into corresponding depths of positive and intensified ungodliness, "and the last case of that man is worse than the first." The hopelessness of the backslider's case is, that the grace provided for man's salvation has been tried upon him, and rendered ineffectual by its deliberate rejection. There is only one way to be saved, and that has been deliberately cast away. To them the blessed truth of Christ's Gospel had become a subject of personal and experimental knowledge, and to such, therefore, unbelief was much more than the natural blindness of the carnal mind-it was a perverse choosing of darkness rather than light-a voluntary and consciously purposed transfer of the soul's allegiance to the adversary-the surrender of the swept and garnished house to the sevenfold defilement of the apostate state. The text does not declare absolutely that such a one is beyond the power of almighty grace; it simply says that while he continues to recrucify Christ, to tread under foot the Son of God, and to count the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, it is impossible that he shall be restored to repentance. But granting the possibility, in the alternative case, that God is able by means of the unknown, uncovenanted riches of his mercy to still reach the farthest-gone apostate, have we any assurance that he ever does or will so act? Perhaps he may, but apparently not often. The most fearful sight in our world is that of the apostate, without God and without hope-an Esau selling his birthright for a mess of pottage; a Cain going out from the presence of the Lord, not to return again; a Judas betraying his Master for a price, and afterward, stricken with remorse, hanging himself. Such persons go beforehand to judgment, and are virtually doomed to eternal perdition while they yet live.

The uncertainty that surrounds the writing of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the unknown condition of those to whom it was primarily addressed, make it impossible with certainty to interpret these passages by the facts that first elicited them. It is, however, not difficult to understand that the Hebrew Christians were often in circumstances in which the admonitions and exhortations here given would be especially appropriate.

The season that followed Paul's last visit to Jerusalem would probably supply all the conditions requisite to what is there

implied. Previous to that time the Church in that city had suffered comparatively little from persecuting violence, and very many had accepted Christ as the Messiah who still remained Jews, and expected to do so. But it now became evident that the new faith was clearly incompatible with the old, as it was authoritatively interpreted by the scribes and Pharisees; and to the believers were presented the alternatives to renounce their Christian profession or else submit to excommunication from the synagogue, with all that was implied in that sentence. That not a few chose the former alternative is only too probable; and in such a time of fiery trials, just such admonitions as are here given were called for, and especially opportune. And these things also apply with equal force and fullness in every case where believers are tempted, whether by fears or favors, to depart from Christ, either openly or only virtually. Seasons of persecution are usually seasons of apostasy, and a martyr age seldom fails to be a time of backslidings; and therefore the fearful picture of the doom of the apostate should never be entirely effaced from the spiritual consciousness. Nor are the temptations to this fearful form of sin confined to times of persecution. The tempter, who would have diverted the Son of God from his work of redeeming the race by offering him the "kingdoms of this world," has, since then, plied the same temptation with much greater success. Wealth, power, pleasure, honor, ease, are the rewards that he offers, sometimes for the open rejection of Christ, but often the name may still be retained, if only the essential spirit of Christ all be put aside. Not a few, it may be feared, have thus "sinned willfully," and so the light in them has become darkness, the end whereof is eternal death.

These two passages are generally accepted, no doubt correctly, as illustrating the doctrine of the sin against the Holy Ghost. Mark iii, 29-31. If there is a form of sin, or condition of sinning, that is irreversible and unpardonable, its relations must extend to the Holy Spirit and his offices and influences. The impossibility of renewing to repentance supposes the absence of those spiritual powers in man which can come to him only by the Spirit's ministries; and as these are in the first place universal, "bringing salvation to all men," their absence at some later stage would imply that sin against

the Holy Ghost had resulted in his withdrawal. This subject is treated somewhat at length, and with characteristic ability in the last chapter of Julius Müller's "Christian Doctrine of Sin," with which, in a condensed form, we will close this paper:

In considering the sin against the Holy Ghost we must ever remember that it presupposes a very full and thorough development of the moral consciousness, and we may add of the religious consciousness likewise; because the moral consciousness cannot be fully developed without recognizing the fundamental truths of religion. It presupposes this, indeed, as something experienced at an earlier period in the person's life; but it must have been there for some time, and it must influence the entire subsequent development, however deeply it may fall away again from it, making sins more heinous, wickedness more thorough, and unaccountably far greater than otherwise they would have been. Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is not only the greatest, it is the most spiritual of sins. . . . It can attain this intensity only where the inner life has previously been in very close contact with moral goodness [holiness].

