it is effected with the intervention of a medium, and in the cases where direct observation does not reveal to us the presence of any ordinary matter, we must admit some other-an imponderable matter,

For the first time we are compelled to recognize the existence of this particular matter, when we study the transmission of the light and heat of the sun, and other heavenly bodies, through space where there can exist no other matter (unless there are traces of very rarefied gases).

The great velocity of this transmission (300,000 kilometres per second), and the nature of this phenomenon, do not admit of gases as this intermediary substance. Everything proves, in fact, that the action of the propagation of light is in a certain measure analogous to that of the propagation of sound. Now this has, in more or less dense air, a velocity of 300 metres a second, and no gas, no ordinary matter, could possibly impart a velocity a million times greater. The polarization of light waves bears an additional argument; it indicates that the vibrations which transmit light are transversal. Gases and liquids admit of longitudinal vibrations only. It is therefore necessary to admit that space is filled with a particular medium capable of taking up transversal vibrations. To this medium they have given the name ether."

"If ether exists," says Faraday, "it must have still other functions than that of the transmission of radiations."

What are these functions?

Under the name of "electricity," or, more generally, "electromagnetism," we embrace all the rest, so to speak, of physics, all the domain of the different transformations of energy, of which the order and succession cannot be explained by the properties of ponderable matter or by the radiant energy of ether. But here it is necessary to make a distinction between the visible and the inner and hidden side of the phenomena. When we make electromagnetic experiments, when we see in action a telegraph or a dynamo, we have before us a series of phenomena which individually are known to us.

We notice certain motions of bodies, a development of light or heat, and certain chemical reactions, In all these, taken separately, there is nothing "electrical," and we might reproduce them as well by some other means without the aid of this "electricity." But the succession of these phenomena, the reciprocal evolution, present themselves in these experiments under such a form that we are compelled to recognize behind these phenomena the presence of certain transitory forms of energy; as the action of a ray of light has led us to the establishment of the existence of waves of ether. But while in luminous waves, a particular organ-the eye-has aided us to observe the radiating energy, no particular sensation reveals to us this form of energy which hides itself behind electrical and magnetic phenomena.

What we notice, what we analyze, are the results, the products of the destruction of this kind of energy. In studying closely this mysterious collection of transformations of energy, to which we give the name of "electricity," we find at the bottom two transitory forms which we call: one, electric energy; , the other, magnetic energy. They are bound together in a quite complicated manner. In a medium containing immovable bodies charged with invariable quantities of electricity, electric or electrostatic forces appear.-A. Stoletow, in Electric World, New York, January 28.

Gas-Power for Electric Lighting.-J. Emerson Dowson contributes an article on this subject to the Electrician, London, January 13, in which he contends that a saving of 50 per cent. is effected by the substitution of gas for steam-plant. With a large gas-engine, he says, I B. H. P. per hour, could be obtained with a consumption of 1 pound of anthracite, or 1 pounds of coke, whereas the consumption of coal with the steam-engines used for central stations, must be taken at about 21⁄2 pounds per B. H. P. when working under a full

load. His views appear to be obtaining general recognition, for we gather from his paper that, in Great Britain alone, gasengines had been sold for electric-lighting, exceeding in the aggregate 7,000 H. P., and that in Germany, gas-engines were used for about 1,100 arc and 90,000 glow-lamps.

Lightning and Electric-Railways.-The pranks of lightning in connection with street-railway apparatus are peculiarly vexatious. One peculiarity is that the "fluid " always seeks to strike at the very heart of the system, the station-generator, and if it succeeds in disabling this, the entire service is brought to a standstill. In some parts of the country, when a violent thunderstorm makes its appearance, it is a common practice to shut down the dynamo, remove the trolleys from the wires, and await with as much patience as may be the subsidence of the disturbance. It is stated that on one line, where an account has been kept, the loss of revenue due to compulsory stoppages during thunderstorms amounts to over $6,000 per year. An ingenious form of lightning-arrester recently devised to overcome this difficulty, consists of a coil of wire inserted in the main circuit, and fitted with a number of discharging-circuits connected at different points throughout the coil, leading to electrodes immersed in a tank of running water in electrical connection with the earth.-Engineering Magazine, January.

ETHNOGRAPHY.

Polynesian Canoes.-Students of Ethnography will be interested to hear that Dr. N. B. Emerson, of Honolulu, is preparing a full account of the Polynesian canoe. In a communication printed in a new number of the journal of the Polynesian Society, he points out that the various migrations of the ancient Polynesians and their progenitors, from whatever source derived, must have been accomplished in canoes or other craft, and that the waa, the pahi, etc., of to-day, however modified they may be, under the operation of modern arts and appliances, are the lineal descendents of the sea-going craft in which the early ancestors of the Polynesians made their voyages ages ago. He holds, therefore, that a comparative study of the canoes, cannot fail to shed light on the problems of Polynesian migrations and relationships.-Nature, London, January 12.

