The letters of his wife are written in a charming and lively style. In one of his absences, Schleiermacher thus regrets that he has not her power of description:

"Pardon me that I write you all this, but I would like, since you are not here, to make it all real to you; but I know that it is not my strong point; and it would be better that you should travel, and that I should stay at home."

An extract from one of these letters of his wife, written from the sea-shore, where she had gone with some of the children for their health, will give some little idea of their family circle:

"Since I have written you, we have been very dissipated here. The W.'s, H. and daughters, visited us one beautiful afternoon. They were very cordial; we made ourselves as hospitable as we could. With them came Carl Kathen on horseback; this youth, beloved of great and small, raised a great jubilee. He had before promised to visit us. The children tore him to pieces with joy; a bed had to be made for him in the miller's parlor. Saturday he persuaded us into a journey to Stubben Kammer; we went in the divinest of weather, and were thoroughly delighted. We found there company enough; we did not allow ourselves to be disturbed by it, but under the green trees had our potatoes and chocolate, which I had taken with us, and did not trouble ourselves with anybody. But a thunder-storm, with a violent shower of rain,. troubled itself about us; we were forced to leave our green seat. The delicate ones of the party sought the building, the stronger stayed at the door of the house; so we were confined to one place from four till six, while it rained incessantly. Then it cleared up, and we set out to return. But alas! our joy was short; the rain soon came again so vehemently that our cloaks could no longer hold out against it. Fearing we should all take cold, I consented to take a roundabout way to Sagard, partly, too, on account of the bad road through the woods, which after the rain was neck-breaking. The rain ceased, and we had a wonderful sight the sun came out shortly before setting, and through the vapor spread such a wonderful light, such enamelled coloring, as I never remember to have seen. I was heavy at heart on Gertrude's account, as to how she would stand it. Indeed, we were all the next day out of trim bodily, Gertrude a little paler than usual. Ah! mein Alter, you can imagine how much harder such hours are for me here, than in our quiet life, where we are secure in the neighborhood of a physician and available remedies. But God has held his hand kindly over

us. By the second day, all had passed over, and Gertrude was again as before.

. •

"You see that we do not escape here without our share of dissipation. Of work little is done, even the days when we are quiet at home; lessons are not to be thought of, on account of want of time and place. I wake and rise about seven. The children are very tired, and I have trouble to get them up. After breakfast we read a chapter in the Bible, and some songs of Albertini's, then we sit together and work till ten. During this time there is often something to be done about the house. Then I go down to the bathing-place and play bath-woman. I help one after the other in and out. When I am through with all, I send them all away, that they may take a brisk walk and get warm, keeping Lina only with me. I rest myself as much as is necessary, and then step myself into the blue tide, which I can assure you is far more delightful in idea than reality. By this time it is noon. After dinner we indulge in a little rest, drink coffee, work, and read aloud, then before sunset comes walking and supper; and afterwards putting the little ones to bed. By this time it is nine o'clock, and we elders sit up till ten, wandering out in the close darkness or by moonlight through a tolerably long footpath to the village, by our dear mill, then back to 'Ruhheim.' To-night I have sent M. to bed before me. That she may not be too unhappy when I come to disturb her, I break off now, and say truest and best, God's bless

good night to you, my dear, true husband,
ing to me."
pp. 364–366.

We would gladly give more of these happy home-letters, but must close with a few selections from other letters, mostly those to Henriette Herz, or Eleanore Grunow; which may be regarded as characteristic, as he writes to his sister: "I can more easily attach myself to women than to men, since there is so much in my disposition that the latter rarely understand."

"I always believe that it is the duty of the body to suffer with the soul, and that the body which has not this power denies the soul its services in other cases when it ought not to be suffering, but active."

"Since not one man is like another, and no two human beings like two others, so their product, marriage, must be always different. In arithmetic, it does very well to say three times eight makes the same as four times six,' but in the spiritual world it is not so."

•

"I hope we shall be able to bring about sleeping bodily while we are awake spiritually. That will be a good time!"

VOL. LXXII.— - 5TH S. VOL. X. NO. I.

11

"Let us always seek quality in time; that is the best anticipation we can have of its quantity."

"Winter;

-the interlude between the last generation of this year's roses and the first of next year's."

"Indeed, women are in this more fortunate than we are; their affairs are satisfied with a part of their thought, and the longing of the heart, the inner beautiful life of fancy, rules always the greater part. When I, on the contrary, go to my work, I must regularly take leave of my beloveds, as the father of the house whose business is outside the house, and if meanwhile a thought of them passes consciously through my soul, I can only nod at it kindly, as the father to his children playing round him, with whom he cannot have intercourse. It seems so to me, from which I see, that the nature of women appears the nobler and their life happier; and, when I play with an impossible wish, it is this, a woman."

to be

"It is pitiable, when a book is understood only with the understanding; and usually nothing more is expected of either reader or book. But whoever possesses a great understanding along with fancy, he can easily learn all lesser things, or do without them, as he pleases. In this women are strong, because so much rest is allowed them; and if any amends is given them for not permitting them a position with regard to exact sciences and civil society, it is in this relation that civil society suppresses the fancy, and the less exactly they know, the more significantly does it appear how they might know everything."

"As to my riches, my dearly loved Jette, you are completely right. But believe I keep a close account of them. Do you think that I do not feel it all, and that it does not make me happy? No; I am not so base as that; and I often say to myself, there can be few happier men than I. But cannot even the richest man have a moment of want when he has put everything out at interest? See now, this is just my case; I have no money at hand, and all the percents I might offer would not help at all. No one can help me but you, because you send me regular remittances. Your letters help not only my being, but also my doing; indeed, it is they alone to which I cling, and without which all the feeling of my riches can help in no way my doing and my labors."

"The closest friendship does and must allow of the closest friendship, and its fairest privilege lies in this, that the friend loves his friend with his faults, while others often love him only because they do not see them."

"Yesterday P. was here; he is to preach next week before the king.

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.

ร

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.