THE RELIGIOUS WORLD.

THE DAWN OF THE TRINITY.

EGYPT, which has furnished us the germs of so much in phil

osophy, art, and science, was, it is now claimed, also the birthplace of Trinitarianism. Clarence Waterer, who makes the claim, occupies fourteen pages of The Westminster Review (October) in the effort to make it good. He first describes the origin of the Egyptian religion from the interpretations of nature. The Egyptologist meets with “a rabble of gods-every function and almost every minute in the life of man and of the universe having its special deity;" but all these "can be traced back to certain primordial gods and goddesses, deifications of the sky, the earth, the stars, the sun, and the Nile." Mr. Waterer then follows this naturalistic evolution a step farther, as follows:

"These incarnations of Nature were at first worshiped alone, but reverence for the source of life, the advantages in early times of numerous families, the incompleteness of the life outside the family, were all very real to this people of the East; and making. as man has ever made, God in his own image, or it may be capable only of drawing near to the divine ideal through his own characteristics, or such of them as seem most worthy of admiration, he felt that these gods dwelling alone were imperfect, incomplete, and, in due course, among the divine attributes figured that of the family.

"With the addition of this attribute entered the germ of the Trinity. These deified families were the local triads which, dating from primitive times, became general throughout the country, usually taking the form of what may be looked upon as the perfect family-viz., the father and the mother, with the son to carry on the succession. Thus, at Memphis they were: Ptah the father, Neferatum the son, and Nerenphtah the mother; at Abydos it is Osiris the father, Horus the son, and Isis the mother; at Elephantine it was Khnum the father, Hak the son, and Anuka the mother.

"Speaking of these nome gods, Professor Maspero says, 'They began their lives in solitary grandeur, apart from, and often hostile to, their neighbors; families were assigned to them later. Each appropriated two companions, and formed a trinity or triad. "At first these triads were of different kinds, but generally, as before mentioned, they consisted of father, mother, and son; indeed, where they were originally two goddesses and one god, they were, as a rule, converted into two triads, both taking the family type.

'Starting with three separate beings so closely connected with each other, it was evident that in time their individualities would be merged, and this is precisely what we find occurred.

"The principal personage in any triad was always the one who had been patron of the nome-i.e., the nome god or goddess— prior to the introduction of the triad. The son in all these triads occupied the lowest place. 'Generally,' says Professor Maspero, he 'was not considered as having office or marked individuality; his being was but a feeble reflection of his father's and possessed neither life nor power except as derived from him. Two such contiguous personalities must needs have been confused, and, as a matter of fact, were so confused as to become at length nothing more than two aspects of the same god, who united in his own person degrees of relationship mutually exclusive of each other in the human family: father, inasmuch as he was the first member of the triad; son, by virtue of being its third member; identical with himself in both capacities, he was at once his own father, his own son, and the husband of his mother.' This quotation gives us the first step in the fusion of the persons of the triad.

"Nor was the fusing of the father and the son the only combination that took place in these triads; for, as we learn in a later passage, not only did 'the father and the son become one and the same personage wherever it was thought desirable. We also know that one of the two parents always so far predominated as almost to efface the other,' so that it was not long before these parents were 'defined as being two phases, the masculine and feminine aspects of a single being. On the one hand, the father was one with the son, and on the other he was one with the mother. Hence the mother was one with the son, as

with the father, and the three gods of the triad were resolved into one god in THREE PERSONS.

The manner in which Mr. Waterer thinks the idea of the Trinity became incorporated in Christian doctrine is thus described: "When Christianity, some hundreds of years after, began to take root in these different countries, it was a combination of the Egyptian trinity of gods and the Greco-Egyptian metaphysical trinity that it adopted, reading into these something of its own ideas, and, as was to be expected from so mixed an origin, rendering it as time went on less and less intelligible, until its very incomprehensibility has been cited as a proof of its truth. Thus Mr. Balfour, in his recent work (which might have been more aptly entitled, 'A Guide to Universal Agnosticism,' since its main object seems to be to prove that the foundations of belief are laid in those loosest of shifting sands, the products of introspection), speaking of the councils of the church and their controversies on the Trinity, says: 'The decisions at which the church arrived on the doctrine of the Trinity were not in the nature of explanations; they were, in fact, precisely the reverse. They were the negations of explanations. The various heresies which they combated were, broadly speaking, all endeavors to bring the mystery into harmony with contemporary speculations. The church held that all such explanations, or partial explanations, inflicted irremediable impoverishment on the idea of the Godhead. They insisted on preserving the idea in ALL ITS INEXPLICABLE FULNESS.'

