Now, it is meled ardor of his youth. Then, it was all Italy. Fortunately he could not undo what he had done in his youth. He had counselled popular insurrection and democratic government. Those counsels had come to nothing. But he had also stirred with great power the national sentiment in his country. That was a great deal. It was that sentiment which was the foundation of the final unification of Italy, which blotted out the ancient obstacle of local jealousy and moved Tuscany and the smaller duchies to vote annexation to Piedmont; it was that sentiment which influenced the Lombards and Neapolitans to accept the results of the military operations of 1860; above all, it was Cavour's knowledge of the existence of that sentiment which made him dare to take the final, extraordinarily bold and aggressive steps which resulted in unification. In short, whatever was done in those two years of 1859 and 1860, either could not have been undertaken, or could not have been accomplished but for the ripe wish of the people to be a nation. Toward making that wish general and strong, Mazzini certainly did much. The influence of "Young Italy" was unquestionable. It formed the political opinions of very many young men; and when the generation had grown up, a new political atmosphere lay,over Italy. Popular revolt, indeed, had gradually been found to be impracticable, and the prospect of a republic had died away. But the sentiment of nationality, which the young society had so forcibly inculcated, lived and did its work. For his spirit of prophecy in that direction and for the energy of his propagandism, no patriotic Italian can feel toward Mazzini gratitude enough. There, he shares with Cavour the honor of the revolution. For his estrangement later on, what apology can be offered, but that it was honest? Italian politics have not changed, in essentials, from what they were when, in 1846, Cavour was publishing the Risorgi mento with its programme of limited monarchy and federation, or when, two or three years later, the growing popularity of those moderate views threw Mazzini into a kind of grand sulks where he stayed. Upon a basis of peace and established order, questions of detail, indeed, the revenues, taxa. tion, and efficiency of the national defence, are now the practical questions to be solved. But the republican and moderate parties are still the left and right of to-day. The true conservatives the clericals and nobility — have, to a good extent, if not quite, held aloof from civil affairs. The two political parties in Italy are, therefore, nothing but the two wings of the old party of reform. As regards the matter of party history, Cavour's public life does not take us back of the beginnings of the Moderates; but Mazzini's commences, almost, with that of the older republican party, and his and its failures give us some notion of the why and the wherefore of the existence of the Moderates; it is, in short, the best thread to. guide us through the Italian politics of to-day. ARTICLE IV. -THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND: AND THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH ORDER, THE INHERITANCE OF THEIR SONS. PROBABLY there are no persons in the world more enthusiastically convinced of the divine excellence of their Church order, than those Congregationalists who have searched it to the bottom. To them it seems a system purely Christianthoroughly Catholic, in the unspoiled sense of this long abused word. They see that it allows any philosophy of theology that is not inconsistent, upon the whole, with the maintenance of vital faith. It permits churches to manage their affairs according to their own judgment; to have such officers as they wish, under such names as they prefer; and to use any methods of work and any forms of worship that do not interfere with coöperation, while at the same time facilitating, in the highest degree, the union of different churches in support of any common interest. It tolerates any divergencies which are not schism; and schism is its specific abhorrence. It is a system which creates a sense of individual responsibility, stimulates personal activity, favors a mutual good feeling, makes disputes short, concentrates attention on the great spiritual ends, conserves liberty, cherishes the truest loyalty to leaders, establishes the deepest unity, and promotes the broadest enterprise-a system on which the whole world can be one Christendom; and the only system on which this is possible. Endowed, then, with such qualities, we should expect to see its superiority demonstrated in its fruits. This we do; but not in the way that might at first be supposed. Having almost the earliest start, upon this Continent, we naturally look to see its churches foremost in numbers and in membership. But what is the fact? The Congregational Churches fall behind the Presbyterian, the Baptist, and the Methodist; and some other denominations nearly or quite equal them. It would seem, then, to be very clear, either