accomplished debater, and, of course, he has said enough to refute the arrogant pretensions of Catholicism. Yet the Bishop gained many apparent advantages over him, and we are inclined to think, from what we saw of the public mind at the time, that he was thought by the majority to have borne the palm in the controversy, and enlisted the public sympathy in his favor. The cause of this is readily found in the disadvantages under which Mr. Campbell came to the debate. He appeared to be the assailant, although not so in reality, and therefore gave his opponent the advantage of seeming the peaceful defender of his own faith. Mr. Campbell, moreover, was too extravagant in the propositions, which he advanced against Catholicism, and failing to substantiate some of them, he of course appeared to many to have failed in all. It would have been better for him not to have attempted to prove the Roman Catholic Church to be the "Babylon" of John, the “Man of Sin" of Paul, and the Empire of the "Youngest Horn" of Daniel's Sea Monster. He moreover allowed the Bishop to draw him away from the main question into the fields of ancient learning, and at times found himself bewildered in regions, where his opponent felt himself quite at home. Mr. Campbell's close logic did not give him much advantage over the Bishop in the eyes of the mass of the audience; for the ridicule and eloquent declamation of the Prelate went for far more with the multitude, than any strength and clearness of argument. The Bishop would reply, for instance, to an elaborate argument against the celibacy of the clergy by asking how St. Paul would have looked with a half dozen squealing little children, running after him, in his visits to the churches of Greece; and by inquiring whether, if, as his opponent declared, it were true, that a clergyman ought to be married, in order to sympathize fully with the feelings of husbands and parents, it were not on the same principle true, that he ought to remain a bachelor in order to sympathize the more fully with a numerous class of Christians, namely, the old maids, and that he ought to have a scolding wife to sympathize with a scolded husband. In this way, the Bishop often turns the laugh upon his antagonist, sometimes, indeed, justly, as in regard to Mr. Campbell's labored argument on the Apocalypse. Oftener, however, he treats his opponent unfairly, by answering argument with empty ridicule and declamation, and by a Jesuitical quibble, evading the point at issue. All these

stratagems are apparent in reading the debate, although they were not so obvious to the hearer. If Bishop Purcell, therefore, had the advantage before the listening crowd, he must lose it before the reading public.

The utility of controversies like these is doubtful, although much may be said in their behalf. They certainly have the effect of interesting the public mind upon religious subjects. Men will be excited by a vehement debate upon a theological point, while they would nod over a dissertation, however wisely or eloquently written upon the same theme. The interest, which such disputes create, is indeed a low kind of religious interest, but it is better than none, and may lead to something higher. Some converts were made to both parties, and we hope to religion, by this discussion.

Such controversies must surely teach liberality to the religious world, if any thing can, by showing what Catholicism is, as it exists in the minds of the enlightened believers. Bishop Purcell spoke as strongly against many of the practices and doctrines, which have been ascribed to his church, as Messrs. Campbell and Breckinridge, or Dr. Brownlee himself could have done. He denies, that the Pope is infallible, except as an expounder of the essential doctrines of Christianity, and with the consent of the bishops. He says that, although a few of the Popes erred in morals, none of them erred in faith; and that he should not be surprised, if these bad Popes were at this moment expiating their crimes in the penal fires of hell. He denies, that the Pope claims temporal power, and that although he has in time past claimed it, he did not found the claim on a revealed doctrine of God. The Bishop moreover denies, that the Inquisition was established by the doctrines of his church, but maintains, that the church claims only spiritual power over its members, and that all resort to physical force, all the cruelties of the Inquisition were either the acts of civil governments, or else abuses of ecclesiastical discipline, which the doctrines of the church do not sanction, and for which Catholics do not hold themselves at all responsible. His defence of his church is almost entirely grounded upon the distinction between doctrine and discipline, which he constantly urges. Discipline constantly changes with time and occasion, he argues, but doctrines are unchanged and unchangeable. He excels many of our Protestant brethren, in liberality, for he allows that many without the pale of his own Church may

be saved, and grants salvation to the true and faithful Indian, who may never have heard of Jesus.

These controversies ought to make people believe, that there is a central Christianity that is entirely beyond the reach of these strifes in the outskirts of theology. It would be well if controversialists would dispute in such temper as should teach this lesson of liberality more effectually. In this view, neither of the debates before us is unexceptionable. The parties speak as if the whole of religion depended on points of doctrine, that are to be decided by verbal disputes, and by the voice of majorities. A skeptical mind must derive much amusement from the conduct of the parties and their friends after the discussion. Mr. Campbell's friends assembled and voted, that he had gained a glorious victory for Protestantism. The Bishop's friends sent to him an elegant silver pitcher in token of his triumphant defence of the Holy Church. The Bishop replied in an arrogant letter, in which he said his antagonist repented ever meeting him, and specified twenty or thirty points, in which he had signally defeated Mr. Campbell and put him to shame. To crown the whole, Mr. Campbell publishes a pamphlet, in which he states thirty-one points, as having been established, and the enormities of Popery fully exposed. Where in the midst of such discussions shall we find that wisdom, that is hid from the wise and prudent, and revealed unto babes?