"So the doctrine has lingered on, each reading mentally into it the ideas that seem to him most compatible, and the mass of those professing it never dreaming of its true origin.”

MAN'S RIGHT TO DEATH.

BOUT a year ago Robert G. Ingersoll defended the right of man to commit suicide, and only a few weeks ago THE LITERARY DIGEST reported on the discussion caused by the claim of a prominent New York physician that some men of the medical profession regarded it as the correct thing to end the misery of a hopeless patient by hastening his death. In Germany, too, the question has attracted the attention of writers and thinkers, and a brochure, entitled “Das Recht auf den Tod" (The Right to Death), by Adolf Jost, which he calls a “social study," is attracting a great deal of attention.

The author proceeds from the standpoint that in our days the question as to the right of man under circumstances to put an end to his life is approaching a solution in the direction of an admission of that right. He is convinced that the naturalistic conception and philosophy of things, which does away with a Providence and a God as an actual factor and force in the government of the world and in the life of man, is rapidly gaining the upper hand. In the very outset he breaks with Christianity and the whole world of Christian thoughts and ideas. The beginnings of disintegrating process of Christian dogma he dates from the days of the philosopher Schopenhauer, and since then, Jost says, it is acknowledged that the feeling of "pity" or "sympathy” (Mitgefuhl) is the only fountain and source of morality and ethics. He also maintains that the faith in a world beyond the grave is a thing of the past, and is convinced that God is nowhere discarded with more determination than at the German universities.

Just what the run of his thoughts is in regard to his central ideas can be readily gained from a brief extract. He says:

"When we see a hopeless invalid tossing about amid untold sufferings on his bed of sickness, with the dismal prospect that without any and every hope of recovery he will be compelled to endure and suffer for months or years; or when we go through an asylum for the insane and see the ravings of a hopeless case of lunacy, then in spite of all sympathy that such a suffering must awaken, we ask ourselves the question: Have not these people a right to death? Has not human society the duty to cause them to die in as painless a manner as possible?"

Again he argues that when the social sufferings and condition

of a man places him in such a state that he can be of no possible help to his fellow beings and is a burden to himself and others, and nothing but a burden, can under these circumstances the right to commit suicide be denied him? The author is of the opinion that in the case of the hopelessly sick the state should leave it to the individual decision of the invalid himself whether he is to continue to live or is to put an end to his life in a painless manner through medical aid. This would be the first step to reform in the case of those who suffer physically. In the case of the mentally sick the consent of the patient can not be secured and the decision should rest with the authorities on the basis of some objective criterion. In discussing these singular views German papers draw attention to the fact that only the infidel can make such a suggestion. A leading liberal paper reports on this proposition under the title of "The Unreasonableness of Unbelief," drawing special attention to Rom. i. 22.

HOW FAKIRS TORTURE THEMSELVES.

OF

'all the children of Aryan stock the Indian fakir is said to be the most conservative, unchanged, and unchanging. He is a grotesque anachronism in the new civilization. There is tradition of a "saint" who sat for sixteen years with one arm upraised until it stiffened in that position, like the dead limb of a tree, and the nails grew into the palm of his hand. Another is said to have placed a pinch of earth on the end of his outstretched tongue, planted a seed therein, and sat until the seed sprouted and leaves appeared. A large part of the article in Harper's for October, by Mr. Edwin Lord Weeks, on "Hindu and Moslem," is given to description of fakirs and their wonderful endurance of physical torture for the good of their souls. We quote as follows:

he

his head passed within a foot of a hot fire made of the pungent flapjacks with which the Hindu cooks his rice. Another, whose aspect denoted the highest degree of self-immolation, galloped down the road, mounted on a frightened cow. A shred of yellow cloth concealed but little of his dusty anatomy, wasted by vigils and long fasting, and he waved a tattered umbrella as he tore past, yelling at the top of his voice. For the daring simplicity and originality of his 'make-up' he deserved the academic palms of his order."

