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He has greatly lamented that he came so early, and must carry about in his head the sermon on which his whole destiny hangs, and which must be a highly disagreeable and critical piece of work. I tried to make him comprehend that it was an entirely false view, to think that his fate rested on this one sermon; it may be, like any other, the expression of his own opinions, his principles of duty, and his peculiar manner; and whether it succeeds or does not succeed, the result depends on all these things, and not on the one sermon."

"I can indeed say that my friends do not die for me. I take their life on with me, and their influence never ceases; but their dying kills me. The life of friendship is a beautiful series of chords, the ground tone of which dies when the friend leaves the world. It is true, a long unbroken echo of it sounds within, and the music continues; but the accompanying harmony in him for which I was the ground tone has died out with him; and that was mine, as that in me was his. My influence in him has ceased, so a part of life is lost. With the dead dies each living being, and he to whom many friends have died, dies at last a death from their hands when shut out from all that influence on others which had formed his world, his spirit pressed back upon itself consumes itself."

For Schleiermacher there was not reserved this feeling of desertion which he pictures in the last passage quoted. He was constantly creating fresh interests around him. He made himself so necessary to others, that he could enjoy the reflection of the influence he himself was spreading abroad; and this influence was so wide, that his spirit was not "left to consume itself," but till the last moment lived in a harmony of its own wakening.

The extracts we have given will afford some idea of the charm of a memoir which reveals the intimate feelings and habits of a man already known and beloved in the varied positions of religious reformer and teacher, "philosopher, philologist, and scholar." The volumes close with a description of the quiet, peaceful hours of Schleiermacher's death. This took place not long after his journey to Sweden and Norway, on his return from which he was received at Copenhagen with warm enthusiasm. The account of the festival on this occasion has a peculiar interest, as showing the feelings of love and veneration which attended him to his latest hours.

ART. VII.- - REVIEW OF CURRENT LITERATURE.

THEOLOGY AND CHURCH HISTORY.

NEARLY three years ago, we received information from M. Coquerel that he had been appointed by the churches of France to prepare a work which might well tax all his powers for the residue of his life. As the senior in position and influence, if not in years, of the Protestant body in France, it was fit that he, if any one, should review their history, and give the first draft of a form which they might all accept as a constitution and charter. The choice was certainly not altogether free from objections. Orthodox zealots might complain that one whose faith had departed so widely from the creed of Calvin should attempt to lay down rules for the Church which the friends of Calvin founded. The Church of the provinces might dread in this voice from the powerful Consistory of the city an attempt at ecclesiastical dominion. The very surpassing reputation of M. Coquerel for eloquence and scholarship would be in the minds of many a prejudice against him.

It was with some reluctance, therefore, that M. Coquerel undertook this otherwise congenial task. In his draft* he has not attempted any innovations, has not suggested even any new methods or rules, but has set down only that for which he had in the acts and constitutions of the existing churches the most abundant warrant. His own personality hardly appears, and his work is as free from egotism as it is from dictation. He has omitted nothing necessary to make the work complete; yet, after the two hundred octavo pages which he gives to the rules and regulations, which state what is, rather than what shall be or ought to be, he leaves us admiring the freedom of this French Protestantism, so much freer in many respects than our New England Congregationalism. We could fill many pages with interesting details taken from this Projet de Discipline, but must limit ourselves to the mention of a few peculiarities of the French Protestant Church which it exhibits. One is, that no foreigner can be a minister in that Church. The minister must be either a native born or the descendant of a French refugee. Another is, that a minister who, by his own choice or fault, leaves the ministry, must pay back the money which he received in aid of his studies. A candidate must be twenty-five years of age before he can be ordained, unless a special dispensation is made in his case. If for ten years after his ordination he has had no pastoral charge, he is deemed then to be inefficient, and his name is stricken from the roll of the ministry.