Respecting the relation of the passages under consideration to the doctrine he is discussing, that writer further remarks:

This enlightenment (Heb. vi. 4) cannot be distinguished from regeneration; and we can hardly doubt that the writer of that epistle had in his mind in this passage the same sin as that which Christ calls blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. His words, moreover, clearly show that he is referring to persons who had by regeneration become partakers of Christ's redemption. No expositor would ever have dreamed of taking these words to denote a merely superficial religious state had not his theological views obliged him.

As to the unpardonableness of this form of sin, he remarks concisely, and with a just discrimination, guarding it against the imputation of a special decree of wrath, and showing that here, as every-where else where it occurs, man is the author of his own perdition:

It is not that divine grace is absolutely refused to any one who in true penitence asks forgiveness of this sin, but he who commits it never fulfills the subjective conditions upon which forgiveness is possible, because the aggravation of sin to this ultimatum destroys in him all susceptibility of repentance. THE WAY OF RETURN TO GOD IS CLOSED AGAINST NO ONE WHO DOES NOT CLOSE IT AGAINST HIMSELF.

"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

ART. VII.-SOUTH-WESTERN CHINA AND PROSPECTIVE TRADE ROUTES.

[SECOND PAPER].

THE Occurrences narrated near the end of our first paper (in the July number) are matters of much historical interest; and, in relation to our subject, deserve the space accorded to them, although, as in case of the Mekong exploration, they are not connected with any scheme for improved trade facilities now demanding attention. The interest, in a practical sense, which once attached to the Bhamo route* and its possibilities belongs only to the past. According to the testimony of nearly all the European travelers who have explored it (Baber, Margary, Gill, Colquhoun) there can be no expectation of its becoming, in a new era of Asiatic trade, a channel of prime importance for communication between China and the British possessions. The present road, or path, rather, traversed only by pack animals, or the peasantry afoot, with their loads, which is now in the worst possible condition, for "nothing is repaired in Yunnan," might, it is said, with a better selection of gradients, be much improved, but could never be made fit for wheel carriages. Mr. Baber treats the idea of constructing a railroad over this route, which has been before the imagination of some Englishmen, with the ridicule of irony. The deep abysses of the Salween, Mekong, and other rivers, with numerous high mountain ranges, seven of them between Bhamo and Tali-fu, varying from seven thousand to eight thousand feet in height, have to be crossed. No desirable route can run in this direction, and "the object should be," says the authority just cited, "to attain some town of importance south of Yung-chang (principal trade mart of western Yunnan) and Tali-fu, such as Shun-ning, from which both these cities could be reached by ascending the valleys instead of crossing all the mountain ranges." From the configuration of the country throughout Yunnan all tolerably easy roads must run north and south, a general fact which should enter into all calculations on the choice of a site for a grand route, whether by wagon road or railroad, into Yunnan from without. Mr. Baber further observes

*See map in July number.

that were the present Bhamo road improved all the way to Yunnan-fu, then the discovery will be made that all foreign goods can be brought in with ease and rapidity from Canton (by way of the Si-kiang), "and that Yunnan-fu is only four hundred miles from the China Sea." Reference is here made, of course, to the Song-koi route, as "the simple and evident approach to eastern Yunnan, loath as most Englishmen are to admit it." Baron Richtoven makes the same statement on this subject, and goes further in affirming that the eastern section is quite the best part of the province, and most promising for trade. It must be remembered that Richtoven, when treating of this part of the country, speaks only by information derived from M. Dupuis, whom he met at Shanghai in 1872, after the latter's tour of exploration on the Song-koi River, though he listened with a mind so fully informed as to be quite capable of framing a judgment on the facts reported, and might reasonably be regarded as an impartial observer. With a railroad ascending from the Song-koi basin to the Meng-tzu plain, and thence by an easy way open to the capital, nothing could compete with this route in his view. It would absorb the foreign trade of the province, though that of Sze-Chuen will always naturally find its outlet by the Yang-tse, and that of Kwang-Si by the Canton River. As to Yunnan, however, "all the advantages are on the side of the Song-koi River route, and all the disadvantages on that of the Bhamo (or Burmese) route, and also of any other that has been or may be devised to enter Yunnan from the west or south-west."* This will, of course, be taken in some quarters as simply a French view of the subject. Dr. Anderson is inclined to speak more favorably of the Bhamo route, so far as he knew it, than the travelers above mentioned, and thinks that the difficulties, even in the construction of a railway, would not be insuperable, though he regards the valley of the Shwaylee as offering the better way for such a road when it shall be demanded. But that day he thinks is yet distant. Simply to draw the trade from the Mekong, Song-koi, and Canton (Si-kiang) rivers would not be an object adequate to the undertaking. Such a road is needed,

Reference is here made to Baron Richtoven's article in Markham's "Ocean Highways," January, 1874, on "Recent Attempts to Find a Direct Trade Route to -South-western China."