Benares is the principal gathering-place of this motley tribe of zealots and ascetics, and hither they troop during the spring festivals from all quarters of India. Mr. Weeks says:

"When one drifts down the Ganges in the morning, along the crowded stone steps of the 'Ghats,' rising in graded terraces like the seats of the Coliseum to the great palaces and temples above, the boat passes close to the little platforms of plank built out from the steps over the swirling current; and here, on these platforms, sheltered under huge tent-like umbrellas of straw matting, sit rows of 'holy men' and saintly Brahmans in rapt meditation and silent ecstasy, occasionally unbending for a little friendly gossip. Here they glory in the happy ending of their pilgrimage, and enjoy what must be the nearest approach to perfect beatitude vouchsafed to man, for they have arrived at their goal, and they have no baggage to distract their thoughts from pious meditation, no huge overland trunks nor bundles of wraps to worry them, no hotel bills to pay, no care for the morrow, for what they shall eat or where they shall sleep, and the more ragged and unkempt they are, the more shall they find admiring disciples and worshipers among the fair, who shall pay a worthy tribute of ‘pice' for their wisdom. The brave apostles of other creeds may well feel disheartened at the utter hopelessness of making proselytes among them, for what greater bliss could they offer in exchange for this? If it be so ordained that they are to die on these steps, among hurrying feet, in the full glare of the sun, and exposed to the burning wind, they shall pass away in perfect content, sure that their souls will attain the long-coveted rest without first undergoing probation in any inferior form of animal life. 'Die at Benares, or die on hereditary land,' is a saying held in repute among orthodox Hindus, for this is their Mecca."

"An ascetic with whom we had the honor of a personal interview had invented an original method of attaining that elevation of spirit through maceration of the flesh, which all must compass before they may hope for endless rest. We saw him on the road from Ajmeer to the sacred lake of Poscha, dwelling alone in the wilderness. The fine road by which we descended a steep declivity among the hills made an abrupt turn at the bottom of the slope, and the driver had to rein in his horses, which were rearing and plunging at the sudden apparition of a small white tent, and a silent figure squatting at the entrance. stripes chalked across his forehead, and hair toned to the deep and streaky bronze hue so prevalent at the Concours Hippique, was like a Japanese monster carved from a knot of wood. Just inside the tent stood an elaborate iron bedstead, and there was neither mattress nor sheet to conceal the framework of the structure, with transverse bars thickly planted with long iron spikes, on which, for eight hours of the twenty-four, the fakir was accustomed to stretch his emaciated body. At that moment he was taking a rest, and his eyes, the only signs of life in his wooden countenance, were fixed on us. The bedstead had been constructed in Ajmeer at the expense of one of his disciples, a wealthy Hindu merchant. This valley was the playground of divers striped and spotted brutes of the cat family-to such an extent that iron-barred refuges for goats and goatherds had been built at intervals along the road, and we have often since thought, with a certain uneasiness, of the lonely fakir, whose only defense was his sanctity, and wondered whether he had been rewarded with the martyr's crown."

When the hot wind of April was at its height in Benares, a few weeks later, and the mercury daily stood at 100 to 110 degrees in the shade, while it marked 159 degrees in the sun, the writer could but admire the fortitude of a devotee whom he daily saw at the boat-landing on the Ganges, and who is thus described:

"His idea of self-abasement was imaginative and Dantesque. From a sort of gallows on the bank of the river, in a spot at once exposed to the full power of the sun, the reflected heat from the calcined bank, and the burning wind which swept the dust and parched leaves into whirling eddies, he hung suspended by his heels, with his face covered by a figured prayer-cloth. With each oscillation of the dangling figure, as it slowly swayed to and fro,

founded by Auguste Comte and professed by the modern Positivists has been for some time the subject of an animated and interesting controversy between Mr. W. H. Mallock, the vigorous English essayist, and Mr. Frederic Harrison, the historical writer and leader of the English school of Positivism. Mr. Mallock believes that the ideas and feelings to which the religion of humanity appeals are widely diffused, but a critical attempt to deal with the quintessence of that religion appears to him to expose a fatal weakness and a radical misconception of the nature of the human mind. Vague positivistic professions, he says, are quite natural, but the moment we try to erect a religious system on them we encounter insurmountable logical obstacles. We extract from Mr. Mallock's last article (Fortnightly Review, October) passages containing what he himself regards as the most telling arguments against the religion of humanity.

