do were to curse the Pope, large congregations would doubtless be found to go through the ceremony with a hearty good-will. But nobody has the slightest interest in cursing the Greeks, the Copts, or the Chaldees. Yet we have no form provided for cursing the Pope, whom we look on as an enemy. But we have an elaborate form for cursing the Copts and the Chaldees, and perhaps the Greeks also, whom no one looks on as spiritual enemies, while many look on them as spiritual friends engaged in the common warfare against Rome. In short, in this matter of anathemas, we are much in the same case as David when Joab charged him with loving his enemies and hating his friends. Let no one think for a moment that we wish the Pope to be cursed: we had much rather not curse anybody whatever. We only wish to point out the singular anomally that we do not curse those whom a great many of us would have a hearty pleasure in cursing, while we do curse those whom no one has the faintest wish to curse."

We have only space to allude to the "Congregational Union," which took place of late among the Dissenters. Mr. Rogers, the chairman of the meeting, made a calm, clear, and dignified statement of the wants of Dissenters, their disadvantages, their weaknesses, and their great opportunities.

THE OLD CATHOLICS.

The fourth annual Congress of the Old Catholics, held at Freiburg, has proved a very stirring occasion. Bishop Reinkhens was present, having been traveling over the country confirming believers, encouraging the faithful; and, in his opening speech, he declared that he might say he represented more than a hundred thousand Germans. The object of his work, he said, was "to take away everything that stood between the soul and God." One day he had a large audience of three thousand persons to hear him. He announced some of the broadest principles of Christianity. He said, "The Church of God is one, but it is not confined by one creed. Her unity is that of the Spirit through the bond of peace. The heart of Jesus Christ is not confined. All who do after their consciences are united to him, though it may be that they have never been baptized, or have never heard the gospel." Pasteur Harsler spoke of the different religions, as all having for their object to bring man to God, and Christianity had the highest place, because the longing of the heart, "Thou shalt love, was only satisfied by the religion of Christ." Von Schulte

described Old Catholicism as "an effort for liberty of conscience," and Huber, from Munich, spoke of their system as being "truly religious and truly free." He said, also, "if the people would go with them, Christianity would be again built out of its ruins." This speech received great applause. The Chairman concluded the meeting by addressing the foreign representatives, saying that the Old Catholics returned their greeting, and "looked upon all who could kneel and say with them, Our Father, who art in heaven,' as their brethren in Christ." Bishop Reinkhens' tour seems to have been heralded in the provinces by torch-light processions, ringing of bells, and many demonstrations of joy. The Conference at Bonn followed soon after, under the presidency of Dr. Dollinger. He and the Bishop declared themselves in favor of the validity of the orders of the Anglican Church. The Bishop of Pittsburg thanked Dr. Dollinger, on behalf of the American Church, for their expressions of sympathy, and said that his share in the meeting of the Conferences would be remembered as one of the grandest recollections of his life. We have heard somewhere that the Old Catholics were thinking of renouncing the word “Old," and adopting the term "Liberal." We hope they will not be so unwise as that. The term "Old" they have a right to use, as they are returning to the liberty of the primitive church, and it satisfies the conservative feeling of the masses. If our Unitarian forefathers had been able to preserve some name equivalent to this, instead of selecting a new name, we think they would have carried a much larger portion with them in the farming towns of New England. We have no wish to exterminate our good Orthodox brethren; but it would have been better for the world to have had the division of parties more equal. The term "Old" might with propriety have been taken by us, as in many ways we also were returning to the liberty of our Pilgrim Fathers, who, in the words of John Robinson, declared that more truth was yet to break forth from God's Word. But numbers and names are nothing, compared with the invisible power which we believe has gone forth from our little band to enlighten the other churches of Christ.

M. P. L.

REVIEW OF CURRENT LITERATURE.

Recent Theological Publications in Germany.

1. Eberhard Schrader is now by general consent at the head of Assyrian scholars and interpreters. And no work of his has aroused more curiosity and been more extolled, not only in Germany, but in France and England, than the "Alt-babylonische Epos" which he has deciphered, and which he entitles "Istar's Journey in Hell (die Hoellenfahrt Istar's). Istar is the Assyrian Astarte, or Venus, and she seeks the lost Adonis in the underworld. The poem has not only philological importance, as showing the structure of the Assyrian tongue, but it throws light on comparative Semitic mythology. Historically, it has less value. Very few critics, of course, are competent to pronounce upon the accuracy of Schrader's rendering.

2. Sooner or later, every Biblical scholar must undertake to expound the doctrine of the Apostle to the Gentiles. It is pity that the learning and patience of Superintendent Hermann Opitz, exhibited in his octavo of three hundred and ninety-five pages (das System des Paulus nach seinen Briefen dargestellt), has not produced better fruit. The centre of Paul's teaching, as we have it here, is salvation; and Herr Opitz aims to make this clear: first, by showing what salvation is; second, by reviewing its history among heathens as well as Jews; and third, in the demonstration of its moral character. Yet he is not able to say any new words on these fertile themes. He accepts all the Pauline letters as genuine, though his references are mostly taken from the four that are unquestioned. In spite of excellent fragmentary remarks, as an exegesis of the Pauline system, the book is a failure.

