is not by miracles. How can a miracle act in calling forth the powers and affections of the understanding and will of Man, except by the presentation of suitable objects and circumstances? Can Causality act in some other manner than by tracing the connection between cause and effect? Can Benevolence act in some other manner than by its own voluntary affection towards suitable objects? Can a miracle act upon these faculties, unless in a way conformable to their natural constitution and functions? If so, then a miracle can act by causing the eye to hear and the ear to see. Such actions are not the actions of the human mind; neither is the human mind to be trained, educated, nor regenerated in that manner. It is a most important precept, never to be lost sight of, you must work out your own salvation; God gives you the power; He has furnished you with talents and faculties; and at every avenue of the mind, He offers Himself, for your acceptance. Even although the acuteness of the sensibility of the mental powers may be increased by a miracle, (as they may also be by watchfulness, diligence, and ardour,) still the proper objects must exist and be acted upon: for the eye does not see simply by an increase of its visual power, unless objects be present. Miracles have changed outward circumstances, have produced attention, have confirmed doctrines, have excited the powers of the mind; but miracles, without the intervention of extrinsic agencies, addressing themselves to the natural functions of the will and the understanding, are as nothing,

If such is the power of external condition, how much more influential will surrounding objects become, when they are so organized and jointed in a system, that all the parts act as the co-members of one whole, producing a common, united effect? The continual droppings of water, wear out a rock. The continual actions of organized society, must modify for good or evil, the stoutest character, less than Omnipotent. Consider the power of organization in the vegetable world, in the animal kingdom, and in political bodies. The same watery substance, received through the roots into an apple-tree, is, by the peculiar structure or organism of the plant, converted into juices and fruits of a certain kind; received into an oak, the results are entirely different. A piece of bread, fed to a fish becomes fins, scales, and gills; fed to a man, it becomes red blood, hair, and nails. In political bodies, we notice similar changes according to organization. A Saxon reared in Russia, is, by the force of political and social organization, developed or educated into a certain character; reared in the United States, his character and actions would be in accordance with the aptitudes and tendencies produced or strengthened, by the daily action of the organized circumstances in which he lived. I do not say, that particular

apparent exceptions may not be found; yet they would but prove the rule; because in their instances, it will be discovered that particular or general causes have acted upon peculiar mental constitutions.

The laws of Moses, declared to him by Jehovah, are additional indications of the divine method in regard to moral and religious reforms. The tenure of property in land is highly influential upon character. The Deity (Lev. xxv. 23,) expressly enjoins that "The land shall not be sold forever;" assigning as the reason that the land is His, He is the Lord of the land, and we are but strangers and sojourners; implying that one generation has no right to nullify the equally valid rights of a succeeding generation. This prohibition was intended to guard the right of redemption after sale. But bear in mind, that the people got their lands by gift from Jehovah, without price or cost. It was divided to them by lot, without favoritism, and in limited amounts, according to the number of persons in each family; for to the many, more was given than to the few. (Num. xxvi. 54). There is no mention that the homestead could be sold by compulsory sale; they might freely sell it, yet with the right of redemption in themselves or children; and if the land were not redeemed, it went back, in the year of Jubilee, without price. Certainly this tenure of land, created an immense change in the external relations and physical condition of the Jews, compared with their former position. Reflect also upon the new conditions produced among them by the laws concerning debtor and creditor. The Lord treats personal property in a manner different from property in land; yet both are His. He created us; he created our powers and faculties; he created the earth, a great storehouse of natural elements, upon which our labor and skill are employed, and from which we manufacture clothing, erect dwellings, and provide food; therefore personal property, the product of his gifts to us, is His, and we hold every thing as stewards under Him. But in regard to my neighbor, my personal property, created by my own just labor, is mine, not my neighbor's; it is mine in respect to my neighbor, but not mine in respect to the Lord: for I am myself the Lord's property, and what I have I hold in trust under Him. The Lord, therefore, makes a difference in the laws concerning personal property and land. He does not say "personal property shall not be sold forever;" although it is His. Nor does he say, "to the many thou shalt divide more personal property than to the few; to each one according to the number in his family." As the area of the earth is limited, all men could not have a home, if any one person, or a few, were permitted to monopolize all homes. Land limitation, therefore, follows as the necessary result of the right of homes for all. But a concession to each

one, of the right of property, in the personal things produced or manufactured from the elements of nature, constituting his own share of earth, or such personal objects transferred to him by the free act of another, violates no right of the rest of mankind. Hence the distinction in the divine laws concerning land, and personal property. Yet see how the stewardship as to personal property, is enforced by the divine command. "If thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen into decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve him; yea, though he be a stranger or a sojourner; that he may live with thee." (Lev. xxv. 35.) This relief was not given as an alms, which might be withheld; but as a moral and just distribution of part of that abundance, committed to our keeping, as trustees or stewards under the Most High. If a debtor were able to make a return, the lender or giver might receive the principal back, but without any increase; for all increase was unlawful, and denominated usury. The Deity has affixed a law of decay and destruction to all personal property. If the producer of forms of personal property could, at his pleasure, impart an indestructible duration to them, the earth would become filled to overflowing, with objects of property, falsely called wealth; and a new generation, when born upon the earth, would find the means and places of subsistence, occupied and forestalled. Therefore the sentence has gone out against all the works of Man; they shall return to the original elements of Nature, in order that new generations may freely use and reconstruct the elements of matter without end. But if usury were permitted, then that beneficent law of Nature would be set aside. For although the chairs, tables, utensils and other objects of personal property, manufactured or obtained by you, shall perish, yet if you can convert them into a loan bearing interest, namely usury, then you impart to them perpetual duration, and one generation can so heap and overburden the world with property of that kind, that a succeeding generation may be actually deprived of the means of life. Any usury must be pernicious; for a constant drain of wealth, passing from the hand of labor to capital, must finally impoverish the many and enrich the few; if more water passes into a reservoir than passes out from it, the reservoir must be filled as an ocean. Not without reason, therefore, did the Lord interdict usury. Rent for money