According to Mr. Mallock, Positivism rests on two propositions: (a) that the human race is a progressive organism; (6) that the consciousness of this fact produces happiness and devotion in individual believers. He quotes from Mr. Harrison's exposition the statement that men's willingness to obey the moral code "may be potently enlarged and nourished by habitually connecting the bare act of duty with the world as a whole, and with the human race in the sum," and proceeds to negative it as follows:

"The 'belief,' then, which, as Mr. Harrison himself tells us, is implied in the erection of duty into a religion of humanity, necessarily contains, as one of its essential elements, a proposition

It

with regard to the nature of human sympathy. And what that proposition must assert about human sympathy is obvious. It must assert that the sympathetic feelings of the ordinary man have, as an actual fact, the enormous range just indicated. must assert that any average man whom we might happen to pick up in the street either does feel, or will feel, if he only studies social dynamics, a living, vital, inspiring interest in the daily fortunes and misfortunes of millions whom he has never seen, and of the far greater number of millions that have not yet been born. If Mr. Harrison is induced to deny that this proposition is ` implied in his religion, let him reverse it, and see what will happen. Let him lay it down that the sympathy of the individual is not capable, in any efficient way, of extending itself far beyond the circle by which the individual is immediately surrounded; and that the further it does extend itself, the fainter and less efficacious it becomes. What will happen to his Religion of Humanity then? He admits that I am right in saying that 'the underlying idea of the Religion of Humanity is to give to human events some collective and coherent meaning, by certain beliefs as to evolution and progress.' But if the individual is absolutely indifferent to human events when viewed under their collective aspect that is to say, when viewed as the joys and sorrows of other people, of whom personally he knows nothing—what possible interest will evolution and progress have for him? Mr. Harrison might as well preach Comtism to the pigs or the lamp-post as to such a man."

Mr. Mallock proceeds to argue that the average man has no sympathy with the future or with humanity in general, and that hence a religion which requires serious and habitual dwelling on, or in, some clear conception of the race as one vast organism, is not a religion for the average man. But he goes farther. Admitting that it is possible for us, by habitual and concentrated acts of the imagination, to grasp the idea of humanity as an organism, Mr. Mallock goes on to argue that such contemplation, far from leading us to anything like the Religion of Humanity, is rather calculated to produce in us a religion of the devil. He says:

"If once we commit our imagination to science in this way, and allow it to enlarge our consciousness to this indefinite extent, it is impossible to put any arbitrary step to the process. Let humanity seem to us as vast an organism as we like, and as full as we like of a promise of glorious development, the same science that presents us with this august vision of life will inevitably carry us onward and confront us with the certainty of its annihilation. This, however, will not come for thousands of years, at any rate; and Mr. Harrison says that to an ordinary man a few thousand years are practically an eternity. So they are to an ordinary man in an ordinary mood. But to an ordinary man in an ordinary mood the human race is not a vast organism. It is only a vast organism to him when he is lifted out of an ordinary mood; and when he is lifted out of it, his whole view of things changes. The process which enables him to regard future generations of men as intimately related to the generation of men now living, and gives him a sense of heritage in the happier civilization that is to come, is a process which necessarily alters his ordinary sense of time, and makes thousands of years pass him like a watch in the night. What becomes of Mr. Harrison's practical eternity then? The very same exaltation of mind which enables us to see the human race as a whole forces on us a vision of its limits, and rounds our conception of its single organic life with the sharpest and clearest prescience of its eternal and meaningless death. Such being the case, I said, in 'The Scientific Bases of Optimism,' that the ultimate effect of that enlarged vision of humanity, by which the Comtists profess 'potently to nourish our resolute adherence to duty,' will really have the effect, in proportion to its scope and keenness, of making us see that duty has in the last resort no meaning at all; and that the utmost the most far-reaching act of virtue or of heroism could do would be to start a wave which ultimately would spend itself on the shores of nothingness."