that we after all mistake in regarding this system as the true one; or else, that it has not been vigorously adminis tered. The facts of the case are obvious. Congregational Churches were organized in Northern New Jersey. Why did they not stay there? Because, in the days when this question was decided, their thoughts were upon other matters than church order; and the Presbyterianism around them was administered in' so Congregational a spirit as not to remind them of the difference. Again, these churches were numerous in Central and Western New York. Why did they not hold all that region? For the same reason: owing to similar causes, they were without solicitudes upon the subject. A Congre gational migration has been pouring into all the Western States and also into New York City and into other cities. Why has not that migration everywhere flowed into Congre gational Churches? Still again-the same reply. The true answer to the question, why has not Congregationalism, proper, occupied all the land? may be given in four words: It did not try. Another form of the same order, the Baptists, tried and succeeded. Though burdened with a schismatic rule, exceedingly objectionable, their numbers stand nearly at the head;* and since Congregationalists began to give attention to the matter, their growth, also, has been rapid. *We hail the progress of this earnest brotherhood; for we are sure that it will not always remain a schism, but will yet stretch forth to us all that warm right hand, which from the first, has in most things been so true to the Lord. It is doing a great work for Christ; and so, for all who are Christ's. Yet we can not forget that the Baptist denomination from the very first had a point to carry which gave to their movement an aggressive character-even towards their brethren. From the first, it was a "sect," in the specific meaning of that term. conscious of separation from the general Christendom, and of an opposition so serious as to forbid that communion in the Lord's Supper which is the outward sign and seal of fellowship. On the other hand, the only point which our Separatist fathers sought to carry was catholicity itself-the liberty and fellowship inherent in the household of God, and its inalienable inheritance. It was from schism that they separated. It was against a tyrannous sectarianism that they rebelled. The spirit of the Church-order which they founded is to-day the Spirit of Christ's Catholic Church; and thus, necessarily, in the farthest possible remove from the Roman Church,— that most sectarian of the "sects,"-and broadly distinguished from all those that have added their own theories of ordination or of baptism, to the foundations laid by Christ. But now comes another question: What was the reason that Congregationalists did not try? No other denomination, if we except the Friends, has been so indifferent. And the answer is also easy. Perhaps it would be clearest if given in two parts. Dividing our reply, we call attention, then, first, to the fact, That for more than a hundred years, many of the most prominent men in the Congregational ministry, took little interest in Congregationalism or in the Doctrine of the Church. For the sake of illustration to begin with those nearest to us, there was Dr. Leonard Woods, for a generation the leading teacher in our most important Theological Seminary. Dr. Woods was, really, not a Congregationalist; did not teach the system, and never understood it. And Dr. Beecher? Dr. Beecher was all absorbed in a new theology and in zealous preaching; and did not pay attention enough to the matter, to perceive, that by shutting up Congregationalism to New England, as he proposed, he would have stifled it to death. And Dr. Absalom Peters? Dr. Peters was working out a noble idea, and with admirable sagacity and power-nothing less than the healing of all divisions among the denominations holding the Calvinistic theology; and fusing the Congregationalists, and the Presbyterians of both the Scotch and Dutch schools, into one coöperative brotherhood. And he almost succeeded. It required an opposition of a character which must be designated as remarkable to defeat this Christian endeavor, in which all the Congregational churches warmly sympathized. But that triumph of sectarianism on the floors of the General Assembly, at Philadelphia, in May, 1837, broke in upon their dream of union, like the sound of a trumpet. Very reluctant, however, were they to give it up. It was rooted in their fundamental conceptions; it was a part of their very idea of the church and of the duty of individual Christians. Not till nearly half a generation had passed were they ready to accept the conclusion forced upon them, that they must in some measure, at least, work alone, and not till an additional ten years had passed were they sepaAnd even then they clung to coöperation in foreign missions. Going farther back, however, we find little interest in the doctrine of the church, among either Presbyterians or Congre |