Christ was founded without any connection with political elements, and the great point is to keep it free. In Italy they have a free Church in a free State. In Germany they are struggling for the same thing. It is a struggle difficult for an Englishman to understand. It is the setting free of religion from political elements, and no man doubts, except perhaps the Roman Catholic, that the march of true religion depends upon its freedom from political connection.

The Mohammedan has his Sultan and Caliph in one person; and, though these curious productions called sultans might drink themselves drunk with wine, they were the heads of the Church. Of course we are not smiling at them; for in this country, we have had George IV. and Charles II. in the same position. You have got the thing mixed in Mahommedanism, and I don't see how you can separate Church and State. But, with this book in the hand, it is possible. A man shall take up the New Testament with the words of Christ, and shall say, "Cæsar shall get his taxes, and no more." But, with the Koran in your hand, and the sword by your side and in your heart, I see not how they can be severed.

There are very many matters to be added, but I

see some of you are getting weary.

Nevertheless, they are deep questions of our time; things that shake the nations, and are to shake the world; for of Christ it is proclaimed, “He shall smite the nations with the sword of his mouth." So, then, do all justice to Mohammed as a great prophet and teacher; admitting his faults, but looking at them as the least part about him, provided there be the constant following after righteousness, and the constant struggle after God; remembering how, in the Old Testament, David was said to be a man after God's own heart—that sinful, lustful, passionatehearted man; sinning so deeply, but turning back to God with equal power.

So, admit Mohammed's faults; and he is not alone in them, for have not others found that revelation comes handy when desire has gone before? When one wants a decision, he can get one. When we want to see light, we are apt to look through our own windows; for, as Henry VIII. said, "How the gospel light doth dawn through Anne Boleyn's eyes!" Yet, with all his faults, Mohammed was the teacher of a sublime doctrine; and even his heaven and hell set forth the principle of cause and consequence. He was a true prophet, though sinful; a true prophet, though partial; but

one of whom we must say, "Thou must decrease:" and of Him, the Son of God, what shall we say? "Thou must increase." All kingdoms are Thine, O King of Kings, and Lord of Lords!

M

CREEDS OF TO-DAY.

Morning, August 8th, 1875.

FOLLOWING our usual custom, once a year, we will look this morning at the movements of the ecclesiastical and theological life by which we are surrounded. Not that from them or through them we can learn what is true; but because by them we can judge of that current of men's thoughts in which is involved all future change, and also see wherein that current justifies the aims that for many years we have held. And as we judge these things that are around us by certain principles, let me remind you what some of those principles are. Let it, then, be clearly understood that the one great desire of my life is to diminish the importance in men's and women's eyes of the greater part of what is called theology-to diminish the foolish anxiety with which people want to know whether

they believe in the personal existence of the Devil, or the eternity of punishment, or in the procession of the Holy Ghost, or whether Christ in his last agony was so deserted by God that he ceased to be Divinity, and whether, therefore, having ceased for a time to be possessed of Divinity, he was capable of offering that atonement which was essential and necessary for the salvation of the world. All that can be said upon these things has been said, and to this effect-that no two people agree upon any one of them scarcely; and it is almost time we turned away from a large part of such chaff-cutting, and sought after those things that make for the glory of God, the well-being of life, universal charity, and, ultimately, for universal peace.

We are justified in the secondary importance we attach to these matters; and the grounds are these -That men count one another really good men, and members of the universal Church, by the things in which they agree, and not by the things in which they disagree. No large-hearted man, if he were making a book of saints-if he is outside that monopoly called the Romish Church-would make it on a theological principle. If he did, he must include opposites and contradictions. His saints. may believe in the Unity of God, or the Trinity of