SOME years ago the Presbyterian Board, South, issued a call to the children for $10,000, that a boat might be put on the Upper Kongo for missionary uses. The amount has been secured, and the steamer ordered built.

THE

IN PRAISE OF THE HOLY INQUISITION. HE Alt-Katholische Volksblatt, a German paper devoted to the interest of the so-called Old-Catholics, who deny the infallibility of the Pope, offers its readers something rather novel at the end of the nineteen century. It is a translation of an article in praise of the Inquisition and its tortures, from the Analecta Ecclesiastica, a Roman publication edited under the special supervision of the Vatican. The writer of the article, Father Pius a Longonio, describes all those who condemn the Inquisition as 'sons of darkness," and glorifies the memory of Thomas Torquemada, the Spanish Grand Inquisitor. He says:

"No doubt the sons of darkness will roll their eyes and grind their teeth when they read this, and they will talk of medieval intoleration. But it is useless to answer them. It is much better to demonstrate that Llorente and other historians of the Inquisition are utterly in the wrong. It is clearly proven, that the Catholic historians are neither liars nor dreamers when they assert that there were apostates in those days who secretly favored Judaism and worked for its advance, while outwardly they pretended to be Christians and even wore the garb of the priest. The laws of the church and of the state therefore justly opposed them. Wolves should remain with the wolves; when they enter the fold in sheepskins, they must be driven out with fire and sword. Far be it from us to follow the lines of befogged liberal. ism, and to fancy that the Holy Inquisition needs to be defended. Neither the rude ways of those times nor the blind zeal or the stern character of the priests need be mentioned in defense of our Holy Mother the Church. We need no sophism. The happy watchfulness of the Holy Inquisition preserved, in Spain and elsewhere, religious peace and that firmness of faith which is to this day the glory of the Spanish people. O blessed flames of the stake! Through them a small number of very cunning people were removed, but thousands upon thousands of legions of souls were preserved from the pit of error, and thus from everlasting damnation. Society was saved, and the country freed from the danger of civil war. Honor to the memory of Torquemada! He decreed that Jews and infidels should not be forced into baptism, but he also managed to prevent the spread of Judaism and apostasy among the baptized people."-Translated for THE LITERARY DIGEST.

THE

CHRISTIANITY VITAL AND ACTIVE.

'HE number of religious gatherings that have been held very recently causes The Tribune to chronicle the events as something noteworthy. Of these gatherings that paper, of October 20, reports and remarks as follows:

"Among them may be mentioned the Protestant Episcopal Convention, the National Congregational Council, the Lutheran General Council, the Presbyterian Synods at Butler, Pa., New Brunswick, N. J., and Binghamton, N. Y.; the American Board Meeting, the Coronation of the Virgin of Guadaloupe, in Mexico; the Eastern Synod of the Reformed Church, the National Social Purity Congress, the New York branch of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, the Long Island Baptist Association, a Reformed Episcopal Convention of the New York and Philadelphia churches, the Methodist Protestant Conference and the Woman's Christian Temperance Convention. During the month of September many Methodist Episcopal Conferences met and took action on the question of admitting women as delegates to the General Conference."

Other religious gatherings, held in October, are the National Conference of Unitarian churches, in Washington city; the American Missionary Association, in Detroit; and the Universalist General Convention, Meriden, Conn. The Baptist Congress will meet at Providence, R. I., November 12. The Tribune says:

"While most of these gatherings have an immediate interest only for the denominations or organizations they represent, they prove in the aggregate that Christianity is still a vital and active force in the community. When we take into account also the various philanthropic activities of the day, outside the churches, that are distinctly religious if not Christian in spirit, it will be

seen how large a segment of American life is dominated by the spirit and sanctions of religion. Doubtless the age is putting something of its own thought into the religious concept, just as every preceding age has done. But there is no evidence to show that religion itself is losing its hold on the conscience of man."

IN

HUXLEY'S INFLUENCE ON RELIGIOUS
THOUGHT.

