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herself at the same time of the old disorders and abuses that have caused division heretofore, and so with the olive branch of peace in her hand say to the Protestant Church of Germany: Let our strife cease, and let us become one fold again under the one Shepherd Jesus Christ.

This is the idea that floats before the mind of Döllinger, and it made itself felt very sensibly in the Congress at Cologne. The English Bishops there showed at first some disposition to force into view their rather narrow theory of Anglicanism, as a model to be admired and followed in the proceedings of the body. But they were soon given kindly to understand, that the Old Catholics of Germany did not mean to become at once either Anglican or Oriental Episcopalians, and that they had no thought especially of looking upon German Protestantism around them in the Pharisaic style too often met with among the would be "Old Catholics" of England; and which, let us add, we find assumed at times with an air by the Episcopalian prudery of some also in this country. In the ideal resurrection Church of Germany, the vast spiritual wealth of the German Reformation is to be fully acknowledged and brought into use.

Such, we say, is the ideal of Döllinger and his friends. What may come of it practically hereafter, we presume not to forecast or predict. Neither do we pretend to criticise it here even as a theory or idea. Our business is to describe simply rather than review. It is not hard to see, however, that if the divisions of the Church in Germany could be healed in the way here proposed, and the now sundered Confessions were again reintegrated into a common grand National Church, in which the Old Catholic faith, redeemed from the long nightmare of the Papacy, should appear happily joined with what is right and good in Protestantism, it would go farther toward a resolution of the great question of the age than any other movement yet attempted or proposed for the purpose. Such a result reached in Germany would be like life from the dead, not only for that nation, but for the nations of Europe in general, and so in a very short time for the universal Christian world. It would be in this respect of infinitely more account than any

Pan-Episcopalian, Pan-Presbyterian, Pan-Methodist, PanLutheran or Pan-Reformed mustering of ecclesiastical forces under their several distinguishing banners, without regard to nationality; and of infinitely more account also, of course, than all mere outside leagues or alliances, that have no higher idea of Christian union than that of a pacification of sects, coming to a general mutual hand-shaking, and agreeing to bear with one another kindly in their respective shibboleths and distinctions.

Looking at the Old Catholic movement in this way, we are not surprised to hear that it is in fact making itself felt already as a power of religious awakening outside of itself, beyond what might seem to be as yet the measure of its outward importance. "It must tell," says Bishop Strossmayer, "on the future religious life of Germany." The distinguished French theologian E. de Pressensè, speaking of the Cologne Congress says: "This convention will assuredly be remembered in Germany. Never since the Reformation were more weighty words spoken.` Whatever may be thought of them, they form a page in history, and possibly the preface to a large book." A prominent representative of the Protestant mediational school in Germany writes: "The days of Cologne are over! The power of the Highest wrought visibly in that Catholic conciliabulum. The perplexities of the older Church history are struck dumb before the dower of a new movement in the life of the Church. Old Catholicism, as a religious power, has made a step forward. And this without suffering itself to be drawn by the sapient state worshipers of our time into the attitude of a political party." Dr. Bluntschli, Privy Counsellor and Professor of Heidelberg, a no less prominent representative of the freethinking wing of German Protestantism, declares: "What he had witnessed in the Cologne Congress convinced him, that there was no ground for apprehending that the Old Catholic Movement would lose itself in the sand; and that the movement has before it a great future." Still another leading Protestant voice says, with reference to the reunion question: "The difficulties of the case have not been overlooked; but the greatest thing by far is that a hand is actually put to the

work. The Old Catholics have thereby shown themselves to be in the deepest conceivable sense German patriots and friends of the national peace. The common sympathy of the two Protestant Confessions with the movement, is working back also on their own relation to each other with salutary effect. Steady attention to what is here going on, and growing serious occupation with the problems and interests of Old Catholicism, have already begun to exert visibly an inward reconciling and uniting influence on the hostile parties of the Evangelical Church.” One more testimony and we have done; a word this time from Italy, spoken by one of her best scholars, R. Bonghi, Professor in Rome. Called by his studies and position, he informs us, to observe closely the revelations that are taking place in the profound heaving and working of modern society, he has been led, in view of what official Romanism was on one side and the perpetual self-dissolving sect life of Protestantism on the other, to look upon the Old Catholic initiative as the last and only promise of help for the case. "If the reform of Catholicism succeeds not with you," he says, addressing the leaders of the movement, "if it succeeds not with you to restore a divinely accredited religious authority, free from all exaggeration, it will be in my judgment the greatest proof to show, that Europe is on the eve of a religious overturning, the end of which we can as little foresee as its mode of coming to pass."

ART. VI-DOES A DIVINE CURSE REST UPON THE WORLD?

This question admits of an easy answer to the believer in divine revelation. What we are there told is plain and unequivocal, and admits of but one interpretation. "Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it, cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." The New Testament also takes up the sad refrain, when it says: "For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope; because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now."

And yet, although this is so plain that the Christian must believe it, it certainly cannot weaken our faith if we should find by an examination of nature, that the voice of the one agrees with the voice of the other. We propose to listen to this voice of nature in order to know whether it does not tell fundamentally the same story as the voice of revelation. We wish to examine the dicta of natural science, in order to see that the Scripture story of the curse is really true.

But, in order to do this, we will accept as true and indisputable, the conclusion which science has arrived at with regard to the creation, viz. that it was not accomplished in six ordinary days of twenty-four hours, but that it progressed through long and indeterminable periods. Passing by the nicer points

involved in this question, let us simply regard the days spoken of in the Scriptural story of the creation, as days of God. The Scriptures themselves seem to us to give sufficient indications of such days. "A thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch of the night." 'But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

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According to the Mosaic account of the Genesis, this latter was accomplished according to a law of progress—a lower stage of creation being always followed by a higher stage; in such a way, also, that the lower stage always looked forward to a higher one, of which it was always the platform. The first act was the creation of matter. We may suppose that at this stage, up to the time when the waters were gathered together and the dry land had appeared, the laws of mechanics and of chemical attraction and repulsion were in the hand of God the main forces of creation. When the dry land had appeared, the waters had been gathered together, and the firmament had been established, a great step forward had been made. Although the earth was yet desolate and barren, a desert waste, nevertheless, order had taken the place of the former chaos, and a point of departure had been gained for a new and higher order of creation, that of vegetation. This was in proper order followed by the creation of marine animals, land animals, and, finally, as the end and highest aim of all, the creation of man.

Such is the record of revelation. The record of geology is essentially the same. If the nebular hypothesis is true, then mechanical and chemical laws must at first have been the order of the day. After these had accomplished their object, and the earth had assumed the form of continents and oceans, the first geological age, just as in the Scriptures, is the Azoic. During this age no traces of life, either vegetable or animal, are found.

Next in order come plants. But as there is a constant onward progress in creation as a whole, so the same is very nota

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