The Methodist Ecumenical Conference, held in London in September, 1881, resolved: That the growth of the manufacture of opium in India and its export to China, under the direct sanction of the British imperial government, and as virtually a government monopoly, are serious obstacles to the spread of Christianity in China, and injurious to the credit and influence of England throughout the Eastern world. And we most respectfully but earnestly call upon the government to deliver this country from all further responsibility arising from such an iniquitous traffic. The Friends, the Wesleyans, the New Connection Methodists, the Congregationalists, the Baptists, the English Presby, terians, the Established Church, and the Free Church of Scotland have all given their utterances against the traffic. A small but noble band in the House of Commons bring forward every year resolutions looking to the termination of the traffic. No one undertakes to answer them on moral grounds. With England it is, as Li Hung Chang says, "a fiscal question," and most English statesinen decline as yet to view it from a moral stand-point. VI. WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE? 1. By China.-Being perfectly right in her view of the matter, and having the conscience of the world on her side, she ought to go steadily forward in her determination to sup. press the trade. Every new treaty with a foreign nation ought to contain the same prohibition of opium that is found in her last treaty with the United States. She ought to insist upon England's giving up the legalization of the traffic. In the meantime, after giving due notice of her intentions, she ought to put on the drug a duty so high as to amount practically to prohibition. And in order to show her sincerity in the matter, she ought sternly to prohibit the growth of the poppy in her dominions, and take strict measures to enforce her edicts to that end. 2. By Great Britain.-The duty of Great Britain is very tersely stated in the resolutions of the great meeting called by the Lord Mayor of London, at the Mansion House, October 21, 1881, on which occasion the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Manning, and Bishop Simpson appeared on the same platform. It was there resolved: 29-FOURTH SERIES, VOL. Xxxvi. That in the opinion of this meeting it is the duty of this country, not only to put an end to the opium trade as now conducted, but to withdraw all encouragement from the growth of the poppy in India, except for strictly medicinal purposes, and to support the Chinese government in its efforts to suppress the traffic. That in the opinion of this meeting it will be the duty of this country to give such aid to the government of India as may be found reasonable, in order to lessen the inconvenience resulting to its finances from the adoption of the policy advocated in the previous resolution. The Archbishop of Canterbury closed a strong speech at that meeting with these words: I observed the other day that one of the articles of the treaty with China contained this clause: "That the Chinese were no longer to call us barbarians"-a most important clause. But what is more important than our not being called barbarians is that we should not act in any respect as barbarians, and forget that it is the duty of the civilized people to introduce among those whom we regard as less civilized than ourselves, not the vices, but the virtues of civilization, and so to help them in the cause of good government, which we trust, by God's blessing, the Chinese empire may gradually attain to. Unquestionably, the right thing for the British government to do is to do right. The plea of necessity for India's finances is unworthy of serious attention. It can never be necessary to do a great wrong to one country in order to carry on the government of another. A nation that once voted $100,000,000 to free itself from the guilt and curse of slavery cannot be long staggered by the difficulty of raising sufficient revenue to carry on the government of India, when once its conscience is aroused to the duty of the hour. 3. By all Christian and humane people.-The duty of all who love their fellow-men is to give the aid of their earnest efforts to relieve the Chinese people of this great curse. All the great representative religious bodies should take strong action on the subject. As we have seen, this is being done to a large extent by the Churches of Great Britain. The leading Churches of America, all of which have large and flourishing missions in China, and all of whose missionaries meet this traffic as a great obstacle to the progress of the Gospel, ought to join in respectful remonstrances to the British government against the continuance of the traffic. Our General Confer ence might well take the initiative in the matter, and the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, the General Synod of the Reformed Church, the Baptist Missionary Union, and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, might all appropriately join in an earnest protest against the trade. Great Britain would ere long be obliged to listen to the universal protest of Christendom, and would soon find means either to decrease the expenses of the Indian government or to provide for them in some other way than by carrying ruin and death into countless thousands of Chinese homes. In the words of the Rev. S. Whitehead, formerly of the Wesleyan Mission at Canton : They tell us that the tide of the Solway Firth sometimes, when it comes up, is for a long time not observed, that there is no indication of its rise, that the waters seem sullen as if they would not move, but at last the tide comes up in its force and rushes forward with a speed that outpaces the fastest horseman; and often in the history of this country has it been so with