to be treated without consideration by foreign powers'. Let us add, however, that, right or wrong, it is from England that the North fears intervention; it still counts on the old and constant friendship of France." "If the North does not yield to the first summons of England and France, will we go further? Have we calculated what the most successful war would cost, carried on at such a distance, in a vast country, with a brave and industrious people, who would defend their hearths with the energy of despair? What will be the losses and sufferings of the cotton manufacture, compared with the evils and burdens that will be incurred by an enterprise longer and more difficult than the Crimean war? If the honor of France were at stake, indeed, we should not hesitate; but the Americans have done us no harm; they have always been our friends. At this very moment it is in us that they place their hope. The neutrality of France is their salvation. In such conditions the war would never be popular; it would be in contradiction to the interests, ideas, and feelings of the country." "Suppose that the North yields to the first menace; suppose that, through fatigue, it bows before an armed mediation; suppose that it does not take vengeance forever on the party calling itself a foreign power; suppose it suffers us to regulate the dismemberment of America—all impossible suppositions when we think that a youthful, patriotic, and ardent people are in question, which for a year past has been living under arms when we have succeeded in this gigantic work, what shall we have done? We shall have given the lie to all our political traditions, weakened France and strengthened England, by crushing our most useful and faithful allies." "There is a political interest involved here which is greater than that of our manufacturers, and which seems to be forgotten or designedly lost sight of."

The bearings of a dismemberment of our Union upon the relations of France and England, are also truthfully set forth in the following paragraph :

"England holds the maxim that its navy must always be twice as strong as ours; which is equivalent to saying that the English wish always to be in a condition to brave Europe united. Take away America, which holds England in check, and forces her to respect the rights of neutrals, and be sure that the first continental war will witness the reäppearance of the ambition of former days, and of a prepotence from which we should be the first to suffer. The dismemberment of America is the restoration of the empire of the seas to our rivals, as the unity of America is the liberty of oceans and the peace of the world. This is what we must not weary of repeating to those who, for the sake of applying a more than doubtful remedy to the sufferings of a moment, would condemn us to begin anew the terrible trials of the past. If the United States, with their thirty mil lion men, had existed in 1810, does any one believe that the continental

blockade would have been possible? If to-morrow they are crushed, does any one believe that this blockade would never be renewed, if, which God forbid ! we should experience a disaster on the ocean?”

The arguments in this pamphlet against the pretended right of secession are put with great force, and a thorough knowledge of our constitutional history. Not less able is the advocacy of the position, that slavery is the real cause of the Southern secession and rebellion. That the North is fighting the battle, substantially for freedom, is also shown by incontrovertible evidence the logic of facts, the necessity of the case. Then in burning and eloquent words, the true position of the South in relation to the public conscience of mankind, is thus depicted:

"While the North so proudly flung out its flag, what did the South? What hindered it from rivalling its enemies, in order to dispute with them the sympathy of Europe? Where are the measures taken in favor of the negroes? Where are the pledges of a speedy emancipation? For, in short, if the tariff is the true motive of the war, if the supremacy of the North is the only fear of the planters, a fine occasion is offered to throw overboard the fatal dead-weight of slavery. Show us, then, the programme and pledges of the South; these alone can give it the support of public opinion. The North acts; why does the South preserve a silence, the danger of which cannot be disguised?"

"Let not the South deceive itself. Its soldiers are brave, its politicians skilful; it holds back the cotton which Europe so imperiously needs; it flatters certain European jealousies and fears, by holding out the coming dismemberment of the United States; but in spite of all these favorable chances, the South will be deceived in its ambition. The new Roman empire which was to extend as far as Mexico; that new civilization, based on slavery, which they have promised us, is but a vanishing dream, a bubble which the wind will burst. To succeed, the South will require the aid of Europe; this aid it shall never have. Whatever may be the sufferings of commerce, whatever may be the calculations of diplomatists, there is one fact which overweighs all, and that is slavery. The victory of the North is the redemption of four millions of men; the triumph of the South is the perpetuation, the extension of slavery, with all its miseries and all its crimes. It is this consideration which causes more than one government to pause. The masses, whom great politicians despise, but whom they dare not brave; those fanatics who believe in the Gospel; those narrow minds who understand nothing but liberty; those simpletons who are moved at the sufferings of an unknown negro; that sentimental mob

which throws into the scales its love of right and of humanity—always carry the day at last. The world belongs to these simple ones, who, refusing to listen to the cunning combinations of politics, consider justice and charity above their own interests. Public conscience is the rock on which

the South will be wrecked.

