etratoptoPaturt. REPLY TO MR. EVA ON MILLENARIANISM, BY REV. D. G. MALLERY So fair and candid a view of Millenarianism as was presented in Mr. E.'s first article, hardly prepared us for the bad names he gives us in the second. We had scarcely got through wondering how he could have written the first without con verting himself to the doctrine, when we find him classing the believers of it with Anabaptists and Mormons, and utterly identifying them with the Millerites. So the Quaker in the story shouted, "Bad dog ,l bad dog !" till the crowd took up the cry, " Mad dog ! mad dog !" and slew the unfortunate animal Mr. Eva should not have followed the bad ex ample of Dr. Shedd, from whose book of wide margins and large type he quotes, nor of Dr. Hatfield, from whom he might have quoted worse names for us still. If Dr. Shedd's book had been published by Beadle as a " dime novel," and not been made so pretentious by much paper and huge type, one would ever think of quoting from it as though it were, an authority. Mr. Eva says that " this theory is nowhere in the Scriptures so plainly taught as to be clearly, unmistakably, and indisputably found there." I reply, "No; nor is any other doctrine so to be found in the Bible." What doctrine, that is not believed without the Bible, is found so " clearly and unmistakably" as to be indisputa ble? Are not the Baptists forever putting us to this test, to find infant baptism, and baptism by pouring, so "clearly and unmistakably" taught that they cannot dispute it ? And yet, to my mind, if those two doctrines are not taught in the Bible, nothing is. The plainest doctrines of God's word are disputed by Romanists, Unitari ans, trniversalists, Quakers, Baptists, and Anti millenarians, and each of these will say the same of each other and of us. The'doOtrines of Chiliasm seem to us to be "so plainly taught" in Scripture that it is with us a standing wonder that they are not to all good and learned men " clear, unmistakable and indisputa ble." Still, we know that pious and wise men differ from us, and we should think it absurd to point, as brother Eva would have us, to some one text and say, " Here is my doctrine=--dispute it if you can • . Mr. Evans second remark is that this doctrine has " never been 'received as the faith of God's Church; never as such, been incorporated into any of its symbols of doctrine, whether Creeds, Confessions, or Catechisms;" and th®n backs it up with an extract from Dr. Shedd, as though Mr. Eva's word were not as reliable as the Doc tor's. To the, writer of this reply Mr. Eva's word is worth more than that of any man who might be interested in the revival of Origenism now going on in New York. Brother Eva has already shown us in his first article that there was no need, in the Apostolic or Ante-Nicene period of the Church, to put a universally received doctrine into a summary of the piimary facts of Christianity which every man must believe in order to be saved. The doc trine of future punishment, the doctrine of hu man depravity, the doctrine of the atonement, are not in that creed except' by remote implica tion, and when the framers of the creed had said, " We believe in the Son of God, the Son of Mary, oar Lord, who shall come again from heaven to rule the living and the dead," they thought they had put Chiliasminto the creed, because the uni versal sentiment would be the commentary on it, and they had not yet learned to explain away any part of the angel's worde to Mary—" Thou shalt bring forth a son and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give unto hint the throne if his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and (g`' his kingdom there shall be no end." Of course the Nicene Creed is included, though net mentioned, in the assertion of Mr. Eva and Dr. Shedd. Let us see. Its words are, He " sitteth on the right hand of the Father and He shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end." " I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come." • Now, although the doctrine of the coming and kingdom of Christ faded away very rapidly after the Nicene Council, and after the Church was taken under patronage of the Empire, still, up to this time, the belief in Chiliasaa is acknowledged on all hands to have been general and must be the commentary on the Creed, which connects directly our Lord's' coming from heaven in glory with his rule over the quick and dead and the establishment of his kingdom. But fortunately, we have the Council's own Commentary on it. Both the Greek and the English translation may be found in ShimealPs " Eschatology." I give the English. " We expect new heavens and a new earth ac cording to the holy Scriptures, the Epiphany and Kingdom of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ then appearing. And, as Daniel says, the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom. And there shall be a pure and holy land, the land of the living and not of the dead . . .. the land of the meek and humble. Blessed, saith Christ, axe the meek. for they shall inherit the earth " ke. THE AMERICAN PRESBYTERIAN, THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 1867. Dr. Shedd says, " The Augsburg Confession expressly condemns" Millenarianism. This state ment is directly the opposite of the truth. What the Augsburg Confession does condemn is the now prevalent notion of a Millennium of righteousness and good government before the Lord's coming. It condemns the notion of the conversion of the world under the present dispensation, the idea now regarded as orthodox, but one which, as we shall soon