matter into court by the operation of "an information," which avoided all delay, and would bring the accused face to face, and that speedily, with the evidence against them.

5. This action was opposed in court by the counsel for the accused, on the ground that it was not in accordance with the forms of law in the District of Columbia. One of the learned counsel for the prosecution, on the other hand, affirmed and quoted from authorities in support of his affirmation, "that informations were ever within the judicial discretion of the court, and would ever be exercised to restrain a wrong, to maintain a public right, and to enforce a public duty." "He also quoted other authorities which maintained that an information may be laid when a matter concerned public good, and no particular person was so concerned in interest as to maintain an action."

After hearing the argument, the learned judge decided, and doubtless correctly, that the information would not lie.

6. This decision throws out entirely the cases proceeded against by" information," and the statute of limitations being by this time in operation against the investigation of the charges made against the alleged criminals named in the "information," they go scot free of investigation and of the punishment which would justly be their due if investigation should have found them guilty.

We can now see clearly what, as regards these particular cases, is the effect, if it were not the intention, of the adjournment of the grand jury. On this subject Colonel Cook is represented as saying: "There was always a doubt with us if an information would be sustained in this District. It was deemed best by the counsel to have the question determined. If an information would lie it would save time in preparing the cases and considerable expense to the United States in procuring indictments. As the defendants claimed to desire a speedy trial, it was thought that the mode would be an unobjectionable one to them. The court has denied that an information will lie in this District, although it seems that it will elsewhere."

7. The remaining cases will go to the grand jury, involving a long and expensive process.

Such are the facts of the case, so far. We now have to deal with presumptions as to the facts, and most men who know about them will be asking themselves questions, as follows:

(a.) Which presumption has the greatest weight: that the accused were really innocent? or, that they knew they were guilty, and used legal technicalities and the convenient adjournment of the grand jury and the bar of the statute of limitations, in order to escape the investigation they claimed to desire as speedily as it could be procured?

(b.) Which presumption has the greatest weight: that there was or was not connivance with the plans of the accused

on the part of some one, who procured the adjournment of the grand jury.

These questions are in many minds at present. The evidence on which the correct answer rests is largely "circumstantial;" but it is sufficient to convince many that but one answer can truthfully be made to the questions.

J. A. H.

NEW BOOKS.

MARTIN LUTHER AND HIS WORK. By John H. Treadwell. Cloth. 16mo. Pp. 242. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1881.

The preface states that the book is the final shape taken by notes made by the author in the course of his reading in German history; that it is wanting in the details of lengthy theological controversies; and that it is a narrative, plain and unadorned. The author frankly says that doubtless there is much to find fault. with in it.

Of course, in estimating the character of a literary work, it is only fair to take account of the avowed purpose of it; and the reader of this little book will find in the matter of it more to praise than to blame.

The first chapter, on "Pre-Lutheran Germany," is concise and graphic, forming a capital introduction to the brief account of the Reformer's life and the motives and the features of his work. The following sentences give the author's estimate of the people from whose ranks Luther came, among and on behalf of whom his work was done, and whose hearty backing made that work effective:

"A race of workers, by nature and by birth aggressive, they grew like forest trees, from the olive to the North Sea, crowding and contending, erecting among those hills and dales a population not to be cajoled with trifles or subjected by oppression. They fought and lugged at each other because no foreign foe had a capacity for fighting and lugging equal to themselves. Germany was the cockpit of the world, wherein the weaker went down and the fittest-fittest for a work to come,—were surviving. With all this tilting and sword practice, at home they were a serious, thinking people, reasoned carefully and slowly; no development of history, were it normal or deformed, passed them without scrutiny.

When other nations were loitering, steeped in the emasculating pleasures of Italian degeneracy, or prone under the thumb of a debauched Court, she, all her people, were forming that strong substructure upon which was built a future nobleness of character.'

