EDITOR'S TABLE. 



269 



most abandoned sinners " in many cases 

 became " the most eminent saints." 

 The " Union " then proceeds to remark : 

 " If ' The Popular Science Monthly ' de- 

 sires further information as to the act- 

 ual effect which evangelical religion 

 has produced on the morals of the com- 

 munity, it will be found in abundance 

 in Lecky's ' History of European Mor- 

 als,' in the same author's ' flistory of 

 England in the Eighteenth Century,' 

 and in Professor Draper's ' History of 

 the Intellectual Development of Eu- 

 rope,' and none of these authors can be 

 accused of being eulogists of Christian- 

 ity. "We leave the ' Review ' to settle 

 it with Gibbon which horn of the 

 dilemma it will accept." 



We have no issue with Lecky or 

 Draper, and nothing to settle with Gib- 

 bon. If we had no other source of in- 

 formation respecting the relations of 

 faith and morals as manifested in hu- 

 man conduct, than what was written a 

 hundred years ago about what took 

 place sixteen hundred years earlier, it | 

 would be different ; but the illustrations 

 of the relation of religious belief to 

 ethical practice are too clear, familiar, 

 and impressive all around us to make 

 this course necessary. On living ques- 

 tions we prefer living authorities, and 

 judgments based upon immediate ob- 

 servation and experience, to historic in- 

 ferences regarding what took place at 

 remote periods. Accordingly, we value 

 the testimony of the editor of the 

 " Christian Union " higher than even 

 that of Gibbon, while his record is far 

 more to the point. The article entitled 

 "A Very Ancient Reproach " is imme- 

 diately followed by another which 

 serves as an instructive comment upon 

 it by showing that the " reproach " is 

 also both very modern and very real. 

 Its title is "A Missouri Saint," and the 

 editor writes upon the subject with an 

 openness which " The Popular Science 

 Monthly " has never emulated. He 

 says: 



St. James St. Jesse James is the latest 



contribution of America to the noble army of 

 saints and martyrs. 



Death seems to settle all accounts ; and 

 no sooner was this murderous villain dead, 

 than the whole community set to work with 

 extraordinary unanimity to canonize him. 

 His funeral was an ovation ; the attendant 

 throng crowded the Baptist church, " where 

 he was converted in 1866 " heavens ! what 

 sort of a man would he have been if he 

 had not been converted? the sheriff and 

 under-sheriff acted among the pall-bearers ; 

 the services were opened with the hymn 

 "What a friend we have in Jesus!" the 

 officiating ministers comforted the stricken 

 community with extracts from the plaints of 

 Job and David, and with a comforting dis- 

 course on Christ's forbearance and forgive- 

 ness of sins ; and, finally, the procession to 

 the grave was one of immense proportions. 



Out upon such a religion as this ! If a Dr. 

 Thomas intimates that there may be perhaps 

 a probation in another world for those who 

 seem to have had no true probation in this, 

 he is turned out of the fellowship of the 

 church as a heretic. If a Mr. Jones and a 

 Mr. Martin send a freebooter and a life-long 

 robber and murderer straight to heaven in a 

 chariot of fire without as much as a baptismal 

 bath by the way, will any church call them 

 to account for their falseness to the law of 

 God and the sacredness of morality? We 

 shall see. 



Excellent, certainly ! But, if exactly 

 the same sentiments, only pitched in a 

 lower key of indignation, appear in 

 "The Popular Science Monthly," we 

 are accused of reviving the obsolete re- 

 proaches of infidelity, and the " Chris- 

 tian Advocate " breaks into a pious dia- 

 tribe about " Sugar-coated Poison." 



The view of the " Christian Union " 

 is well confirmed by "The Nation," as 

 follows : 



James's relations to the Church, too, had a 

 curiously mediaeval flavor about them. He 

 was the son of a Baptist minister, but his 

 career apparently did not strike his mother, 

 or any of his family or neighbors, as incon- 

 sistent with the possession of a stock of fun- 

 damental and ineradicable piety. When ho 

 died, she rejoiced in the thought that he had 

 gone to heaven. Two Baptist ministers per- 

 formed the funeral services, and a vast con- 

 course of friends, including the sheriff, who 

 was deeply affected, followed the remains to 

 the grave, not son-owing, apparently, as those 