is an evil, second in enormity only to rent for land, and growing from it. But although interest was not allowed, yet the creditor, in case the borrower had the means of repayment, might take a pledge for the return of the principal without usury. Now, mark the law of pledge. (Deut. xxiv. 10-13.) The creditor was not permitted to desecrate the threshold of his brother, in search of a pledge; but he was to stand abroad, outside of the house, and the debtor was to enter his own dwelling, and bring

out the pledge; and if the pledge were such an article as was needed at night for clothing, the creditor was to return the pledge at sun-down, that the debtor might sleep in his own raiment. Strange pledge for security, which, during the night, was in the unwatched and undisturbed custody of the debtor! What kind of a voucher would a promissory note be to the payee, provided the maker, during each night-time, had the sole custody of it? Besides, at the end of every seven years, was a release called the Lord's release. (Deut. xv. 1-10.) Surely, debts, under the Mosaic laws and institutions, were placed upon a singular footing of honor and confidence; and the severities, of which we read, practised by Jewish creditors, were either violations of the spirit of the laws of debtor and creditor, or arose from perversions of the ancient custom of selling oneself as a servant for a term of years for wages paid in advance, as now is in use by contracts of hiring by the day, week, month or year, for wages paid, not in advance, except rarely, but generally at the end of the day or at stated intervals. A Hebrew could sell himself for six years. In the seventh, he went out free for nothing. The Heathen could sell themselves to a Hebrew, until the next Jubilee. At the Jubilee, universal liberation was proclaimed and all went out free for nothing. If a Hebrew, who had sold, that is, according to the custom then prevalent, who had hired himself out to another for six years, should marry a heathen servant of his master, who was to serve till the Jubilee, and had children by her, then the Hebrew went out at the end of six years, but the heathen wife and the children, who followed her condition, remained servants until the Jubilee. If however the father did not wish to be separated from his wife and children, and preferred remaining a servant until the Jubilee, he made an open declaration to that purpose before the Judges, and had his ear bored, and he served his master forever; that is until the next Jubilee, when universal freedom was proclaimed; for the duration of the phrase "forever" (Exod. xxi. 6,) must be interpreted by reference to the whole subject-matter. These remarks I have made, in order to guard against misconception of the Mosaic laws concerning insolvent debtors. Severities were undoubtedly practised, and even usury came to be demanded; but these were violations or perversions of the law, and not just executions of it.

Having thus largely called the attention of the reader to the immense, the total physical and social transformation, effected, in the condition of the Israelites, after the Exodus from Egypt, I will state that the prosperity of the people arose from their new external position and circumstances, including not only those which I have mentioned, but the entire government and ordinances instituted by their Lawgiver. A carnal-minded political

economist would have said to Moses: these institutions will not succeed; this free distribution of land, this eventual land limitation, this right of redemption, this law against usury, and about the pledge, and about the poor, and the release and the Jubilee, will all impair and destroy enterprise and credit; and we shall be a weak and indolent, degraded nation. But what were the actual results? While these laws were obeyed, Israel was a great and mighty nation; until, in the reign of Solomon, the wealth and power of the people were almost incredible; but gradually these laws were departed from, and then virtue, just enterprise, freedom and piety declined; and at last, the tribes went into captivity. These laws therefore, and the external social relations induced by them, were the sources of power and not of weakness.

It is sometimes objected against the efforts of Reformers, who aim to introduce external changes into society, that Christ taught the need of no such change, that he taught that the principle of change is to commence within and to be developed from within, outwards; that in conformity with this doctrine, he instructed his disciples to take no thought for food, nor drink, nor clothing, but to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things should be added. If any external form of society were necessary, it is asked, why did not Christ institute such form?

No reform can be undertaken nor conceived, unless the idea of it exist within. The external reform is nothing but the development outwards, of the inward idea. But how came that inward idea to have existence ? So far as man is concerned, we must trace his knowledge and ideas, to the mental and moral training proceeding from extrinsic agencies, including the Providences of the Divine Parent, all acting in conformity with the laws of our constitution. We have no knowledge nor life in ourselves; that is, without derivation. It is otherwise with the Deity. His life, knowledge and power are infinite, eternal and underived. If at the beginning of human reform, a change be not made in external circumstances, adapted to the growth of the reform meditated, the work cannot go on; it will perish. It could no more proceed without an external conformation, than a tree could live and grow without the unfoldment of leaves. If you keep a tree bare of leaves, it will perish; if you keep society bare of the external developments needed for reform, the spirit of life must depart.

The example and the teaching of Christ, will be seen to be no exception to the divine method in reform which demands imperatively a change of external relations. How mighty was the change instituted by the Anointed! He removed at once, and nailed to his Cross, the whole hand-writing of the Mosaic ordi