Neither these debates nor the whole crusade, which is carried on against the Roman Catholic Church have tended to injure her influence. As far as we can judge by observation, as well as reflection, all such attacks have helped Catholicism. They have roused the indifference of the Catholics themselves, and converted many nominal believers, who went to church merely to accompany their wives, into ardent champions of the faith. They have also shown the people, what was before unknown, that there is a rational side even to Popery, and that it can be defended, almost, if not quite as well, as some other hierarchies in our land, that look on Roman pretensions with pious horror. These attacks, moreover, make Catholicism conspicuous, and give it opportunity to work on the superstitions of the multitude. In the tone of certainty, which the Catholic uses, there is a charm and authority, which addresses itself with great power to the credulity and latent superstition of the human heart. In listening to the Bishop

of Cincinnati, we felt an influence from the undoubting tone of the eloquent champion of Mother Church, which all of his opponent's logic was hardly able to resist. It is generally the case that the greatest dogmatist finds the most followers, — he, who is most firm in his own convictions and assertions, is surest of convincing others.

There is, however, a tone of charity and toleration, which has more power against Catholic domination, than any abuse or narrow dogmatism can have. If, instead, of attacking the Catholics we allow them to walk their own way, and give them quietly a place among other denominations of Christendom, we take away from them the plea of injured rights, with which they so enlist the public sympathies, and we moreover thus diffuse a broad Christian spirit, which is entirely at war with all ecclesiastical usurpation. Many, indeed, think, that the mild toleration, with which so many regard Catholicism in our country, is opening the way for her domination. But it is quite the reverse. She has no greater enemy to her tyranny, than the spirit of universal charity, which is willing to see good in all forms of religion. Dr. Channing's truly Catholic Letter on Romanism has done more to undermine the Papal power in the West, than all the dogmatism and calumnies of Beecher, Brownlee, and the whole school of Anti-Popery plotters. The Catholics are well aware of this, and while they cannot but admire Dr. Channing's spirit, have in all their journals denounced the doctrines of his letter in the strongest terms. They well know that such liberal views must, if suffered to prevail, be the death of Roman exclusiveness.

This leads us to remark, in closing this hasty notice, that neither of the champions of Protestantism in these two debates seems happily chosen. A successful champion against Romanism should be either an Episcopalian or a Unitarian. — Either an Episcopalian, and able to meet the Catholic on his own ground, and be able to do battle on the nice points of patristical learning, or else a Unitarian, and able to drive the Catholic off his ground among the dusty folios of the Fathers, and to base Christian freedom on the inalienable rights of man and the eternal truth as it is in Jesus. Neither Mr. Breckinridge nor Mr. Campbell seem much at home in the fields of ancient learning, and thus give their opponents great advantages. Mr. Breckinridge, moreover, cannot well show the

absurdity of transubstantiation, as long as he maintains the trinity, and allows his antagonist to defend the former, by the analogy of the latter. Mr. Campbell cannot refute the claims of Catholicism to be the only true church, as long as he has no better answer than what he gives to the Bishop's question, If the Roman Catholic was not the true church, what was the true church before the Protestant Reformation? Instead of looking for the true church among all faithful followers of Jesus in all communions, he enters into a long argument to prove that the Cathari, or Novatians, or Donatists, or Paulicians, or Waldenses, as they were successively called, were the true body of the faithful, the real church of Christ. Mr. Campbell we hoped was too liberal a man to resort to such expedients, and too wise a man to allow his opponent to bewilder him by voluntarily resting his argument on some vague and disputed passages in ecclesiastical history. A better reply to the Bishop's question might be found in the answer which the celebrated Fox made to one, who proposed a similar question. "If you deny the claims of Catholicism, where then was the true church, before the Reformation?" “Where was your face this morning before it was washed ? ” was the witty reply.

From a year's observation in the West, we are not led to think, that Catholicism is making any alarming progress in the Great Valley. Nearly all the additions to their numbers are made by immigration from abroad. Popery will die of itself, if bigots can be content to leave it to itself, and cease to provoke its energies, and to enlist the public sympathy in its behalf, by their virulent attacks.

S. O.

ART. IV. -THE WORD: OR AN EXPOSITION OF THE PROEM OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN.

THE "Word" is here used in a sense far removed from its common import as an element of articulate speech. In the exalted significance given to it by John, it has no place among our habitual associations. It presents itself to us as a