Though pastors are appointed to the French churches by the Consistory, no pastor can be forced upon a church against the will of the majority. Every pastor who leaves his parish must give previous notice of the time of his farewell sermon, and no pecuniary arrangement

*Projet de Discipline pour les Églises Reformées de France, avec une Introduction historique et des Notes, présenté à la Commission du Conseil Central, par le Pasteur ATHANASE COQUEREL. Paris: Joël Cherbuliez. 1861. 8vo. pp. 348.

"All ecclesiastical

which he may make with his successor is valid. functions are gratuitous," a noteworthy fact, since among the ten pastoral functions mentioned are baptisms, marriage services, funerals, and services on committees. All these ought to be done without expectation of fee or reward. Posture in prayer is indifferent, and a minister may say it standing, kneeling, or sitting. The service, all over the kingdom, must be in good French; patois is allowed only in special cases. The French idea is not favorable to vulgarizing prayer and preaching by colloquial style or by slang phrases, and the Consistory wants no Spurgeons in its pulpits. In the choice of texts and subjects, ministers are expected to avoid obscure and disputed topics, and to select such as are "edifying." They are not to preach politics, or to be personal in their remarks, or to say anything which shall seem to reflect upon the conduet of individuals in the congregation, or to denounce either the clergy or the laity of the Roman Church. They may deal with matters of theological controversy, but always prudently and without personality. They must not give out notices from the pulpit of matters which have nothing to do with the Church.

Pastors cannot absent themselves from their parishes without leave. They are not allowed to accept any bequests made to them by parishioners whom they have visited in sickness; or to have anything to do with collecting the money raised for the expenses of worship; or to have any other profession, or engage in any lucrative calling which can take their attention from their regular work; or to wear any other than black clothes. Their salaries are very moderate. They have a house, comfortably furnished, and in parishes of less than 5,000 souls, $300 per annum. In parishes of from 5,000 to 20,000, they have $360; of 30,000 or more, $ 400; and in Paris, $ 600. This population is not, however, the charge of the Protestant minister, but is only the reckoning of the census, most of it, of course, being Catholic.

As to the "Temples," they must be plain, with no statues, pictures, or legends, except the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, and the Decalogue. Crosses are not allowed, except by special permission. The seats are to be free, at least for a portion of the service; and if rented, on account of the poverty of the church, the renting must be annual, and a quarter at least reserved as free. No temple ought to be used for any purpose foreign to worship, and no placards are allowed to be stuck upon its walls. The churches must not stand so near that the worship in one hinders the worship in another. Every minister must send to the two libraries of the Church at Paris and at Nismes a copy of every work which he publishes.

These are only a few of the peculiarities of the French Protestant Church, as they are drawn out in M. Coquerel's scheme. We would gladly dwell upon some views of the Introduction, in which the large and generous sympathies of the author conspicuously appear. M. Coquerel is opposed to all kinds of religious tyranny and coercion, and does not believe that piety can be promoted by any kind of penal discipline. He would make the communion-table as free as possible, and would not use the power of excommunication or anathema. His testimony is em

phatic, that Congregationalism is the earliest and the best form of church government. We hope to hear that his Projet has been adopted by the unanimous consent of the Reformed Churches of France, not merely as a mark of respect to the author, but as a confession of its intrinsic excellence.

THESE latter years have been peculiarly rich in works on Church History. Besides those we have noticed, we have received the fourth volume of Gieseler's indispensable "Text-Book," covering the Reformation Period (A. D. 1517-1648). The entire work, with its unique qualities of condensed, clear narrative, and ample citations, is a sort of library in little, far more interesting and serviceable to the student than any consecutive narration.

