Is it reasonable, or at all in accordance with experience, to suppose that the way to reach the hearts of the people is to put ourselves into direct antagonism to their rights, habits, or wishes? Do we commend the Gospel to them by fostering the notion that men may be made religious by Act of Parliament, or the fiat of the Crown—by insisting that they shall “keep” the Sabbath according to our notions, not their own—by clamouring to curtail the means of obtaining pure air and recreation one day out of seven, because we consider it “sinful?” The religious world is absorbed with its “causes” and “interests,” “enjoyments” and “privileges;” and, while thus systematically turning its attention _inwards_, and calculating every pulsation of the great world around in relation to itself, is too apt to forget that there is a moral law whose foundations lie deep in the principles of revealed truth—and that any violation of the precepts of that law, whether by abrogating natural rights, dictating the actions and occupations of others, or coercing them into an apparent piety of heart and life, is altogether foreign to the genius of Christianity. Our Lord has given his followers an injunction to preach the Gospel—the power of which over the heart none who have felt it can mistrust. If by this agency, and this alone, the affections of man are to be changed and a new life created within him—if, in a word, the world is to be _won_ over to the cause of truth, by the exhibition of God’s love—surely it indicates a want of worldly wisdom as well as distrust of the Divine power and promises, for the disciples of Christ to be calling to their aid extraneous help;—at one time relying upon the sword of the civil magistrates—at another on Parliamentary legislation. If its professors are to be believed, Christianity is _ever_ in imminent danger. Between the encroachments of Popery and the progress of Infidelity, we are always in a state of chronic alarm for organized religion. Really it would seem, that if it were not for the frequent exercise of a little authority—that is, physical force, an occasional crusade against Popery, a persecution _by society_ of free inquiry, the religious world would lose all confidence—Samson must inevitably be overcome by the seductions of Delilah or the hosts of the Philistines. It may safely be concluded that, where this faithlessness obtains, the power of the Gospel is deficient. Christianity is essentially aggressive, but, according to the experience of its degenerate disciples, it is hard work to act upon the defensive. Does not the outside world take note of these things? What more natural than that the sceptic and indifferent should doubt the alleged power of religion when such are its apparent manifestations—when, positively, any particular discovery of great advantage to mankind, such as the application of steam to locomotion, or any special event promising social benefit, such as the opening of the new Crystal Palace, fills its adherents with apprehension, because it seems to disturb their particular interests?