4. THE TWO BROTHERS. By MM. Erckmann-Chatrian. Part IV.,.

5. FROUDE AND CALVIN,

6. A SLIP IN THE FENS. Part V.,

7. A CONTRIBUTION TOWARDS A THEORY OF POETRY, British Quarterly Review,

8. HEREDITARY ABDICATION,

9. THE SPANISH REPUBLIC,

SONG OF THE SEASONS,
PHANTOMS,

POETRY.

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Peoples my path with shadows and sombre originally appeared in Putnam's Magazine for

From Blackwood's Magazine. THE ISSUES RAISED BY THE PROTESTANT

SYNOD OF FRANCE.

with practically no union whatever to bind them together into one society. And this result was desired, not on the ground held by English Independents, that congregations severally detached constitute the most effective machinery for promoting a common aim and the advancement of a common religion, but with the express design of conferring on each pastor the un

and previously-ascertained principle. They worked to embody a definite conviction in a social structure. The truth which aniFEW more remarkable events have oc- mated them lay clearly before their minds. curred in an age so remarkable in many The task imposed upon them was simply respects as ours, than the assembling of to select such a common action as should the Protestants of France in synod at enforce its power amongst their associated Paris. The object for which they met was brethren. But at Paris the far deeper preone of surpassing interest. We all re- liminary question had to be first determember how momentous the act was uni- mined - shall there be a Church at all? versally felt to be when Parliament ad- The issue, as the debates rolled on, became dressed itself to the task of disestablishing nothing smaller than this. Some of the the Irish Church and providing an organ- principles advocated with the greatest enization for its future existence. A deep ergy would have converted the Protestants consciousness spread over the whole Eng- of France into separate congregations, lish nation that a graver question could scarcely ever occupy the attention of the Legislature. But the problem which lay before the French Protestants at Paris was still more arduous, and the difficulty of dealing with it far more formidable. The Irish Church came before a body whose character, authority, and recognized power had endured for centuries, and were open to no challenge from any quarter. The restricted liberty of giving any description Parliament of England was the constituted sovereign power of the nation: their right to deal with any public question was indisputable. The position of the French Protestants was quite other than that of the House of Commons to which the Govern- The result of this general position has ment presented their disestablishing and been a most powerful discussion on first reconstructing Bill. When they met at principles. Not only the primary elements Paris, every point was open to dispute. of all religious communion, but, still more, They did not know the nature itself of the the very essence itself of the Christian revery Synod which they were supposed to ligion, have been expressed with a fulness form. Their relation to each other and to and a clearness of reasoning which very the State had all to be determined. Some few deliberative assemblies, if any, have declared that they were nothing more than ever exhibited. Several eminent journals a consultative body, and had begged M. have expressed the impression left on their Thiers, when he gave them leave to meet, minds that, both as to form and substance, to declare that such only was their char- no parliamentary debate in any country acter. He refused to decide for them their was ever characterized by such thoroughrelations to each other; it was for the ness and depth of investigation. The isProtestants themselves to determine what sues raised profoundly interest every Christheir Synod was. But most wonderful of tian throughout the world. They were all was the purpose for which they had two in number: first, What is the minigathered together. They met for no less mum of belief indispensable for memberan object than to found and construct a ship even of a Church constituted on the Church. But even these words fail to in- widest basis of toleration? and, secondly, dicate the unlimited magnitude of their What is, and what is not, the Christian remission. Other founders of Churches have ligion? who are, and who are not, entitled been summoned to provide organizations to call themselves Christians? These that should give effect to some well-defined ! questions were looked at in their utmost

of Christianity which he chose. Church organization of any kind, other than the proposal to allow every minister to teach what he liked, played an utterly insignificant part in these debates.

breadth, and it is they which bestow such | many of its members to foreign shores; great importance on the proceedings of but a seed was left which no persecution the Synod. Their range sweeps far be- could extirpate. It was forbidden to meet yond the limits of French Protestantism. in public assembly by the decree of Louis They are emphatically the main questions XIV.; but its hold on the hearts of its of our age. They are discussed in every children was indestructible. Nevertheless, part of the civilized world. Endless issues it had not passed unscathed through the in philosophy, in literature, in social and struggle. Disorganization, almost amountnational organization, in the most inward ing to anarchy, had weakened its action life of men, turn on the solutions which both on its members and its country. A these questions receive. The French Prot- more insidious and more formidable eneestant Synod debated a problem for which my had worked havoc amongst its ranks. every Christian communion, whatever be The low tone of religious feeling which its form or name, is bound, under the actu- had marked the nation in the eighteenth al conditions of modern thought, to have a century had invaded the minds of its clearly-conceived and distinctly-expressed teachers. Religious fervour had decayed, answer. Is Christianity a religion or a and. doctrine had been sublimed away philosophy? and if it is a religion, in what does its essence consist? What is the differentia, the characteristic and radicallydividing distinction, between the two? That answer, in its main element, must be common for all Christians. Every Christian was virtually represented in the great debate of Paris.

iuto conceptions in which the traces of Christian thoughts had been almost too faint to be discerned. Rationalism had penetrated into many of its most important centres; Christian aspiration had grown feeble; the authority of the foundation on which it had been erected, the word of Holy Scripture, had waxed weak; and the very name of a creed had become distasteful. But the reviving warmth of Christian piety in the nineteenth century gradually penetrated the coldness of French Protestantism. Belief gathered strength and fervour in many localities. Pastors distinguished by religious zeal and intellectual gifts won hearts chilled with indifference to earnestness and religious life. The sympathy of foreign brethren cheered their courage; and the instinctive desire of all Christians to be united to each other in a living association was awakened in the hearts of many with such force as to impel them to seek of the Government of M. Thiers that liberty of Church government of which they had been so long deprived.