see, Luther constantly condemned. The words of the Augsburg Confession are, translated from the German : Our churches " con demn those who circulate the Judaizing notion, that PRIOR TO THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD, the pious will establish a separate temporal gov ernment, and all the wicked be exterminated;" or, translated from the Latin, "They condemn those 'ho circulate the Judaizing notion that prior to the resurrection of the dead, the pious will engross the government of the world and the wicked be everywhere oppressed." Is it not the common doctrine of the times in which we live that "prior to the resurrection of the dead, the pious will engross the government of the world ?" Is not this what we hear from pulpits and platforms, at missionary and tract anniversaries, at inaugurations of telegraphs and railroads, on occasions of commercial treaties and new inventions of artillery and gunboats, and all the other devices of sivilization and religion by which the world is abe converted ? Is not this what we hear when invited to aid the missionary work on• the one hand, or on the other to enter the field of politics and vote for " good men," (i. e. our party) so thatby conversions here, and by Christian magistrates and legislators there, the time may be hastened when, " BEFORE THE RE SURRECTION OF THE DEAD, THE PIOUS WILL EN GROSS THE GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD ?" Whose doctrine is it, Dr. Shedd and brother Eva,—yours or ours,—that the Augsburg Con fession denounces? Surely even larger spaces should have been *left blank in the " History of Christian Doctrine." " The Confession of Edward VI. . . . . con demns it in nearly the same terms as the Augs burg," says Dr. Shedd. Well, Millenarians can endure such a condemnation, if their opponents can. But a sentence or two from the Catechism of Edward VI., writteß by Cianmer, may throw some light on it. " Ques.—How is that petition, Thy kingdom come, to be understood? "Ans.—We ask that His kingdom may come, for as yet we see not all things subject to Christ: we see not yet how the stone is cut out of the mountain without human help, which breaks into pieces and reduces to nothing the image described by Daniel; or how the only rock, which is Christ, cloth obtain and possess the whole world given him of his Father. As yet, Antichrist is not slain: whence it is that we desire and pray that at length it may come to pass and be fulfilled; and that Christ a,jone may reign, with his saints, according to the Divine promises; and that he may live and have dominion in the world," &c. Further extracts may be seen in Shimeall or D. L. Taylor. Surely our opponents are welcome to all the comfort they can get from Edward VI., who con demns a Millennium " prior to the resurrection," and who teaches us to pray that Christ would hasten to destroy the governments of the earth and live and reign on the earth with His saints. Once more; says Dr. Shedd, " The Westmin ster Assembly ignores the hypothesis utterly." Well, Dr. Duffield, a Professor at Princeton, has lately preached the Moderator's sermon be fore the 0. S. Synod of New Jersey, in which he undertakes to prove that the doctrine of the Pie millennial Advent is the doctrine of the Confession and of the Bible. Set the argument of the one Professor against the assertion of the other, and then let us see for ourselves. The Westminster Assembly was " composed of 10 Lords, 20 Commoners, and 121 Divines; Episcopalians, Dissenters, Independents," &c., and the copy book was as true in those days as in ours—" Many men of many minds." The Confession was; therefore, necessarily a compromise, so that a full statement of a disputed point is not to be expected. That large numbers of the members were Millenarians cannot be de nied, although they failed to get their doctrine clearly into the book, although Robert Bailie says they were very. " troublesome" in the A ssem. bly. This Robert Bailie, Principal of the Uni versity of Glasgow, one of the members of the Assembly, and a strong Anti-millenarian, wrote to Wm. Spang: " The most of the chief divines here, not only Independents, but others, such as Twisse, [the Moderator,] Marshall, Palmer, and many more, are express Chiliasts." No wonder that Bailie found them "so troublesome among But if they did not get all they wanted, they did get enough to show that the Assembly did not hold the modern theory that Christ will not come for many centuries. They forbid us to say the time is far off, as well as to fix a time near, but teach, contrary to the prevailing theory, that He may come at any moment. What they do give us is this: In the Shorter Catechism we are taught to pray, not only for the present "kingdom of grace," but "that the kingdom of glory may be hastened." In the Larger Cate chism, this is explained thus: "We pray that Christ would hasten the time of his second com ing, and our reigning with him forever." Our imnonents will not find much Anti-millenarian- ism in that. The Confession reads: "As Christ would have us to be certainly persuaded that there shall be a2day of judgment, &c.; . . . so will he have that day unknown to men, that they may shake off all carnal security, and be always watchful, because they know not at what hour the Lord will come, and may be ever prepared to say, Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly." If this is not, indeed, fully what we could wish, it is at any rate perfectly in accord with our doctrine, as far as it goes,and wholly at variance with the doctrine that we do know that he shill not come