N his essay on Huxley (Scribner's for October), Mr. G. W. Smalley says that he imagines that when Huxley's place in the Victorian era comes to be finally assigned him, a hundred years hence or more, what he did in a field other than pure science will be held one of his chief titles to permanent fame as a benefactor of the human race. We quote what Mr. Smalley writes in this connection:

"What he did was to break down the ecclesiastical barrier between human reason and the exercise of it on some of those great questions which most nearly concern the human race. I do not mean that he alone did it, but that he was, on the whole, the foremost figure in that momentous struggle. The struggle is not yet over, but there is no longer much doubt on which side victory is to rest. And I would ask anybody who knows much of the intellectual history of this period, to ask himself what it would be with Huxley left out. We used to hear much of the so-called conflict between science and religion. It was the religionists who gave it that name. The conflict was never with religion, but with dogma, with the church perhaps, in so far as it made itself a champion of dogma; with orthodoxy in any one of its innumerable forms, and with the spirit of tradition and of authority. Huxley made no attack on religion, and religion none on him. But the Scribes and Pharisees encompassed him about. The self-constituted defenders of the old order of things assailed him. He claimed the right to think for himself on subjects as to which Rome and, following Rome, the Church of England as her spiritual or apostolic successor, had delivered to the world a final decree. That was offense enough. Call him an infidel at once, as Darwin had been called. The result was to engage Huxley in a series of discussions on the mixed and always debatable ground which the church claims as its private domain, and upon which free thought had steadily encroached. I will not say that in such discussions he was at his best, for scientific experts tell you that he was at his best in pure science, or in the exposition of pure science. But I will say he was better than anybody else. Whom will you put beside him? Who met and vanquished so many very eminent antagonists? Mr. Gladstone, Ward, Dr. Wall, the Duke of Argyll, Mr. Frederic Harrison-these are but a few of the most distinguished men who attacked Huxley and were worsted. Ecclesiastical thunders rolled harmlessly about his head. Theology and biblical criticism, cried his opponents, are not Mr. Huxley's ground; why does he intrude on our pastures? The answer is to be found in the published volumes which contain the essays and discourses on these subjects. It is to be found not less clearly in the existing state of public opinion, due as it is so largely to these very encounters. The emancipation of thought that is Huxley's legacy to his century-that was his continual lesson of intellectual honesty."

Construction of a Popular Hymn.-Writing about the wellknown hymn, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," Dr. Ch. Crozat Converse, who composed its melody, gives us his views on the essentials of a popular hymn in the following words (Homiletic Review, October) :

"It [the hymn mentioned] is popular because it has a living, loving sentiment; because it has a living, swinging melody. No dead dogma is lyrical. No metrical set of theologic bones, tho never so skilfully articulated, is lyrical. Verse, simply because it is religious, is not necessarily singable. We ever have with us the poor, pious verse, deserving doubtless of our voiceless charity The Decalogue, or the American Declaration of Independence, might be versified and set to music, by some musical carpenter-and-joiner, who fancied himself to be another Bach, yet neither would constitute a popular hymn, for the predominant sentiment of neither is loving, lyrical. Versify and set

-but nothing more.

the Golden Rule to a swinging melody, and you have a popular hymn, as the inevitable result. Who would sing the Pauline sentiment-grand as it is 'Let him, who loveth not the Lord Jesus Christ, be anathema, maranatha'? . . .

"The music of 'What a friend we have in Jesus' is so facile in its tone-progressions and cadences that he who can sing at all can easily sing it at sight, or at the first hearing of it; and it quickly weaves itself into the singer's as well as hearer's memory. Its music was composed originally only for its words, hence the complete unifying of its music and words. Place its poetical and musical characteristics over against its world-wide popularity, and we can readily see what a hymn should be to be accepted by all Christendom. The use of this hymn in the High Church and Low Church, in the frontiers of Methodism and the Salvation Army, proves that when a song has its elements of popularity it seizes and holds the great heart of man, despite culture, nonculture, churchly or spiritual environment."

Outcry Against Missionaries. "There is loud outcry in certain commercial and agnostic quarters against protecting our missionaries in China and Armenia. It is a crime and outrage, say they, to send men and women to upset the hoary beliefs of the heathen, who are happy and contented until disturbed by the salaried intermeddlers sent out from Christian lands. But what bestial pagans such objectors themselves had been but for the Gospel! More sodden, cruel, bloodthirsty men than our ancestors before being subdued by the Gospel can not be found even among the cannibals of the South Sea. In the transition from the old to the new, more or less commotion is inevitable. Christ came not to send peace, but a sword. The fermentation caused by the power of truth upon error must go on. Yet, to return to the former figure, our weapons are not carnal. We do not make converts by the terror of shotted guns. Rather, knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. The jackals of infidelity, who owe their all to Christian civilization, even their privilege of barking, may sit on their haunches and yelp at the camp-fires of human progress, but nightly those fires glow on advancing hill-tops, and the march is as certain as it is irresistible."- The Western Christian Advocate.

