erior gravity--a tedious, and in
some degree uncertain process--they at once get into motion in the
line of the current, and unite, in less than half the ordinary time
under any other circumstances, into a homogeneous, coherent mass. May
we not indulge the expectation of similar results from the magnetic
current of attraction, if we may so speak, which has so decidedly
begun to flow through the evangelistic churches? True, so long as the
little bits remain unmolten, however excellent their quality, they but
clash and jangle together, if moved by the influence at all; but
should the furnace come to be seven times heated, it will scarce fail
to give unity of motion and a prompt coherency to all the genuine
metal, however minute, in its present state, the particles into which
it is separated, or however stubborn the stony matrices which
dissociate these from the other particles, one in their origin and
nature, that lie locked up in the sullen fragments around.

Never perhaps was there a time when the great disadvantages of
disunion were so pressed in a practical form on the notice of the
churches as at the present. It formed the complaint of one of our
better English writers considerably more than a century ago, that
we had religion enough to make us hate, but not enough to make us
love, one another. At that time, however, sects, to employ one of
Bacon's striking phrases, 'had not so grown to equality' as now; and
storms in the moral world, as in the natural 'at the equinoxia,'
when night and day are equal, are commonly greatest, adds the
philosopher, 'when things do grow to equality.' The unestablished
Protestant denominations formed in the times of Queen Anne a mere
feeble moiety, that could raise no efficient voice against the
established religion; and Popery, newly thrust under feet, after a
formidable struggle, that threatened to overturn the constitution of
the country, had no voice at all. Matters are very different now:
things have grown to an equality; night and day, as 'at the
equinoxia,' have become nearly equal; and society can scarce take one
step for the general benefit, without experiencing, as a thwarting
and arresting influence, the effects of religious difference. Do we
regret that the Government of a country such as ours should be
practically irreligious in its character? Alas! were every Government
functionary in the empire a thoroughly religious man, Government
could not act otherwise than it does in