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bad to worse. It has taken France a century to recover from the sudden introduction of liberalism; and the Italians have not yet shown themselves quite competent for their newlyacquired institutions. The social state of Austria to-day, where there was a Metternich instead of a Stein, or an Alexander I., is far healthier than that of Prussia or Russia. It is true that the repressive system in Austria had to yield before the storm of 1848, and more or less of constitutional government came But it came to a people whose monarch had never made a pet of liberalism, a people who had never had their political ideas enlarged by the teaching, of any one in authority in the state. Be that the sole reason or not why the Austrians have since been more peaceable and orderly among themselves than any of their neighbors, it is at least one very strong reason. It is certainly to be mooted whether there was not wisdom in Metternich's domestic policy, disagreeable as it was at the time to those who felt its weight.

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Moreover, it has been impossible for any man during the last sixty years, to be faithful to the Austrian Empire, without being a conservative, and a conservative who was very obnox ious to the liberal mind. The fact that the Empire is made up of various nations has brought it in direct conflict with the nationalizing tendency which has sprung up in this cen tury. One may look at that tendency from the stand-point of sentiment, or from the stand-point of use. Metternich looked at it from the stand-point of use. It is by no means clear that he should be blamed for that. It is conceivable that nationalization may certainly be a useful as well as a senti mental proceeding. But that depends on the peculiar conditions of each case. As far as Austria is concerned, her possessions in Italy were the only ones which it might have become her to relinquish in the interest of use. In all probability all the other nations, or fractions and remnants of nations which go to make up Austria, have done better under one strong government than if they had been broken up into separate, weak states. As to Italy, too, there was nothing grossly or unnecessarily bad in taking ground against her desire for renewed territorial integrity. There had been no_national life in Italy for hundreds of years. Austria had

got her possessions there more by the incapacity and indif ference of the Italians than by force of arms. There was, besides, no certainty that the effort at nationalization was going to succeed even if Austria were not in the way; nor that the success would be permanent if it did come. The Duchy of Austria has extended its power over its neighbors rather by their incompetence than by its conquests; and it is a very serious question whether its strength of government has not been a godsend to those neighbors.

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Was Prince Metternich, then, on the whole, a great man? In ancient times many of the great men were those who destroyed nations. In our day, they are those who make Metternich belongs neither to the one class nor the other. His great achievement was to preserve a nation, or rather a State. But it was an achievement which occurred in great times, and under circumstances which required the most splendid abilities. It was an achievement, too, which was politically sound and was the result, also, of a high moral purpose. His action was not so much lustrous, as it is able to bear examination. His humanity was so deep that it almost runs into prudence to the superficial eye. He was patient under difficulties, and undismayed and hopeful under reverses. His career would have been more striking if he had, like Washington, reared, instead of preserved, a State. But his performance was quite as useful to the world as if it had been more sentimental. Strange as it may seem to compare the two men, he was, like Washington, quite without personal ambition in all his great affairs. In his views of affairs, he was a practical, rather than a "sympathetic" man. If all these things combined make a great man, then Metternich was great. But, whether he was or not, it will probably be hard to get an admission that he was, from this generation.

He was not wholly unlike Cavour. The degree of his conservatism, indeed, was noticeably greater than Cavour's. But they both had, mixed with their conservatism, a strange capacity for occasional startling boldness of action. In this respect, Cavour's sudden adoption of Garibaldi's military movements in 1860, and Metternich's "armed mediation" after the Russian Campaign, bear a striking resemblance. Relatively to

Bismarck, Metternich appears as the more scrupulous politician. of the two; quite as fixed and single in purpose; hardly more devoid of "sympathy;" and equally successful in the performance of his chief political work. Bismarck-gathering most of the Germans under one government-has had a more impressive and, in the language of our day, a more liberal work to engage and succeed in, than Metternich had; but not a more useful or, on the whole, humane one.

ARTICLE VI.-TWO REPRESENTATIVE PREACHERS OF GERMANY-SCHLEIERMACHER AND THOLUCK.

MARTIN LUTHER stamped his powerful and enduring impress upon the German pulpit. From its mediæval puerility, and scholastic, dry, and dead forms of Aristotelian logic, he restored the true idea of preaching-divine truth communicated through the medium of a warm human heart. He was (as a preacher contradistinguished from a mere philosopher should be) intensely practical, holding that truth was of no value unless it bore upon the reality of things, and upon the kingdoms of good and evil in men's hearts. Next to his fidelity to Biblical truth, or the pure evangelic spirit that transfused all his utterances, he overcame men by his vast emotions, passions, vitality. He bore them down by his masterful and potent personality. His nature, full of great feelings and affections, was itself a mighty rhetorical power. Melancthon said that "Luther's words were born not on his lips but in his soul;" and hence they were "half-battles"-hence they moved men profoundly in spite of their occasional violence, unfairness, immoderateness. The creator, it might be said of the German language, he spoke it with amazing power, simplicity, and sweetness. His off-hand familiar discourses (Haus-Postillen) are finer than his more elaborate sermons (Kirche-Postillen). As he grew in the knowledge of the truth he came more and more to see the deeper spiritual aspects, the inner substance of Christian faith. He said "all the wisdom of the world is childish foolishness compared with the acknowledgment of Christ." He said again, "Jesus Christ is the only beginning and end of all my divine cogitations day and night, yet I find and freely confess that I have attained but only to a small and weak beginning of this deep and precious profundity." From this reason there is an immeasurableness, an exhaustless depth to his preaching, as if it opened into the infinite riches of God, compared with which the pulpit oratory of highly intellectual men is meagre, stereotyped, and soon comes to an end. Luther

also brought fresh nature into the pulpit, as well as knowledge, earnestness, and faith. He was even more humorous, realistic and bold in his preaching, than in his writings, for in the pulpit he was himself. He broke from precedents and rules. He gave expression to his individual, inner, heart-felt experi ence of the truth, and thus became a prophet of the people, making him the creator of a new time, and illustrating Neander's words, "a certain faculty of prophecy seems implanted in humanity; the longing heart goes forth to meet beforehand great and new creations; undefined presentiments hasten to anticipate the mighty future."

German preaching amid its manifold variations and degrada tions has, since Luther's day, retained much of the fresh nature and prophetic fire which the great reformer brought into it, being characterized by its lively exposition of the Scriptures, its practical and ethical quality, its hortatory earnestness, and its emotional glow.

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After the signal falling away from the ardor of the reformed faith in the first half of the seventeenth century, and the parently utter dying out of the evangelic spirit, the revival of the "pietistic" school represented by such men as Spener, Francke, and Anastasius Freylinghausen, though narrow respecting the use of reason and learning, infused into preach ing some temporary life. Succeeding this the chilling period of the Wolffian pulpit orators with their dry morality and bald naturalism prevailed. In the middle of the eighteenth century there were, however, some able preachers as far as their style and often their doctrine went, of whom a good example is Johann Lorenz von Mosheim; and afterwards there were many other illustrious pulpit orators more or less of an evangelic spirit though humanistic and literary in their modes of thought, like Cramer, Herder, Zollicoffer, Bretschneider, and Reinhardt; until we draw nearer our own day when we come upon the well-known names of Krummacher, Schleiermacher, Heubner, Nitzsch, Hagenbach, Julius Müller, Theremin, Schweitzer, and Tholuck. The strong national genius shows itself in the German sermon. The German sermon is homelier and heartier than the French. It is less polished and oratorical. It is more popular, robust, and sympathetic. It is freely expository rather than severely

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