astically cheered. The Congress was certainly a grand success, and has done much to revive sympathy for Old Catholicism.

FRENCH PROTESTANTISM--"The Church Under the Cross" is a beautiful historical study by Pasteur Benoit. The expression "under the Cross" alludes to the sufferings of the French Protestants of the eighteenth century in the south of France, who were ever martyrs. The author is reliable in his information, judicious in his choice of facts, skillful in their presentation, and grave and sober in style; his story seems a poetic picture of the great past. He begins with the first years after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and displays churches falling under the pick and pastors quitting the kingdom, and ends with churches reconstructed, consistories or official bodies either recognized or created by decree; and also presents to us Jean Béranger, the "Pastor of the Wilderness," appointed president, and, trembling with emotion, as he receives the solemn investiture of his charge in presence of a justice of the peace and a mayor. This book of Benoit helps one to comprehend how the Church passed from opprobrium to honor; and one sees throughout its pages that marvelous diversity of fate and that contrast of situations which gives to the description a strangely romantic interest.

Maspéro, the French director of the famous museum of Bulak, is again sending home valuable communications in regard to new "finds" in the sepulchers. He recently discovered a city of the dead of great extent and wealth near the ancient Panapolis. He found more than a hundred vaults, and investigated five of them very closely. In these he found 120 mummies, and from this sum infers that the total number of those in this resting-place of the dead must amount to about 6,000. He is preparing to make a more thorough investigation of these tombs with reference to inscriptions and manuscripts, hoping to find literary memorials from the Greek period of Egypt, because this city of Panapolis was, after the period of the Persian rule, the principal seat and favorite retreat of the Greeks. Fragments of the Greek poets, from Anacreon, Sappho, Pindar, and others, have already been discovered in like mortuary chambers. Maspero has also made some new "finds" not far from Memphis, consisting of sarcophagi from the time of King Pepis I., which are covered with pictures and sacred inscriptions, and contain interesting works of art.

A recent review of the study of evangelical theology in Prussia during the last three years attests during that time a considerable increase of students of theology. Altogether in Prussian universities and other German schools there are 2,322 Prussians enrolled. Of these about 500 graduate yearly, a considerable number falling out by the way. For the Prussian Protestant churches about 400 new preachers are required yearly, thus leaving 100 for home and foreign missions. This increase in Prussian theological students is attributed to the fact that since the appeal of Prussian pastors to parents a few years ago, they have sent more of their children to the theological schools. There is also a sort of patriotic

revival among the Protestants of Prussia of interest in their home institutions; and the demand is now being made that all Prussian theological students shall spend at least three semesters in Prussian institutions. Of late years there has been quite a tendency in young Prussian theologues to go to other universities; last year there were 206 of them at Leipsic, 92 at Erlangen, and 118 at Tübingen. This scattering of the young men over so broad a surface exposes them to a great divergence of religious views, and some of them return home to be more troublesome than useful in their innovations.

"The Manual of Theological Sciences," by Zöckler, has just reappeared in a second very carefully revised edition, with numerous additions. This is a compliment to its value, and a call on the learned author for more work of this kind, which he, better than most of the theological scholars of his nation, is well able to supply. His treatise on Israelitish history, archæology, and biblical theology is very rich. This new issue is much larger than the old edition, and the increase comes not from the author alone, but also from a large corps of collaborators of the first rank. Among these are Prof. Scheele, of Upsala, on symbolics; Kübel, on apologetics; Cremer, on dogmatics; and Zöckler himself on special dogmatics. The entire work promises to be a very valuable guide and hand-book for the clergy, as well as for candidates and students. The theological world is now awaiting with much interest the appearance of another volume, to be devoted largely to the methods of biblical criticism.