Opposed to Observing Certain Days and Weeks.-The Christian Instructor (Presb., Philadelphia) says: "The Romish habit of observing days and weeks is obtaining more and more among Protestant churches. Paul did not think much of it. He began to be afraid of the church where it prevailed. In some cases it has a superstitious tendency to cause people to regard these days as holy, and to place them on a level with God's holy day. When it has not this effect, it seems puerile and tends to breed contempt for things sacred. Rally-day and flower-day and children's day, and young people's day and self-denial week and all such things have very much the sound of the same clap-trap that prevails in the Church of Rome. However fair the fruit may now seem, in the end it must prove hurtful. Sensational methods will sooner or later destroy the spiritual life of a church."

RELIGIOUS NOTES.

The Congregationalist summarizes the work of the recent National Conference at Syracuse in a few brief paragraphs, among which are the following: "It declared for total abstinence for the individual and increasing opposition to the saloon. It denounced the Sheats Law and urged the American Missionary Society to contest it even to the carrying of the issue to the United States Supreme Court. It approved of what are known as institutional methods of church-work. It accepted, with some modifications, the New Jersey declaration as a basis for negotiations looking toward Christian union. It discussed atlength the standard for ministerial service and set forth more definitely the qualifications which seminaries should aim at and churches should require."

A CORRESPONDENT of the London Times gives an account of an old practise-viz. smoking in church, "which I remember my mother telling me she saw in Wales about 1850. The communion-table stood in the aisle, and the farmers were in the habit of putting their hats upon it, and when the sermon began they lit their pipes and began to smoke, but without any idea of irreverence. I have not seen this practise mentioned in any book, and tho it is not desirable that it would be revived it seems a pity that it should be forgotten."

THE Pope has sent a letter to the Catholics in Belgium in view of the great disturbance there over the Socialistic movement and education. He urges them to be willing to waive personal opinions and preferences and endeavor to labor solely and zealously for what seems to truly tend to the public welfare. To this end they should antagonize the Socialistic Propaganda, endeavoring to keep the kingdom free from sedition, improve the schools, and secure general accord in the duties of a religious life.

FROM FOREIGN LANDS.

AT

KAISER AND SOCIALIST.

T the party convention of the German Socialists in Breslau the leaders assumed an air of extreme confidence in the future of their party. The attempt to gain a majority for the Agrar-Programm, in which the right to landed property was recognized to some extent, failed altogether. The Socialists, therefore, continue to stand by the complete nationalization of the soil. All the leaders who demand a communistic state were reelected, and the party discipline was kept up to the highest pitch. Moreover, fierce Liebknecht threw down the gauntlet to the Emperor. He said: "The highest authority in the land insults us; let us take up the challenge. No matter what he may be who throws dirt at us, he can not touch us, for we are above his insults. The Socialists now number more millions than they were thousands in Lassalle's time, and it is idle to curtail suffrage as a weapon against them. The violation of universal suffrage would be equivalent to the death-warrant of the Imperial Government." Singer declared that Breslau is no better than Siberia, as far as the personal liberty of the subject is concerned.

The Socialist press all over the world assumes a tone of utmost confidence. They

law for all," says the Kölnische Zeitung. And Prof. Hans Delbrück, whose influence in Government circles is great enough to give his opinion special weight, writes in his magazine, the Preussische Jahrbücher, Berlin, as follows:

"The Reichstag is altogether incompetent, and has neither the support nor the confidence of the nation. On the other hand, there is no need for a violation of the constitution, even tho the nation would forgive it. The Government makes mistakes as well as the Parliaments; a good Government could form wise

are convinced that the German Government will be overthrown and Communism established. Justice, London, says:

"It is pathetically comic, the distressful straits into which the Government of this conceited madcap Kaiser is driven by the progress of Social-Democracy among the German people. In the mean time all this discussion and agitation is helping the propaganda, and our comrades smile at the ineffectual attempts at repression which only help to accelerate the growth of their party and to spread the light of Socialism. It is more than probable that there is trouble in store for our German comrades in the near future, but that they will come through it triumphant there can not be the slightest doubt. They are stronger to-day than under Bismarck's muzzle law; they were stronger after five years of coercion than they were at the inception of that law, and whatever may happen in the mean time it is safe to prophesy that five years hence Social-Democracy will be stronger in Germany than it is to-day.