The position of the French Protestant Synod was extremely peculiar. It met as the lineal continuator of an ancient body; and yet, in substance, the work it was summoned to perform was nothing short of the construction of a Church. Its presence in the Temple du Saint Esprit proclaimed a history which had come down to the very hour of its meeting: it was the descendant of ancient Synods; it was the child of fathers who had formed a mighty religious organization that had shaken the power of Catholicism in France to its foundations. It had been convened under rules framed in bygone days, and in the name of the Huguenot Church of France; and yet the grand issue it was called upon to solve was whether Protestantism should have a Church in France, and what that Church No Protestant Synod had been seen in should be. The Protestantism of the France for more than two hundred years. Huguenots had exhibited a vitality which Like the Convocation of the Church of had been proof against the fiercest assaults England, the French Synod had been subof the strongest and most powerful of ex- jected to silence by the power of the ternal foes. Neither the treachery of State. But that silence produced very Catherine de Medici, nor the warriors of different effects in France and in England. the League, nor the betrayal of Henry of The Church of England possessed, outNavarre, nor the dragonnades of the great side of Convocation, legislative and adminKing, had been able to subdue it. The istrative machinery capable of maintainRevocation of the Edict of Nantes drove ling the associated life of a Christian

Church: without a Synod, the French edge it; if schism broke it up into two' Protestants had nothing but local and in- the Republic would recognize both dividual organizations. Foremost amongst Churches. If M. Thiers was animated by those who saw the disastrous results of the feeling that the Protestant Huguenots such a chaos, and felt keenly the desire for had a natural right of administering their the recovery of Church union, was M. own affairs, and providing for those daily Guizot; a man who, during a long and il- wants which every society experiences, he lustrious career, had always been distin- could give no other reply. Besides, the guished by the most profound and sincere relation of the State to the Huguenot interest in religious matters. Since the Church was quite different from that of fall of the Empire, the passion for religious Parliament to the Church of England. liberty, for the most unshackled freedom The State claimed no right whatever of to practise any religion which a man interfering with its management; it simmight choose, had become intense in ply recognized it as one of the religious France; and why should not the Republic bodies of the country, and gave pecuniary restore rights of religious liberty which a aid to its pastors as it did to Jews and to bigoted and persecuting despotism had other religious communions. When M. taken away? Under the influence, it is Thiers was appealed to, to pronounce the presumed, of M. Guizot, M. Thiers sanc- Synod to be merely a consultative and adtioned by a public decree the reassembling vice-giving body, he declared it was the of the Protestant Synod. Its members- business of the Synod itself to decide on lay and clerical - were elected by the con- its own nature and powers; all he had to sistories in conformity with the old regu- do was to act as the sentinel of the law. lations; and the Synod held its first meet- Accordingly the Synod overruled all obing on the 6th of June of last year. jections against its constituent rights, and acted throughout as a sovereign assembly.

At its very opening a critical question presented itself which revealed a very serious discordance of views amongst its mem- The two parties into which the Synod, bers. What was the nature of the Sy- as every other deliberative assembly, was nod? Was it a governing or only a con- divided, now stood out in the sharpest sultative body? What were the powers of conceivable contrast with each other; and, the majority over the minority? How after French fashion, each side had two far could it bind pastors and congrega- subdivisions — thus forming two extremes tions to obey the decrees it might put and two centres. They were designated forth on the organization and administra- by the names of Orthodox and Liberals. tion of the Protestant Church? These These terms are complete misnomers, and questions were keenly contested. Not a very misleading. Orthodox is a word opfew pastors and consistories had opposed posed to heretic: both expressions imply the convening of the Synod. They had the reception of a common authority, petitioned the Government against adopt- whether Scripture or any other, differing ing such a measure. They had enjoyed only in the interpretation each assigns to complete independence; they disliked the the utterances of that authority. But thought of being governed by a central this was in no wise the position of the authority, and greatly mistrusted the kind | Orthodox towards the Liberals. of government they would have to obey. term Liberal so far correctly expressed As M. Gaufrès afterwards remarked in the the main principle of their party, that Synod, for two hundred years every one they claimed to be free, to be exempt had been free to preach according to his from all obligation to any authority, to conscience. But the President of the be fully entitled to form any conception French Government persisted in his in- they liked of the Christian religion, and to tention of allowing the Synod to meet. preach it as Christianity. This principle He would observe strict impartiality of the opposition party in the Synod widetowards all. If the Synod resulted in ly exceeded the sense attached to the exone organized Church, he would acknowl-pression Liberal in the political world. It

The