The secular schools of France have made very great progress within the last few years, which may be graded by the financial appropriations made to them. They began in 1877 with 12,000,000 francs annually, and now receive over 70,000,000, which the leaders of the movement still declare to be too small. Paul Bert makes it his special business to keep a very critical eye on these institutions. He has just published statistics of the schools for the last year, in which he announces that there are still engaged in teaching about 38 per cent. of the Christian Brothers, and 45 per cent. of the Sisters, having no other diploma than a simple letter of obedience from superiors. Furthermore, he says that in spite of the laws of 1879, which direct every French department to have a normal school for both sexes, there are at the present time 36 departments that seem to have made no haste in complying with this law. There are at present over 1,200 teachers employed in the public schools belonging to the socalled "Congregations," who have no teaching diploma. According to the figures given by Bert, one third of the French school-children are still instructed by teachers of this class, who teach them to be hostile to "radical progress and democratic liberty." But Bert is glad to announce that in the public schools the system of laicization is being energetically introduced by means of the text-books. He is so unfortunate and unwise as to make the following developments. The grammar is no longer to contain the name of God, Jesus, prayer, or the Creator. A recent grammar

for children was thus corrected: In place of "God is the Creator of the world," there now stands, "Europe is a portion of the world." "Cain killed his brother Abel,” now reads, "Italy has the form of a boot,” etc.

The Central Annual for Germany contains a somewhat remarkable article on Symbolics by the late Professor Philippi, for some years professor in Röstock. While living he enjoyed in large religious circles the notundeserved reputation of being the sole genuine orthodox Lutheran. It is this circumstance, perhaps, that has induced the publication of a synopsis of his academic lectures; for it would be difficult to find any other valid reason for such a publication, as theological science has nothing to gain by this addition to its library.

The stand-point of the author is expressed with the greatest clearness. He says: "The Lutheran Church is no ecclesiastical party or sect, but the purified, regenerated, original Catholic Church - that is, the true Church. It is such, not merely as the invisible but as the visible Church, because its Confession is drawn purely from the word of God, and it rejoices in the purest administration of the sacraments. All other Churches have, therefore, only in so far a share of the truth as they harmonize with its Confession." This assumed harmony between the doctrine of the Scripture and that of this Church presumes that the various Confessions are not a peculiar comprehension of the one Christian truth, but are simply different degrees of truth and error, according to their harmony with or digression from the genuine Lutheran platform. But the presentation of the doctrine is merely surface work, accompanied by no sufficient proofs and based on no principial foundation.

There are also clearly many groundless assumptions in these pages. The author's position in regard to Calvin certainly indicates that he was not fairly understood. The assumption that, according to Catholic doctrine, the Holy Ghost still gives to the Church new revelations, contains more hardihood than courage, and the entire publication seems to be more a series of academic notes to guide the lecturer in his choice and array of subjects than a well-digested defense of his creed. The publication of these has done the author no credit, and it has injured the orthodox Lutheran Church in the eyes of other German Christians and those of the world at large. Such orthodoxy in the leading Protestant Church of Germany has been productive of much harm to liberal and progressive Christianity, because it has appeared to the eyes of zealous and generous Christians as but one step removed from the ultramontane Catholic Church; and the majority of German Christians believe that the spirit of the nineteenth century has as much to fear from the one as from the other.

The same publication contains an article by Koffmane on "Luther and Home Missions"-Jubilee production handed in after the festival. The article is written with a very extensive knowledge of the subject. It makes us at first acquainted with the various phases of benevolent activity before the Reformation, and shows us the necessity and the wants clinging to this work of love.

"Pessimism and the Social Question," the leading article of the September number of the Revue Cretienne ("Christian Review"), by Chastand, is peculiarly French in its character, and quite acceptable at the present epoch, when the French are inclined to deduce the socialistic troubles of the Germans from their pessimistic philosophy. The French never have taken kindly to the German philosophers, and have allowed the teachings of Leibnitz and Hegel, Kant and Fichte, to pass by with little attention. Their own taste has always been toward an eclectic philosophy that would permit them to choose and adopt what would meet their comprehension and suit their own tastes, and let all else pass by as but mere chaff. But Schopenhauer, the real founder of pessimistic philosophy, has at least seemed clear and comprehensible to them, and, therefore, received more attention. In the writings of the two philosophers, Schopenhauer the founder, and Hartmann the preserver and propagator of this philosophy, there is an absence of abstract propositions, metaphysical arguments, and scholastic phrases, which makes them more acceptable to French thinkers, who much prefer the curt, perspicuous, and precise phrases, though often paradoxical. They seem to have taken to the letter these words of one of their own savants, namely, "Philosophical demonstrations which cannot be comprehended by all learned men are not worth the ink with which they have been printed.”