"Among us, in France, can the cause of slavery ever become popular? Our fathers went to America with Lafayette and Rochambeau to uphold liberty. It is one of our national glories; for this service rendered to the United States we are there considered as brethren and friends. Shall we blot out this glorious past? Shall the name of France be associated with the triumph of the South, that is to say, with the perpetuity of slavery? This cannot be. France, it is said, never fights for interest, but for ideas. I adopt the proud saying, and I ask: What ideas should we be fighting for in helping the South ?"

"Whatever may be the course of events, there is a duty for the friends of liberty and French greatness to fulfil at this moment. It is necessary to speak, it is necessary to enlighten the country, it is necessary to show it the abyss toward which it is urged by those fair-spoken politicians who, through love of peace, would force us to war, and in the name of independence would enlist us under the banner of servitude. Christians, who believe in the Gospel and the rights of an immortal soul, even though clothed in a black skin; patriots, whose hearts beat for democracy and liberty; statesmen, who do not wish the return of the colonial policy which for two centuries stained the seas with blood; Frenchmen, who have neither forgotten Lafayette, nor the glorious memories which we left behind in the New World, it is your cause that is being resolved in the United States. This cause M. de Gasparin has defended for a year past with as much courage as talent; it is our duty to range ourselves around him, and to hold with a firm hand the old French banner on which is written Liberty!"

This is noble and eloquent language. It may well inspire us with a firmer faith, not in our righteous cause, but in the welcome we shall receive if we but succeed in this deadly struggle, from the friends of liberty and justice all over the world. And we rejoice that now, as in the times of our Revolution, such words of counsel and of cheer come to us from the land of Lafayette. And these words have about them a Christian spirit and a moral tone higher than was reached by any of the political writers of France in the period immediately preceding its Revolution. And thus they indicate, not merely the progress of liberty, but progress in right views of liberty-that it can be secure and permanent only as founded

in Christianity, and pervaded by the Christian spirit and Christian ideas.

And thus is our conflict itself illumined by a higher light than that of mere natural reason. It is a part of the historic process by which the kingdoms of this world are to become the kingdoms of our Lord. The victories of truth and righteousness, of liberty and law, are the victories of an everlasting kingdom.

ART. V.-BAPTISM FOR THE DEAD. 1 Cor. xv, 29. XV,

By Rev. HERVEY D. GANSE, New York.

THE true interpretation of any passage, whether difficult or easy, must be consistent with its grammar and with its context. The natural method is to consider the context first; for, in reading, we come to the passage through the expressions which have preceded it, and if it do not readily yield a sense, we instinctively glance down to the next plain sentence, in hope that it will throw its light back upon the obscure one. Yet, so soon as a passage gets a reputation for difficulty, espe cially if it be brief and easily remembered, there is a temptation to pluck it out of its connection, and to manipulate its mere terms into some possible meaning. Let us be careful to avoid this mistake, and make our approach to this difficult verse through its context.

The particular discussion, to which the text belongs, begins at the 12th verse: "Now, if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?" The following verses, down to the twenty-fourth, are a direct assault upon that bold and dangerous assertion. But for whose advantage? Is the Apostle's audience made up of the deniers of the resurrection them. selves, or of those who are in danger of being misled by them, or of both? The following indications will decide this ques

tion. St. Paul cannot have had the unbelievers exclusively in his mind, since he carefully discriminates between them and others whom he, at least, addresses equally. The sceptics are at most "certain among you". That is, the Church is addressed in the second person, while he describes the doubters in the third. The same he does at the end of the discussion, in the thirty-third and thirty-fourth verses-"Be not deceived. Evil communications corrupt good manners". "For some have not the knowledge of God." Unquestionably the Tives of his last assertion were the Tives of the twelfth verse, and the persons addressed in the second person in both these verses, and all through the intermediate discussion, were not those very unbelievers. Nay, there is proof that the discrimination of these verses was kept up throughout, and that the false teachers were not directly addressed at all. Twice the Apos tle speaks of "your faith", and once of "your rejoicing, which I have in Christ Jesus". Whatever may be the meaning of that last somewhat obscure expression, it must imply the true piety of those whom it concerns. But the deniers of the resurrection had neither faith nor piety; for it is to be observed that Paul treats their denial of the resurrection as though it were a denial of all immortality. "Then they that are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." "If in this life only we have hope in Christ", etc. But how had the denial of the resurrection of the body limited their hope to "this life only", unless it followed upon that denial that there was to be no future life? The same estimate of their doctrine appears in the closing appeal: "Why stand we in jeopardy every hour? If I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me?" "Very much", might the doubter reply, if his doubt concerned only the resurrection; "you shall live for ever in spiritual happiness". The Apostle could not have failed to see so great a flaw in his argument. It follows clearly that the "some among them" who denied the resurrection-whose "evil communications" were to be shunned-who "had not the knowledge of God", were outright infidels, whether Sadducees or Pagans-wolves in sheep's clothing, who aimed to