We are promised the republication, by Messrs. Walker, Wise, & Co., of Stanley's Lectures on the Eastern Church, whose admirable qualities we have already noticed.

a vast mon

Since the publication of Milman's Latin Christianity, the most important learned contribution, in English, to this department is undoubtedly Mr. Greenwood's "Cathedra Petri,”* the first volume of which was characterized in this journal at the time of its appearing. It is special, not general, in its aim, being a political history of the Papacy, not a general history of the times, like Milman's, or a religious history of them, like Neander's. It is an extended dissertation, ograph, of which three volumes carry us only to the close of the tenth century. As a narrative it is rather heavy, but gains in vigor and point as it goes on. Mr. Greenwood is unsparing in his exposure of the worldly and false basis on which the fabric of ecclesiastical power was built. For some periods and topics, his work is of great service. We have seen nowhere else so able and full a narrative of the struggle with the Lombards, which had so important a bearing on the relations of Rome with the Eastern Church; of the fury of the war against Images; of the institutions of Charlemagne, which borrowed from the model of church government and paid back by laying the firm framework of the Papal States in Italy; of the stupendous fraud of the "Isidorian Decretals," brought forward on the "Field of Lies" in 833, when the grand vision of "one Church, one Empire" was dissolved, and a new basis of the Papacy had to be found; of the long controversy which Hincmar, the great prelate of France, waged with three successive Popes; of the Roman " Heterocracy" of the tenth century, which marked the lowest point of papal degradation, and called for the vigorous reforming hand of Otho.

With the help of our author, we may trace the rise of the papal supremacy very clearly through the following steps: the half-unconscious assumption of secular power by the bishopric at the fall of the Roman Empire (Leo I.); the balance of claims between the Roman Church and the Byzantine, which desires compromise, and offers the

Cathedra Petri. A Political History of the Great Latin Patriarchate. By THOMAS GREENWOOD, Barister at Law. London: Thickbroom Brothers.

obnoxious "Henoticon"; the arrangements growing out of the Lombard conquests, which wrested North Italy from the Eastern Empire; the donations of Pepin and Charlemagne ; the influence accruing through the Monothelitic and Iconoclastic controversies; the enormous forgery of the Isidorian Decretals; the struggle between central and local church authority (Nicolas I. and Hincmar); the asserted right of the Church as umpire in the long feuds among the descendants of Charlemagne; and, finally, the relations with the German Empire, growing out of Otho's protectorate, and leading to the grand final struggle under Hildebrand.

On the other hand, the history of purely theological controversies, or religious movements, is intentionally meagre; and the names of the great hero-missionaries of the Church only appear in connection with their feudal subservience to their spiritual lord in Rome. The Council of Nicæa is considered as 66 a simple measure of administration." The pagan Empire was the true foundation of the Christian dynasty which succeeded; "the putrescence of the Empire was as manure at the root of the Papacy"; and "the soul of the Roman Senate and people had silently crept into, and found a welcome refuge in, the bosom of the Church." These points indicate sufficiently the scope and spirit of a work which will be interesting to scholars, and indispensable for historical critics, but is too limited in range and too copious in treatment to attract the majority of readers.

THE third volume of Mr. Hopkins's History of the Puritans* brings us to the death of Queen Elizabeth, and so completes the projected work. We hope it will be extended, so as to cover the great colonizing and militant period of Puritanism, in the reigns of James and Charles. It is a work that clearly has its place in the grand historical library gathering under the pens of contemporary writers. Everything that throws light on the momentous conflict that raged, with hardly a respite, from Luther's defiance of the Pope to the Peace of Westphalia, is worth the careful study of this generation. The works of Motley and Froude offer themselves most readily for comparison with this. But Motley, whose field is on the Continent, can deal only in the most incidental way with the aspects of the struggle in England; while Froude, with all his admirable candor and nice historic sense and true human feeling, has but a shy and far-off sympathy with the rude popular elements of Reform, and is inclined to disparage those preachers of Gospel righteousness who stood aloof from the tremendous struggle for national existence during the time of the Tudors. So that Mr. Hopkins not only has produced a work all glowing with personal feeling, and hearty appreciation of the special work of these reformers, but brings into vivid light points of the great controversy which we were likely to forget or overlook. He believes fully in the Divine commission given to England to sunder the bonds of Church and State, - a task to which

The Puritans; or, The Church, Court, and Parliament of England during the Reigns of Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth. By SAMUEL HOPKINS. Vol. III. Boston: Gould and Lincoln.

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