in our life-time, nor for many centuries after we are dead. The third remark of Mr. Eva is that this doc trine " involves a vast amount of fanciful, if not sensuous, interpretation of the Scriptures." Alas, how easily this charge can be retorted, word for word. Since the time when Origen be gan the allegorizing, spiritualizing mode of ex plaining,—or explaining away,—the plain words of Scripture, what' sad and wild fancies have taken the place of interpretation I All the here sies On the rationalistic side have sympathized with the " spiritualistic" mode of interpretation; all denials of the future punishment of the wicked, all efforts to,:iret rid of the miraculous in the Bible, all frittering away of the doctrine of the resurrection, all low views of the sacraments, all rejecting of them as " sensuous" and lacking in " spirituality," and a thousand things besides. No Chiliast can be found with the slightest sym pathy with, or respect for, or tendency towards, the rationalistic side in any of the controversies of our day. They have their faults, doubtless, but not in that direction, and if some of them have been iniliscreet, and foolish, if you will, it will not be difficult to find equal folly in indi viduals of the opposite party. Under this head Mr. Eva has the unkindness to, affiliate us withthe Anabaptists and Mormons, a somewhat gratuitous insult which needs no reply until he points out the items of resemblance. We were not a little surprised that he identi fies Millerism and Millenarianism, supposing it impossible he should be ignorant of the world wide difference between them;—we had been so accustomed to think of IVlillerism as Abraham of Dives: " Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed;"—and to remember that the most earnest and successful oppbnents of the Millerite excitement were Millenarians. • But the confounding of the two,—Millerism and Millenarianism,—is so common a mistake that this point is worthy of remark. I have my self heard persons speak of them as though the one name were a derivative of the other; both beginning With Mille and both ending in ism,. Millerism reset bles the common theory in al most every thing except the'nearness of the judg ment; in its spiritualizing or allegorizing mode of interpretation ; in its explaining away the prophecies respecting the future of the Jewish people; in expecting all conversions to Christ to be made by the present order of means and in the present dispensation; in supposing that the world will be burned up immediately on the coming of Christ, and in many other points, while its resemblance to Millenarianism is only appa rent and that only at one point. There is no pos sible harmony between them. Dr. Duffield (p. 146) says of Miller, " Al though he and his school differ greatly in their result from the great body of the Spiritualists e. spiritualizers, those interpreting the Bible in the usual way] in this country, yet do they practically hold the same principles of Spiritual e. non-literal] interpretation in common, with this leading exception, that Mr. Miller affirms the visible Ailing of Christ to be before the Millennium. In this respect he agrees with the Millenarians or Literalists,.but thisis almost the only one. In all other particulars he is with the Spiritualists, [Anti-millenariansd and his whole system is but the legitimate application and car rying out of their principles of interpretation to the prophecies. He has infinitely more in com mon with them than with the Literalists." Even in the one point in which the Millerites seem to be with us, it is only seeming, for neither the antecedents nor the consequents are the same. Millerites believe that the world is never to be converted to God, and we believe that all nations are to be converted. They hold that the Jews are neither to be converted nor restored to Pal estine; we hold that they will, as a nation, both Judah and Israel, be restored and converted. They teach that at Christ's coming, when the dead and living saints are caught up to meet him, all the people remaining on the earth after the rapture, will be burned up and we teach that while, at the Second Advent Jesus Christ will destroy the governments of the world, the people who were the subjects of those governments will re main and become the subjects of the King Messiah. They hold that after this destruction of the world and its inhabitants the ne t " heavens and earth will be immediately formed for the residence of the saints during the Millennium; we hold that the new heavens and earth will not be completely formed until after the Millennium and after the final judgment. They hold that only the raised and changed saints in their glorified state—only the kings and priests—will live on the earth dur ing the Millennium; and we, that the glorified saints alone will reign on the earth, but that the nations of men in natural flesh, as they are now, will live on the earth and be the subjects of the priestly kings, with the royal priest Jesus Christ as sunreme ruler—literally a "King of kings." They consider the whole result of Christ's work in the conversion of souls to be accomplished at the beginning of the Millennium; while we regard that blessed period as the great day of conver sions to which all that have gone before will be trifling in number—the time for the conversion of millions, instead of hundreds as in this age. We regard that age as the greatest preparation for the eternal world; while they reg,aill it as a finality. After the Millennium and the second resurrection, they expect a transfer of the re