Having shown us the "environment" of the Reformer, the author proceeds to give us a brief but graphic sketch of his life, from his early days through his novitiate, describing in a few clear touches his early toils and honors, his meditations and anxieties before, and his conclusions after, his journey to Rome (which Luther said he would not have missed seeing for. 100,000 florins). Then follow chapters on "Wittenberg and its Motive," 66 The. Indulgence Business," "Perplexities and Doubts," "Called to Account at Augsburg," "Luther's Friends and the Disputation

The

with Eck," "The Diet at Worms," "The Wartburg," Augsburg Conference," " Domestic Life," "The Peasant War," "Luther's Death." The last chapter is, in fitting contrast to the first, a brief sketch of "Post-Lutheran Germany," which owed the marked features of its character very largely to Luther's work. The author admits the faults of his hero, while he insists upon the good and great points of his character. He abstains from any allusion (other than the mention of Luther's letters to his wife,) to his marriage with Catherine Von Bora, which was so marked an innovation upon the customs of the time, and which has caused so much animadversion upon the daring monk.

The sketch, for it is a "sketch rather than a "life," brings out the fact that at first Luther tried to be what we would call "a reformer within the party,"-just as Cardinal Wolsey did in England, but with the usual result of the effort to thoroughgoing men,-a conviction that it amounts to very little; which conviction led him to become an independent," in which capacity he did yeoman's service.

The book has an interesting appendix, and, what is a cardinal virtue in any book worth reading, a good index.

The author's style, in more places than one, is susceptible of improvement. Some of his sentences- -or what his printer has given as such,-are not so much Carlylish as ungrammatical. They are printed as sentences; they are simply disconnected phrases A second edition could remedy this defect.

BEFORE AND AFTER THE PRESIDENT'S DEATH. Two Sermons. By Henry W. Bellows. Sewed. 12mo. Pp. 52. New York:

G. P. Putnam's Sons.

The subject of the first sermon is The Lessons of the President's Sickness and the Nation's Suspense." The preacher notes, as exemplified by his text, (Psalm liv., 10, 11,)" the bold pleading with God that marks the Old Testament piety," and states that, while faith in God has probably not decreased in the world by the progress of experience and civilization, it yet has greatly changed its form, inasmuch as “ the tremendous transition through which Christendom and the modern mind are passing in regard to religion is from a faith resting on written covenants and historic attestations of covenanters, like Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, to a faith resting on experience, direct observation, the study of a universe that never says one word in any written or spoken language, but speaks only by its laws, and its methods of being and doing, and of man's nature and spirit." Some of his views in this regard might not, to many, appear "orthodox." But, then, perhaps, Dr. Bellows does not claim to be "orthodox." One thing is very certain, he says what he means, and that, too, both clearly

and beautifully. His picture of the character of Mr. Garfield, of the crime which struck him down, of his patient fortitude, of the devotion of his heroic wife, of the effect on the whole country and the civilized world, is painted in colors both strong and tender; and he dwells upon the truth that the answers God sends to prayer are often other and wisely better than he who makes the prayer would have. The close of the sermon (preached, it will be remembered, while the issue was yet doubtful,) is worthy of being quoted: "Let the President live or die, these prayers are not unanswered because we are not allowed to shape the answer to suit our ignorance. God does not allow His saints to curse themselves with altering His perfect will in honor of their faith in prayer. All true prayer, though it may fitly say: Let this cup pass from me,' is accompanied with the Christlike condition, Not my will, but Thine, be done.' The nation will not lose its prayer, or its God, or its faith, or its sense of the value of prayer, though the President may be called up higher. Let us ask God, with all the depth of longing, to grant his life to us. But let us pray still more earnestly that we may have faith and devotion to our country and the spirit of obedience and of submission, though the good President is yet taken away from the nation that so much desires his life. It may be that his mission to us, like the martyrs', will only show its full power when death has set the martyr's seal upon his virtuous and pious life. That may yet be God's best answer to our prayers."

As though this were prophetic, the second sermon, on "The President's Death and the Nation's Submission," with the text from Isaiah, liv., 7, 8, begins thus: "We are assembled above the still open grave of our dead President. A few days ago, we

were overwhelmed, as if by the shadow of God's wrath; to-day, we already feel the holy light in the thunderous cloud and the soft mercy that drops in tears from its awful font." The preacher then goes on to state, in his own admirable way, the softening influence upon the country of the President's long suffering, his patience, his unaffected, manly piety.

He then alludes to Mr. Garfield's successor and the way in which he bore himself during the long weeks of suspense and when the suspense was over, and expresses confidence that he will be all that he ought to be under the circumstances,-a confidence which perhaps took only the doubtful form of hope in the minds of a great many. That the hope was well founded, present indications do not too vividly show. Mephisto and "der General" are too near his elbow; and Mephisto says, as of old :

"Hab' ich doch meine Freude dran !"