The editor of the [Christian] Review (M. Pressense), in his résumé, extends a hearty welcome to Père Hyacinthe on his return to Paris from his recent visit to this country. He acknowledges that the brilliant orator is always admirable, full of fire and imagination, frequently carrying away his audience by the rapid movement of his superb eloquence. But the writer hits the mark accurately when, while acknowledging him to be always the convincing Christian, he says that he unfortunately also always stops too soon in his opposition to the main principles of Catholicism. This has been the trouble with Père Hyacinthe from his first rupture with the Catholic Church, and has been mainly the cause of his failure in his Christian work. He has now handed in his resignation as vicar of his Gallican church, and proposes to himself in the future a more apostolic and evangelistic mission. He is eminently able, if he can strike the right chord, to render signal service to the Gospel work in France to the democracy of that country, which rejects the living Gospel largely because of ignorance of its character, which leads the masses to confound the God of Jesus Christ with an ultramontane idol. Hyacinthe has just found an able colleague in the Italian Abbe Rocca, who lately seceded from the Catholic Church and has published a very interesting book bearing the title, "Christ, the Pope, and Democracy." The writer, who certainly, from long experience, knows whereof he affirms, is boiling over with a vehement indignation against ultramontanism, which he denounces with righteous wrath, as the principal producer of the impiety of the period, which it has nursed into life by violently separating Christianity from democracy and progress.

DOMESTIC RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE.

The Chautauqua IDEA.—It needs a large crucible in which to assay the Chautauqua Idea. Its proportions, together with its multiple powers of reflection and refraction, have led admirers to esteem it almost as the Kohinoor of educational plans. Experts have come to variant conclusions as to its intrinsic value, but the popular estimate is undoubtedly high.

One difficulty in the way of any fair measurement of its advantages or shortcomings lies in the incomplete and tentative character of all its details. It is as impossible now to predict the future of Chautauqua as it was in its beginning to foresee it as it now is. Such rapidity of growth naturally breeds the thought of shallowness rather than of depth or strength; but if its vast work is to be unworthy or superficial, that is yet to appear. Because only a man may be superficial—not a youth. The superficiality of the scholar appears when he gets to work in the world. The conditions of Chautauqua at present are certainly not the conditions which ordinarily result in superficial scholarship. Some of these are, reluctant attention to a prescribed course of study in deference to the will of others rather than as the choice of the student; the ignis fatuus charm of graduation from an institution of renown-a charm that culminates and loses its power on commencement day; the thirst for a professional life only, the entrance to which the novice thinks to be the college door, front or back. And to these may be added, as one of the most plentiful sources of superficiality, the traditional social and otherwise congenial attractions of an under-graduate course, entirely outside the curriculum. But, without ancient prestige, Chautauqua fills its halls and groves with non-professional students, alive with enthusiasm, and gathering of their own choice. The lake-side, semi-summer-resort character of Chautauqua is, doubtless, an attraction to some not otherwise partial to literary culture; but it does not fairly offset the worthless society attractions of college, which draw together what Carlyle used to call the "unserious dilettanti,” because the place-habitable, healthful, accessible, picturesque-is but a mere fragment of Chautauqua, the chief feature of which is a great host scattered all over the continent, who, never having listened to the chimes, nor seen the hall or auditorium, yet having seemed to see a great light, read their books and master them, in voluntary classes or in solitude. It is well to remember, too, that even if the charge were proved, superficiality in scholarship is not to be condemned except where it is the deceptive substitute for profundity. A shallow rivulet is better than a summer-dried water-course. "A little learning," "dangerous" as it may be, is infinitely better than none. And the privileges of Chautauqua are not offered in the stead of a collegiate curriculum, but of the intellectual emptiness of an average farm or factory.

In its methods Chautauqua commands the best, and its resources have thus far seemed equal to all emergencies. Its instructors are in the faculties of all colleges, and have sounded the depths in their special depart