do its perfect work, too. The honor and good faith of the nation are pledged to it. It will cease to be a nation when it fails to carry out in all fidelity, and to the last, a measure which

Chief, while it would be denied that there is such possession of South Carolina or Georgia.

It is also insisted that the authority of the Commander-in-Chief, in respect to the emancipation of slaves, is founded upon, as it is only warranted by, military necessity; and that there is no rightful power where the necessity does not exist. It obviously results from these premises, that if the people of one or more States are in open rebellion and in such force that the military power of the nation is in actual occupation of only a few scattered points in such States, and can make no further progress, and is in danger of being driven from the places already held, and there is only one expedient by which the power of the rebels can be checked and broken, that one indispensable expedient cannot be made use of for the reason that there is no legal authority therefor-in other words, because there does not inhere in the Constitution the right and power to save itself in a certain contingency. And then the moment our armies have advanced and obtained practical possession of a State (as they have of Tennessee,) this power cannot be exercised, because the military necessity in which, in this instance, its exercise rests, no longer exists; and that failing, the power itself has fallen. Before the actual military possession it is too early, afterwards it is too late! And so it comes to this, that there is no power in any case or at any time in the President and Commander-in-Chief, to emapcipate the slaves of rebels, even though such an act be the single condition upon which the Union can be preserved; and our fathers have made a Constitution by which slavery is greater than itself and more sacred than the government it created. We cannot believe that the power to save the Union constitutionally in any possible contingency is wanting. Rather would we hold, with the reason and logic of the case, that wherever the Commander-in-Chief has the right to military possession his military acts and orders are legally operative, although he may not be able to enforce them until the actual occupancy accompanies the right of occupancy. The right of military occupation covers every rebel State and Territory in the Union, and the territory over which the orders and decrees of the Commander-in-Chief are operative (being such as in other respects are legal,) is co-extensive with that which he has a right to occupy with military power. Has the Commander-in-Chief a right to march his armies into South Carolina-that State being in rebellion? The case is utterly unlike that of a claim to exercise authority in a foreign State in which the Commander has no actual occupancy; and to hold that the Commander-in-Chief of this Nation has no more power under the Constitution to give orders and make decrees affecting things in South Carolina than he would have power to make orders to be operative in Canada, is simply to make South Carolina a foreign State.

The only safe and correct doctrine we think is this, that wherever the constitutional right to occupy exists, the military power is to be regarded

it caused to be adopted in good faith to save its own life, and which has had all the effect and influence anticipated from its adoption—a measure upon which the Commander-in-Chief, believing it to be "warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity," confidently invoked "the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God."

ARTICLE II.

The Eastern Church, and Council of Nice.

"Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church. With an Introduction on the Study of Ecclesiastical History. By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D. Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University of Oxford, and Canon of Christ Church," from the Second London Edition, revised. New York: Charles Scribner. 1862.

From the position occupied by the author of the above work, and the European reputation he enjoys, we anticipated a volume of great interest. This we have. In many respects it is also an able work, showing considerable research, much scholarship, and a finished style.

The subject treated is full of interest to the religious world, and to the ecclesiastical student especially. It opens a field but little explored, and of which, therefore, but little is known. The domain of the Eastern Church, with its one hundred millions of professing Christians, and its centres of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria, is far away. The very languages spoken are little understood. Even the Greek of a large portion of that communion is read only by the more learned. The sources, also, for attaining a correct knowledge of its history, are few, often of very ancient date, and rarely found save in the great public libraries.

as constructively in occupation or so far as to render its proper military acts and decrees over such territory lawful and binding. No danger need be apprehended from the exercise of this power, as the right of military occupation of the Commander-in-Chief, except in case of foreign invasion, extends only to localities where the people are in actual rebellion, or where it may have been carried by act of Congress.

Something has been known of the East and its Christianity always; more, perhaps, might have been known. But it is certain that the little knowledge we do possess is frequently imperfectly apprehended, and this is true even of many scholars. Canon Stanley has contributed greatly towards the diffusion of a correct understanding upon the subject by the publication of his book. With all its learning, it is in a popular form; opening up, as it does, so many new scenes and wonders, little dreamed of by large bodies of Christians in this land. It is presumed, therefore, that it will be widely read.