the force, the great tide of public opinion; and I do hold that if we can keep at our work, by and by, that tide slowly rising, gaining strength, at present unobserved, but spreading from heart to heart, from mind to mind, and from home to home, will stir this nation, and rush into the British Houses of Parliament, and then will there come the destruction of this abominable traffic. And let all the people say Amen! ART. III. THE REGENERATION AND GLORIFICATION OF THE BODY. It has been generally perceived by the Christian Church that there is such a thing as regeneration of the soul, but it has not been so commonly noticed that there is also a regeneration of the body. It is the purpose of this paper to establish the proposition that at the time of the new birth of the soul a physical change, corresponding with the spiritual transformation, begins, which progresses with differing degrees of rapidity in different cases, and which finally culminates in the resurrection of the spiritual body which descended at death into the grave. In this physical regeneration the Spirit of God first "quickens" "our mortal body." After the "quickening" there is carried forward a long process which may be compared to the gestation of the unborn child in the womb of its mother, and which is, in fact, the gestation of the spiritual body. In the womb of this time-world and within the matrix of this mortal there is preparation going on for some higher organization, as God's formative processes of development and discipline are mysteriously progressing during the whole of this earthly life. Then the body rests awhile in the grave, a stage which, since we are fallen, is doubtless an important part of our physical preparation for a spiritual existence, and which, we may conjecture, is necessary to rid us of our grosser parts. For, as we sing, "Corruption, earth, and worms Shall but refine this flesh; At last the birth-hour of the resurrection arrives. The Spirit, who raised up Christ from the dead, and who quickened our physical organization at the hour of the new birth of the soul from above, now raises up the perfected spiritual body. To this whole process, including the final union and glorification with the soul, we may, for convenience' sake, apply the term, the regeneration and glorification of the body. The process of regeneration, using that word in its widest sense, therefore includes in its operation both the material and the immaterial man. Its work is that of restoring us from the effects of sin upon our twofold nature. Its intention is to make things with us as though Adam had not fallen, as far as this can be done, and thus to aid us onward from our lost to our future and heavenly paradise. This design, proposing as it does to undo as much as possible the effects of sin, must necessarily include regeneration of the body. That this process is begun at least in the moment of the new birth from above, if not, indeed, when the repenting soul first seeks after God, we believe to be susceptible of abundant proof. That there is a regeneration of the physical nature, commencing with the moment of spiritual change, is established by the teachings of physiology. It is axiomatic among physical scientists that mental changes are always accompanied by alterations of organic structure, either as cause or effect. Some late words of Mr. Frederick Harrison, which are referred to with approbation by Professor Huxley,* may serve to represent the conclusions of science upon this close interaction of spirit and matter: Man is one, however compound. Fire his conscience, and he blushes. Check his circulation, and he thinks wildly, or thinks not at all. Impair his secretions, and moral sense is dulled, discolored, or depraved; his aspirations flag; his hope, love, faith, reel. Impair them still more, and he becomes a brute. A cup of drink degrades his moral nature below that of a swine. Again, a violent emotion of pity or horror makes him vomit. A lancet will restore him from delirium to clear thought. Excess of thought will waste his sinews; excess of muscular action will deaden thought. An emotion will double the strength of his muscles; and at last the prick of a needle or a grain of mineral will, in an instant, lay to rest forever his body and its unity, and all the spontaneous activities of intelligence, feeling, and action with which that compound organism was charged. These are the obvious and ancient observations about the human organism. But modern philosophy and science have carried these hints into complete explanations. By a vast accumulation of proof positive, thought at last has established a distinct correspondence between every process of thought or of feeling, and some corporeal phenomenon. Now, in view of these facts, if it be admitted that the soul is but a function of the body, as materialism asserts, then the regeneration of the soul would indicate a previous physical change. If, on the contrary, the body is but the servant and instrument of the soul, as we believe, then such a spiritual crisis as the new birth would be at once accompanied by a corresponding bodily alteration. Thus, upon any hypothesis of the relation between soul and body which we may adopt, a metamorphosis in the one would of necessity imply a like occurrence in the other. This teaching of science is confirmed, in the second place, by common observation. In the majority of instances, perhaps, regeneration manifests itself at once by a variety of physical signs, and especially is this true when it is experienced in the marked, "Methodist," way. Sometimes the change is so great, notably in adults, that it is manifest in gait, in tone of voice, or even in the glance of the eye. Of course these are distinguished instances; but what is true of them is, in the very "A Modern Symposium," p. 74. |