3. A more extraordinary work on the Pauline doctrine is that of the Catholic Joseph Wieser (Pauli Apostoli doctrina de justificatione ex fide sine operibus, et ex fide operante biblico-dogmatice discussa et illustrata). As a polemic work, it has merit, and it certainly discredits the Lutheran theory. But it neglects the main source of Paul's plea, the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, and reasons only from isolated texts, which, however carefully examined, cannot be decisive tests of doctrine. Herr Wieser's view is more reasonable than the view of Luther, but it is not the view of Paul himself. In

deed, no loyal Catholic can adopt the Pauline doctrine as it is found in Paul's letters.

4. Dr. Ferdinand Piper's book, biographies of the "Witnesses of the Truth" (die Zeugen der Wahrheit), is very convenient for use, as it gives these in calendar form, associating them with the days of the year. In this first volume, of eight hundred and twenty pages, there is a vast amount of information. But the author makes the mistake of supposing that the saints are all ecclesiastics, and that lay biographies have not much to do with the Lord's work upon the earth. He confounds, too, legend with history, treats all the Biblical personages as historical, and even makes Adam and Eve edifying witnesses to the heavenly life. The reader must separate good wheat from mock

chaff.

5. Dr. Henry Ernest Bindseil's edition of the letters of Philip Melanchthon leaves, as the French say, nothing to be desired. The notes and historic explanations are adequate, and the text is nearly faultless. The larger part of the five hundred and eighty-five documents have been printed before, but the one hundred and fortyfive marked with an asterisk are new in this edition. The letters are not all written by the Reformer. Some are partly written by others and signed by him; some are written to him; and some are written about him or his opinions, and so bear upon the story of the man and his time. The chronological order is kept. The volume has more that six hundred large octavo pages.

6. The Humanists, so called, were the rationalists of the sixteenth century. Of late years, it has been a passion of German writers to restore these neglected names to their proper fame. The latest attempt in this kind is by Adalbert Horawitz, who, by ransacking all the great German libraries from Vienna to Gottingen, has brought out a mass of detail about the life and teaching of the martyred priest Caspar Bruschius. The volume is valuable, not only as biography, but for the pictures which it gives of towns and cities and of the schools of the time. Horawitz is not an undiscriminating eulogist, but shows the shade along with the light in the life of his hero.

7. In the work of biography filial piety is often an aid, while it is sometimes a blind and a hindrance. What Dr. Theodore Kolde writes of his famous ancestor, the Chancellor Brueck, is at once judicious and sympathetic. He shows the great part that this statesman played in the rise of the Reformation, and especially at the Augsburg Diet, and in the forming of the Confession. Full justice, nevertheless, is done to the work of the ecclesiastics, while the secular

side of the Reform is brought into bolder relief. The title of the book is "der Kanzler Brueck und seine Bedeutung für die Entwicklung der Reformation."

8. A singular chapter of autobiography is that of Dr. Karl Albert,. Freiherr von Reichlin Meldegg (das Leben eines ehemaligen römisch Katholischen Priesters). It reveals many strange things in the education of the Romish priesthood, and the strict rule and tyranny of Catholic seminaries. The writer broke with the Roman Church because he found the doctrine of celibacy intolerable; and he has been for years professor of philosophy in Heidelberg. His book contains personal sketches and remembrances of leading scholars in Germany, both Catholic and Protestant. It is anecdotic and scrappy, and shows an old man as the author.

9. "Lehrnst Rom kennen" is the war cry of an anonymous enthusiast who professes to rouse the German people against the wiles of the modern Babylon. Yet the real drift of his book is almost that of a Catholic partizan and of a Jesuit in disguise. He discovers in the Calvinists and the philosophers the worst foes of the German religion, and is free in vituperations. Hegel leads to self-worship; Humboldt is a conceited egotist, without patriotism or piety. Such Lutheranism as this is nearer to Rome than to reason, and it denies the grand principle of Protestantism. The call is a "false alarm."

10. A specially interesting book is the story of missions in South Africa as Herr Dr. Wangemann tells it in his pleasant volumes (Geschichte der Berliner Missionsgeselschaft under ihrer Arbeiten in Süd Afrika). Herr Wangemann is more than our American Dr. Anderson, as he not only tells about the missionary work, but describes well the physical and social peculiarities of the regions that he has visited. His first volume is as published four or five years ago, and is now followed by two more, which describe the Koranna land and the country of the Kaffirs. These lands are unpromising soil for Christian missionaries; and the quiet and plodding Germans stand less chance than the more enterprising "angels" of the Anglo Saxon race, who occupy the ground. But the report is hopeful, and the Berliners are satisfied with their scant success.

11. Robert von Schlagintweit, the survivor of a famous traveling family of brothers, varies his tale of Asiatic tribes and mountains by an account of Utah and its singular people (die Mormonen oder die Heiligen von jüngsten Tage von ihrer Entstehung bis auf die Gegenwart). His history is drawn from trustworthy sources, and has fewer mistakes than English writers usually make. The pictures of the