A good many people in Germany think there ought to be "trouble in store for the Socialists," and that another attempt should be made to repress them by a special law, but others think the Reichstag is not united enough to pass it. The Hamburger Nachrichten, Bismarck's paper, says:

"Such pessimism is easy to understand in view of the sorry want of ability displayed by the Reichstag, yet we must warn against the idea of physical coercion. Not only that a collision between the defenders of law and order and the revolutionaries must bring great suffering over the country-be the conflict ever so short and slight-but terrible economical losses must ensue from the preparations preceding the conflict. And are we certain that our armed forces will remain above suspicion? Bebel's program shows us how the army is to be rendered harmless to the Socialists. The Vorwärts is good enough to give the text of the speech in which the Socialist leader advises the 'enlightening' of the soldiers. 'At the moment, comrades, at which you have the heads on your side, the rifles will no longer go off.' Violent applause greeted this sentence. Are we to wait until military discipline has been undermined, fancying all the while that the poison of Socialism can not be brought into the barracks?"

The National-Liberals oppose all special legislation. "One

laws even with a bad legislature. That the Socialists will provoke a conflict is altogether unlikely, but if they needs must, let them. The army is to be depended upon. Those who deny this either do not know the army, or they are cowards, or traitors, or fools. More freedom of expression, less police supervision, and Government assistance for workingmen who wish to form trades-unions are the best means for combating Socialism. The late elections in England prove this. Is the British workman more sensible, more modest, more patriotic than the German? Certainly not. Yet the former will have nothing to do with Socialism. Is he economically better situated? Not at all. The report of the Committee of British Iron and Steel Workers which recently visited us proves that their German competitors are better housed and better paid than themselves, and that with shorter working hours. No, the German workingmen are Socialists because their situation is better than that of the British, and because legislation is employed more in their behalf. For they feel that the legal restriction of police supervision, which is at present imposed upon their meetings, is And unworthy of their high moral and intellectual standard. the upper classes must give heed to the Emperor's appeal to help him in combating the evil. They must not depend upon the police to do it for them. Many workingmen are tired of the tyranny of Socialist leaders. Prove to them that other parties have their interests at hand, and they will leave the Socialistic organization." These moderate views seem to be shared by the great majority of Germans, and by many Government officials. The Prussian police have the same legal right exercised by their American fellows in breaking up seditious meetings. Yet Liebknecht, Singer, and Bebel were allowed to make their speeches in the presence of uniformed guardians of the law. Liebknecht, it is said, will be prosecuted, but he has not been arrested. His punishment, under existing laws, can only be a short term of imprisonment and a comparatively light fine. It will not, therefore, raise him to the position of a martyr. Unless persecution cements the Socialists together, the breaches in their camp will widen. The solidarity of the party is not as great as is claimed. The South German leaders failed to appear at the convention, and everywhere voices are heard against the tyranny of the leaders. Many able men have left the party. Two ex-leaders publish a long explanation in the Tageblatt, Tilsit, from which we take the following:

"The much-lauded solidarity of the party does not exist. It has happened that a meeting held by one half of the party was broken up by the other half. And Socialist morals? The Socialists are fond of writing on the morals of the bourgeoisie, but what about their own? Shall we mention names? It is a wonder that they have not already called us police spies. At any rate the Vorwärts wants to know 'how much we have made by declaring against the party.' We will tell the Vorwärts. We have made no money by it. We have left the Social-Democratic Party because of its corruption, because its maxims are on paper only, because every one in it seeks to rise above the other, and egoism holds full sway in it. What do the heads of the party care? As long as they have their money, the workmen may starve."Translated for THE LITERARY DIGEST.