deemed to heaven and of the lost to hell and an end of the human race as such; while we expeet the human race to continue on the earth forever, and that the globe will never be. destroyed. What could be more unlike than the two sys tems? (To be continued.) OUR CHICAGO CORRESPONDENT. THE WATER TUNNEL The Am. Presbyterian has noticed already the project of this city to supply itself with water as pure as is ever distilled by Nature's grandsystem of chemistry. That project is at last completed and our goblets are filled with molten crystal. The day which marked the era of such a supply is noteworthy in our annals as a city. No bolder project was ever devised; none was ever more successfully executed. What was known as the Chicago Hydraulic company, was organized in 1839, and commenced its operations in 1840. The city then had a population of about 30,000. A reservoir was constructed near the shore of the lake on ground now occupied by one of our large hotels. This reservoir was about twenty-five feet square and eight feet deep. It had an elevation of eighty feet above the surface of the ground; and was filled by means 'of a pump drawing water through an iron pipe laid upon thib-work, and extending one hundred and fifty-feet into the lake. The pump was worked by a steam engine of twen ty five ' horse power. The water was distributed through mains made of logs, the principal artery being five inches in diapieter, the subordinate ar teries three inches. The Manager of the works contracted to supply the city with water for ten years free of all expense to the company, in con sideration of the use of the surplus power of their "pony" engine. And he relates that often in the winter, as the pipe extending into the lake would be distUrbed by the heaving of the frost, he was obliged to spend' hours at a tirne'in caulk ing the loosened joints by throwing w a ter upon the opened seams, that by freezing up the cracks he might make the services of the pump availa ble. He also states that although - when the pipe was first laid, its extremity was th - fgeofeet below' the surface of the lake, the drifting of the sand had so widened the margin of the shore in 1812,- 3 that the opening of the pipe was frequently left entirely above the surface, particularly when the wind blew from the South. This play-house structure was thought sufficient for the city once; but Chicago' was then in its infancy. It has long since put`away childish things. Its present system of supply by some of the most powerful engines in the country, and by a system of elevated reservoirs, located in different sections of the city, has been in use about four teen years. When these engines were erected, the daily requirements of the city were two million gallons. To day they furnish eleven millions daily through mains of about three feet in diameter, and through uncounted miles of smaller conduits. New machinery is now being erected which will be able to supply fifty millions of gallons every twenty-four hours. Much trou ble has been experienced from the impurity of the water heretofore furnished—a_trouble which has greatly increased as the sewerage of the city has been extended. 'Now; however, as the water is drawn through a tunnel from a distance of two miles from the shore, we shall be free from all annoyances, and shall not be afraid to drink what comes into all our houses at a touch of the fingers. New excuses for the use of lager, and of its more potent concomitants, must be invented. Baths have become luxuries, and tea is no longer fishey. The expense of our present improvements is great, but yet small, in comparison with that by which inferior supplies are furnished to tithe': large cities. ,Our water works have cost us about two million five hundred thousand dollars. Those of New York have cost forty-five million dollars. The economy of our system cannot be estima ted when health and convenience are considered, and it is said that by a moderate charge for the use of the water supplied, the revenue will be sufficient to cover all the cost of running the machinery, the interest on the debt incurred, and the debt itself when, after a few years, the bonds given as security for it shall mature. After that time a large revenue will be'received annually by the city for what will have seemed to cost noth ing. Well may we congratulate ourselves on what we have and on what we hope for. It only remains to devise some system, which I am sure will he ere long adopted, by which heat may be distributed as light and water now are, by con duits in our streets. Modern conveniences will then be nearly perfect. RITUALISM Amid the signs of material progress we have some signs of movement—whether one would call it progress or not—in respect of moral and spir itual. machinery.. A. friend wr h decided lean ings towards Episcopacy, haying just returned from New York. shakes his head somewhat mournfully over the demonstrations he witne,, e in Trinity church, where candles, and respo n ,i, , choral services, and intonings, have taken ill,• place of the simple worship of former (1v,... But the Trinity church of Chicago might hav e furnished him with similar occasion for dissati— faction, the other day, on occasion of the recep tion of Bishop Whitehouse, after his return from a recent visit to Europe. The service was mark ed by a "Processional," in which the Bi s h„ p and a large body of the clergy participated. The Psalms used were all performed "antiphonally," and the "Amen" of the prayers was given by the choir in bursts of music. The Bishop said Bo th. ing Of ritualisth in his *remarks, though the un usual symbols on his dress said much, and one of the speeehe,s of welcome said more, as their ex tracts will testify:— "I rejoice that you are a Bishop in that great Anglican communion, founded in apostolic times ; with its Scriptural and uniform Liturgy ; i ts splendid services, and destined, I trust, to bPconi, still more splendid in the not distant future. Your return to us now is at a time of great inter est in the Church. Not only in your own diocese, but throughout the land, the missionary and Cbnrch extension spirit is being aroused with a zeal and fervor before unknown in our history. Interesting questions relatite to improving tk, glory and' beauty of our liturgical and sanctuary worship, are being temperately discussed, and all we humbly trust, tending to the glory of God and the extension of His Church." So far as Trinity. church in Chicago is concern ed, all this may go for little, as the congregation is known to be Lovie Church in its sympathies: So far as the Bishop in concerned, it is certainly significant. Is it not time to present to him the protest against Ritualism, which has already been signed by so many of the Bishops of America' Would he sign it? WABASH. GOD'S WORD IN THE. MEMORY-OUR SUNDAY SCHOOLS. We do not know how wide, throughout our denomination, is the departure from the good old way of committing to memory the Word of God. We have had our suspicion awakened at tithes as we have looked into this school and that, that there' has been a growing depreciation of the par value of "holding fast the form of sound words." We fear that a careful examination of all our schools would show a wide-spread insensibility. In some schools there has doubtless been a reac tion from the extreme of "cramming" the child's nand with the largest possible number of verses. In other schools, a.mistaken love of novelty has taken the place of a judicious and pleasing variety. In still others the impossibility of using a fixed lesson with all grades of children, has led to giving up the exact words of Scripture so as to have the explanation adapted to all ages and classes. Other causes have united no doubt in many of our schools to displace the memory of Scripture words with simply the memory of the meaning humanly given to the divine words. 'ln some parts of the country, there is a strong check now put upon this tendency, and the chil dren are brought back to the Word of God. Alai it is in aid of this most desirable return that we bespeak the attention of the Sunday-school Su perintendents and Teachers throughout our church. There is a number of most important points, of which to think, just here. We hope to speak ofsome of them in following articles. But just fur this present, think . of what we demand in secular edu cation. We do not demand in the common school, that all the books shall be learned nfrnlo rl ter. But we do require that in all branches of instruction based on fixed facts, the facts of the text book shall be learned. We do require that. in all sciences ' in which are definite rules, invio lable through lapse of time, the rules shall be fixed in memory. You put into the hand of your son a manual of exact science, Geology, Mineral ogy, Botany. You demand as fundamental and indispensable the names, order and characteristics of rocks, minerals and plants. You give him a Latin grammar, and he must memorize the para digms and the rules. You give your little child a geography and you drill him, until he knows the exact boundary of States, the location of towns and the products of the soil. Even in those sta tistics which are variable do you make the de mand. Now the Bible is a book of revealed facts, of fixed rules, of unchanging outlines of spiritual topography. And the Scripture fact, or the Scripture rule, takes character from the form iii which it is stated. Its words do not change, its rules are the same when the child goes on to man hood, while a revolution has taken place in the forms even of Arithmetic statement. Austria and Prussia are not on the map what they were a year ago. Nebraska is not in Geography what it was three months ago; and Colorado will not be year hence what it is now. Populations, citiei, lines of communication, taught rigidly to children. are shifting. But the exact Word of God is the same yesterday to day and forever. A new trans lation might alter a word here and there for bet ter or for worse, but as long as the faithful mean ing of the vital truths lies in the phrasing of our present English Bible, let us have these momo,- tous facts, just as the infinitely scientific _Mind has stated them, fixed in the memory. Let us have these great rules of life, which have so much more to do with happiness and misery than the rules of barter and of speech, fixed for the whole life. Let us have the sure outlines of spiritual topography exactly as God has represented them. They are as much more important than many of the physi cal facts of secular study, as our Lord's life is more important than the life of Washington or "the great gulf fixed" is more important than the great gulf which separates Mexico and the United States. And God who knew exactly man's wants from childhood to old age, has given all these facts and rules a careful and exact statement. All other text-books are but preparatory to this Text-Book of life. Exact knowledge of law, prin ciples and events in this world, is of far less con sequence than the exact knowledge of God's re vealed law, principles, and events of both this and a future world.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers