which they expected soon to behold."- Conybeare. "Paul seems in Thessalonica to have especially preached Christ as King of the kingdom of God, and the hope of the setting up of that kingdom on earth. This the Christians there had eagerly caught up, but not without misapprehensions and mistakes, as being inexperienced in that difficult field. Their view was directed more to externals, more to the outward glory of that kingdom, than to the moral conditions of participation in it, and to its spiritual nature. Because of this outward relation to such hopes, it also happened that (as Timothy, we may suppose, had reported) the Christians were in anxiety whether their dear departed ones would not lose the kingdom of God, and those only come to the enjoyment of it who should be alive at the second coming of the Lord. Now Paul relieves them on that point by the assurance that the dead would rise first, and the living be, along with them, lifted into the air, to meet the Lord."-Olshausen. If it was his special design to rectify this error, we perceive a peculiar propriety in the apostle's language. He assures them that "the coming of the Lord," is not for the purpose of establishing a temporal kingdom on the earth, and of dwelling here with men; but for the more glorious purpose of changing the living into a state which others attained through death and the resurrection, and of taking them with him to heaven; so that thenceforth both the raised and the changed may "ever be with the Lord." He further assures them that those who have fallen asleep shall not be excluded from witnessing this glorious consummation, because they shall be previously raised and shall in fact accompany the Lord "at his coming." His specific design, therefore, was not to describe the process, nor even to affirm the fact, of the resurrection of the dead. The fact is assumed as uncontradicted, and is urged in proof that those who fall asleep do not incur the apprehended loss, but shall be witnesses of the crowning glory of Christ's kingdom; namely, the final extinction of death and corruption, with their whole train of physical and moral imperfections, and the completed change of the whole human family from mortality to immortality. And

even if the Thessalonians, as some suppose, doubted or disbelieved the doctrine of the resurrection, and feared that their deceased friends had utterly perished, the proper force of the phrase translated "the dead in Christ shall rise first" remains as before stated. For in such case, the apostle must be understood to affirm first, that the dead shall be raised, omitting the argument employed in 1 Cor. xv. 13-20; and second, that, because they are thus raised, and are permitted to be witnesses of the glorious change accomplished at the coming of the Lord, those who fall asleep suffer no loss, and their surviving friends should not grieve immoderately. In either case, as the resurrection is a continuous event, not then nor even now fully completed, when speaking of it as a whole, it was natural and proper to say "the dead in Christ shall rise first; " yet, with special reference to the time of the "coming," after which there shall be no more death, the expression is equivalent to "the dead in Christ shall have been raised," or the dead shall previously have been raised in Christ.

Because Paul says, "the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them,” etc., it has been alleged that the second named event immediately succeeds the former, and that both succeed "the trump of God." It has already been observed, that the least which the word "first" can denote here is, that the resurrection of the dead precedes the change of the living; that the resurrection is completed before the living are "caught up." But this is not the only allowable construction of the word "first," as here used. It may be understood to denote not only that the resurrection of the dead precedes the change of the living, but that it also precedes the sounding of "the trump of God." It may as properly qualify the preceding as the following words. It is so used elsewhere. For example: "That day shall not come, except there come a falling away first." 2 Thess. ii. 3. That is, the day shall come; but a falling away will come previously. Again: "As the lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the coming of the Son of man

be in his day. But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation." Luke xvii. 24, 25. See also Luke xiv. 28, 31; Rom. xv. 24; 2 Cor. viii. 5. Thus construed, this passage may be understood to teach, that the Lord himself shall descend, with the trump of God; but the dead shall be previously raised in Christ, and shall accompany him; and when he shall thus descend, bringing them with him as witnesses, the living shall be changed, and all shall be received up into heaven, "And so shall we ever be with the Lord."

To conclude: It is not pretended that the theory of a progressive resurrection, keeping even pace with death from the beginning to the end of its reign, is entirely free from difficulty. But, in my judgment, the objections against it are less formidable than those which attend either of the other two theories examined; and besides these three, I am not aware of any other. I accept this, therefore, as the true theory. And whatever difficulty I may encounter in interpreting any portion of the Scriptures consistently with it, I attribute rather to my own lack of knowledge and skill, than to any inherent contradiction between the several testimonies. In this life "we walk by faith, not by sight." We believe many doctrines which we cannot demonstrate to be true; yet we believe them unhesitatingly, because belief is more consistent with what we know, and is attended by fewer and less troublesome difficulties than unbelief. Thus in the present case, while I freely acknowledge my inability to demonstrate the truth of a progressive resurrection, I nevertheless believe it to be a truth, because it seems harmonious with the general testimony of revelation, and with the character of the "Father of Spirits," and because fewer and less urgent difficulties beset me, in accepting it as the truth, than in rejecting it as an error.

ARTICLE XVIII.

The Contraband.

ACCORDING to Chief Justice Taney, the question involved in the celebrated Dred Scott case was this: "Can a negro whose ancestors were imported into this country and sold as slaves become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, privileges and immunities guaranteed by that instrument to the citizen ?" This problem the Supreme Court undertook to solve, in a legal way, eight years ago; but the exigencies of the nation have since revealed a new phase in the inquiry. In the present revolutionary crisis, while old landmarks are being effaced, and the Constitution itself apparently breaking down, the good citizen feels it his imperative duty to take cognizance of things de facto as well as de jure.

Looking at the fresh graves of a million of his fellow-countrymen slaughtered by war, and noting the active preparations going on for yet more slaughter, he feels that the present is not a fitting time for petty banterings about points of law and clauses in constitutions adopted by men long ago dead. On the contrary, every good man's heart in the land cries out with frantic pathos, "What is justice, what is right, what is duty to-day in the sight and fear of God?" Like one in ancient times, the Christian citizen cannot refrain from looking to heaven and reverently asking, "Lord, what wilt thou have me do?"

Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President of the Rebellion, in a speech at Savannah in 1861, said, "Our" the traitor "government is founded and rests upon the great physical, philosophical, and moral truth, that the Negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition." This interesting item

in Natural History - this foundation truth (?) of the Southern Confederacy-suggests one of the great questions of our day and land. Is Vice-President Stephens's "great physical, philosophical, and moral truth" really a truth or a falsehood? Is the Negro naturally and constitutionally inferior to the white man? If there are degrees in the scale of human tribes, what is the Contraband's rank? How should he be regarded and treated by our Government, our Church, and ourselves? These questions are of vital importance to our nation, and hence they are being freely and thoroughly discussed by all classes in every part of the country. The way in which they are decided will largely modify the future of our Republic.

This article is simply my speech in the vast continental debate. A couple of illustrations will show the bearings of the subject, the necessity of thorough investigation, and the importance of a right decision.

Twenty-five years ago, Dr. W. E. Channing condensed into strong and eloquent argument about all that could be adduced from a moral point of view against negro slavery. So profound was his research and so exhaustive his exposition that later abolitionists, Garrison, Parker, Phillips, have not been able to add a single new syllogism to his gigantic pyramid of logic. Admit the doctor's premises, that the Negro is equal to and essentially like the white man, having as good and great natural capacities, as fine feelings, as quick a sense of justice, and an ambition as lofty, and the argument is absolutely unanswerable and conclusive: "slavery is the sum of all villanies" and all earthly evils. There has, however, long been a lurking suspicion that the black man is not equal to nor like the white, either in body or mind, but of much coarser and duller mould; and within a few years, in many quarters, North and South, this suspicion has strengthened into a faith and been boldly asserted. Thus the attempt is made to undermine Dr. Channing's premises, and in fact all the moral arguments against slavery. If the Negro is our inferior, we are not called upon to treat him as our equal. If he has not the capacity to take good care of himself, it is our