ll it be said that our fears are imaginary? Imaginary? Did not
the Rev. John M. Duncan, in the years 1825-6, or thereabouts,
sincerely believe the Bible? Did he not even believe substantially
the confession of faith? And was he not, for daring to say what the
Westminster Assembly said, that, to require the reception of that
creed as a test of ministerial qualification was an unwarrantable
imposition, brought to trial, condemned, excommunicated, and his
pulpit declared vacant? There is nothing imaginary in the statement
that the creed-power is now beginning to prohibit the Bible as
really as Rome did, though in a subtler way.

"Oh! woful day! Oh! unhappy church of Christ! fast rushing round
and round the fatal circle of absorbing ruin!... Daily does every
one see that things are going wrong. With sighs does every true
heart confess that rottenness is somewhere; but, ah! it is hopeless
of reform. We all pass on, and the tide rolls down to night. The
waves of coming conflict which is to convulse Christendom to her
center are beginning to be felt. The deep heavings begin to swell
beneath us. 'All the old signs fail.' 'God answers no more by Urim
and Thummim, nor by dream, nor by prophet.' Men's hearts are
failing them for fear and for looking after those things that are
coming on the earth. Thunders mutter in the distance. Winds moan
across the surging bosom of the deep. All things betide the rising
of that final storm of divine indignation which shall sweep away
the vain refuge of lies."

In addition to this, we have spiritualism, infidelity, socialism, and
free-love, the trades unions, or labor against capital, and communism,
all assiduously spreading their principles among the masses. These are
the very principles that worked among the people, as the exciting cause,
just prior to the terrible French revolution of 1789-1800. Human nature
is the same in all ages, and like causes will surely produce like
results. These causes are now all in active operation; and how soon they
will culminate in a state of anarchy, and a reign of terror as much more
frightful than the French revolution as they are now more widely
extended, no man can say.

Such are some of the elements already at work; such the direction in
which events are moving. And how much further is it necessary that they
should progress in this manner, b