2

The "Greek Church" properly embraces that scattered portion of the race using the Greek language, extending from the desert of Sinai, through the islands and coasts of the Levant and the Archipelago, with the centres in Greece and Constantinople. It is the remaining representative of the old Grecian civilization and culture. It is also the mother of the Gentile Churches. The early Roman Church, itself, was, at least in part, but a colony of Greek Christians, or Grecised Jews. The early Popes were Greeks. The very name, "Pope," being Greek. But the Greek, or, as it calls itself, the "Orthodox" Church, is not alone, or by any means all of what we conceive by the term "Eastern" Church. Out from the midst of Mohammedanism and Heathenism, in Africa and further Asia, are many churches, called often heretical, and perhaps really so, but not unlikely still preserving much of the ancient purity of the Christian system. Among these are the "Chaldean Christians," or "Nestorians," dwelling in the fastnesses of Kurdistan: the "Armenians," inhabiting the mountain tract around Ararat; the Syrian Christians, the oldest in the world, as a distinct branch of the Eastern Church; the Church of Abyssinia; and that of Georgia, the ancient Iberia.

Besides these are the Christian tribes on the banks of the Lower Danube, the Sclavonic Bulgaria and Servia on the South; the Latin or Romanic Wallachia and Moldavia, on the North. And, finally, there is the Russian Church. This, as

'P. 100; see also Conybeare and Howson's Life of St. Paul, v. ii, c. xxiv. P. 101. Ibid. Pp. 91-103.

indeed, more or less, all the others, is Greek. Perhaps the Russian Church is more Greek than any except the Greek

Church proper.

This great body of Christians, under the general title of Eastern, has filled an important place in the history of Christianity from its first triumphs, down, at least to the final separation of the Greek from the Latin, the East from the West.

5

From the beginning the tendencies of the two Churches have been distinctly marked. That of the East has ever been speculative, that of the West practical. Hence the East has dealt in creeds, and dwelt much upon theology, while the West has busied itself with matters of government and discipline, and been satisfied, or was for centuries, to receive its theology thence. Theology, however, has been systematized by the West, developed, corrupted even, as has not been the case, to the same extent, with the East. As the Greek communion is purer than the Latin, in allowing its priests to marry, in the larger and nobler position allowed the laity, and in other ways, so it is acknowledged to be purer in doctrines. It has never attained the position on the " Trinity," held by the Roman Church, or the mass of Protestant Churches, nor has it the same extensively accepted doctrine of endless punishment. That doctrine obtains, but not universally, nor in the same terribly material features. Nor is it an absolute requirement of faith; for the reason, that the councils upon which that church most depends have left the doctrine in an undecided form. The doctrine of "substitution" cannot be said to exist at all."

Nevertheless, development and corruption belong to the faith of the Greek, as to that of the Latin. This, in substance, Dr. Stanley admits, in his remarks on the departures of the church generally from original truths.

Designed to fulfil a portion of his duties as Professor, the Lectures of which this book is composed are intended to open the way for the cultivation of greater interest in all pertaining to the Greek Church, as a very important branch of the church universal, than has heretofore obtained. This they

P. 124. P. 188, n. 1. 7P. 74.

will accomplish. In the prosecution of his design the Canon has many weighty thoughts upon Ecclesiastical History, and upon its methods as they should be, or might be.

Touching the Doctor's view of Church History as properly beginning with Abraham, we find him, of necessity, claiming the indispensableness of the connection between the old and the New Testaments, thus ruling out for himself, and for all who accept his view as above noticed-and we do not see how any can do otherwise, the latter-day rationalism, or hypercriticism, which would separate them wholly and forever. For himself he affirms, "Speaking religiously, the Christian Church can never be separated from the life of its Divine Founder, and that life cannot be separated from the previous history (Old Testament History,) of which it was the culmination, the explanation, the fulfilment." Speaking historically, if any ground at all is to be found for the history of the Church in the Old Testament, there is no evading this, and it demands the careful attention of those who would deprive the Old Testament of any part or lot in the Christianity inaugurated by the Master and His Apostles-inaugurated in some sense, out of the expiring Judaism which had so long prevailed, and which may date its being from Abraham.

A remarkable statement is found, in association with this idea, worthy at least of a passing notice, as an evidence of the light which sometimes unconsciously breaks upon the mind. Dr. Stanley says, "The call of Abraham is the first beginning of a continuous growth; in his character, in his migration, in his faith, was bound up, as the Christian Apostle well describes, all that has since formed the substance and fibre of the history of the Church."" There is much more in that sentence, logically carried out, than perhaps the author perceived -more than perhaps he would admit. The "Abrahamic faith" was, that in him (Abraham) should “all the nations of the earth be blessed." Certainly that faith contains not one of the doctrines of later days, usually styled "Evangelical" or "Orthodox."

P. 29. P. 29; the italics are ours.