuries, has been often put, and as often answered: the temple, the synagogue, the school, the marketplace, the pulpit, and the press-the cross too, the prison, the scourge, the rack, the gibbet, and the stake, have each in turn, and in a special form, uttered a clear and distinct reply. Still, however, in each successive generation the same inquiry is made, and ever would we have it prolonged; for the question is too fair to be refused, and the reply is too important to be withheld. There is not, and there has not been a system which makes so large a demand on men, as moral and accountable beings, which so boldly casts down for scrutiny many and splendid credentials, which professes to meet so fully and actually the whole and real condition of man, or which holds out richer prospects of bliss in connexion with faith, or a deeper gloom of misery as the consequence of unbelief, than Christianity. By nothing has the attention of the world been more occupied in the way of profession or rejection, promulgation or persecution, during the last eighteen hundred years, than by Christianity. Her records have been tested, her statements have been sifted, her principles argued, her doctrines impugned, her demands questioned, and her evidences scrutinized; her disciples have been watched and tortured, and her ministers bribed or martyred. Paganism sought to strangle her at birth; Mohammedanism to substitute another in her room; superstition to bury her alive; infidel philosophy openly to condemn and crucify her; and, worst of all, hypocritical worldliness has sought to plunge her into the abyss of a freezing and perpetual oblivion. But all in vain : Christianity—true, pure, immortal, and divine, still lives and reigns; still joyfully does she go forth in the light of the sun, and before all her enemies. She still teaches, proclaims, commands, threatens, and promises, as at the beginning: repelling

pride, fearless of malice, and abhorring hypocrisy, she begs for sincere and honest inquiry; she hails as victory begun, and rejoices as in conscious triumph, in the candid and earnest question, "Who art thou?" or, "What is Christianity?" To this question we shall attempt to give a brief reply; looking at Christianity in four different points of view.

I. Christianity, in its more general and visible form, is the system of religion professed and observed by the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. This glorious Person appeared on this earth 1800 years ago. Born in an obscure family, of a virgin mother, after having given in early childhood public and convincing tokens of his extraordinary character, he came forth in his thirtieth year as the public Teacher of his nation. He declared himself to be the Son of God, and the Saviour of the world; and, in support of his Divine mission, he wrought, in the most public manner, the most undeniable miracles. His character, during his short but laborious ministry, was uniformly pure, noble, self-denying, and benevolent, and truly consistent with that Divine character which, amidst the weakness of humanity, he constantly claimed. During the three years and a half of his ministry, he drew around him and trained up a little band of devoted disciples; over them he exercised the sweetest authority and the tenderest affection.

At length, certain ungodly and wicked men, rulers and teachers among the Jews, who hated his words and his works, contrived and compassed his death; and he was by the weak and cowardly Pilate, the Roman governor, condemned to be executed on the cross. This cruel, shameful, and unjust death, he piously and meekly endured, appealing only to God his Father, and that, too, only for pardon to his murderers. After death, he was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Jewish council; the stone of the sepulchre was sealed, and a Roman guard set to watch it.

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WHAT is Christianity? This is a question, which, during the last eighteen centuries, has been often put, and as often answered: the temple, the synagogue, the school, the marketplace, the pulpit, and the press-the cross too, the prison, the scourge, the rack, the gibbet, and the stake, have each in turn, and in a special form, uttered a clear and distinct reply: Still, however, in each successive generation the same inquiry is made, and ever would we have it prolonged; for the question is too fair to be refused, and the reply is too important to be withheld. There is not, and there has not been a system which makes so large a demand on men, as moral and accountable beings, which so boldly casts down for scrutiny many and splendid credentials, which professes to meet so fully and actually the whole and real condition of man, or which holds out richer prospects of bliss in connexion with faith, or a deeper gloom of misery as the consequence of unbelief, than Christianity. By nothing has the attention of the world been more occupied in the way of profession or rejection, promulgation or persecution, during the last eighteen hundred years, than by Christianity. Her records have been tested, her statements have been sifted, her principles argued, her doctrines impugned, her demands questioned, and her evidences scrutinized; her disciples have been watched and tortured, and her ministers bribed or martyred. Paganism sought to strangle her at birth; Mohammedanism to substitute another in her room; superstition to bury her alive; infidel philosophy openly to condemn and crucify her; and, worst of all, hypocritical worldliness has sought to plunge her into the abyss of a freezing and perpetual oblivion. But all in vain: Christianity—true, pure, immortal, and divine, still lives and reigns; still joyfully does she go forth in the light of the sun, and before all her enemies. She still teaches, proclaims, commands, threatens, and promises, as at the beginning: repelling