The Bronze Age.-From the facts which have come to light in Egypt and elsewhere, Mr. Petrie argues that the civilization of the Bronze Age arose in Europe; that the use of bronze was introduced into Egypt by northern, not eastern, contact; and it was from the mines of Hungary, Saxony, and Bohemia, that the tool-makers of Pharaonic times derived the tin which they used as alloy in their industry.-Biblia, Meriden, January.

GEOLOGY.

Mineral Oil and Diamonds.-Two problems with which investigators are just now specially interesting themselves are the origin of mineral oil and the presence of diamonds in meteorites. Topley, who has devoted himself to the former subject, says: Mineral oil is found mostly in porous sandstone or limestone schists, overlaid by an impermeable stratum, the oil constituting as much as an eighth of their entire mass. These schists are of any age more recent than the Silurian, and are richest in oil when they show least signs of disturbance. As the oil is generally accompanied by layers of salt and contains nitrogen, it must have originated from the remains of organic bodies, especially of beasts, which were crowded on the sea-coast, and overlaid with organic sediment. It is generally supposed that coal is the product of vegetable and mineral oil of animal-remains, and Ochsenius was strong in support of the theory that mineral oil was thus produced in the presence of alkaline salts derived from sea-water, and under a cover impermeable to air.

The problem of the origin of the diamond is perhaps advanced another step by the recent discoveries of diamonds in meteorites, but it does not follow that all diamonds are derived from this source. Diamond, charcoal, and plumbago are allotropic forms of the same substance, and the recent discovery of an allotropic form of silver promises to open up a new field of research.-Deutsche Revue, January.

THE ATMOSPHERE OF MARS.

GIOVANNI CELORIA,

Translated and Condensed for THE LITERARY DIGEST from a Paper (20 pp.) in

THE

Nuova Antologia, Rome, December 16.

HERE is an innate tendency in the human mind to assume that cosmic and terrestrial phenomena are precisely alike. It is an unfortunate tendency, to which are due many widely diffused errors, especially in popular science.

On Mars, for example, the seasons alternate as on the Earth. There is certainly on Mars a season corresponding to our summer, another like our autumn, and so oh. In order, however, to avoid the risk of attributing lightly to the Martian seasons the intrinsic characteristics of the terrestrial seasons, it suffices to reflect on the great influence exercised by our atmosphere on the temperature of the Earth.

Were our atmosphere destroyed, the temperature of the surface of the Earth would be greatly lowered, despite the fact that it would receive a much more powerful heat than now. Without an atmosphere, our planet, by radiation into space, would lose vastly more heat than it would gain by the direct absorption of the solar rays. According to recent experiments made in the United States, in the absence of an atmosphere, the terrestrial temperature in direct sunshine would descend to about forty-five degrees below zero Centigrade.

This is a fact which must be borne in mind by every one who wishes to philosophize about the planets, about the various worlds in the sky, about their physical conditions or their habitability.

The actual temperature of the surface of our planet is due, not so much to the absorption of solar heat by the terrestrial atmosphere as to the selective qualities of that absorption, the work in great part of aqueous vapor. Without this selective function of the atmosphere, as yet imperfectly understood, we should not have an atmosphere in which, as in our present atmosphere, respiration and combustion would be possible, but an atmosphere which, moreover, would be so intensely cold as to be incompatible with existing forms of life.

If the Moon has no atmosphere, a point yet uncertain, its surface must remain cold, notwithstanding that the rays of the Sun strike directly on it.

In general, the temperature of a planet very probably depends much less on its greater or lesser distance from the Sun, than on the constitution of the atmosphere by which it is surrounded. We can easily imagine an atmosphere so constituted as to render Mercury a colder planet than the Earth. We can conceive of an atmosphere able to make Neptune warmer and more habitable than our planet.

In order to discuss the temperature, the climates, the nature of the configuration of the surface of Mars, it is requisite first to know whether Mars has an atmosphere and what are its probable characteristics.

The disk of Mars when observed from the Earth through a powerful telescope, appears much brighter at the edge than in the central parts, and appears, besides, covered with strange forms, at first sight vague, confused, and difficult to describe, but after a while, under favorable conditions of observation, very distinct, with separate characteristics. There are forms, in appearance minute, in reality of vast size, here white and bright, there obscure and opaque, sometimes with the yellowish color of brick more or less burned, oftener of uncertain and smoky tints.

These and other appearances can be explained on the supposition that Mars has an atmosphere, which the rays of light must pass through before reaching its surface. Every atmosphere absorbs light, and the absorption of the solar light is much greater at the edge than at the middle of the disk of Mars visible from the Earth. The experience of every day, the observation of the full Moon, teaches that when the light of the Sun illuminates a solid, spherical body with a rough sur

face, the edge and centre of the apparent disk have about the same degree of luminosity, something which does not happen when a more or less potent atmosphere intervenes between the illuminated body and the source of light.

On the disk of Mars, moreover, appear now and then changeable and fleeting spots. They are formed with alterations, more or less rapid, they move, they change their forms, elongating in various manners and sometimes in parallel threads. Some well-known details of the disk are hidden for some time, as if they were under a veil. The veil disappears, and the details which have been noted and observed reappear. These are phenomena which can be perfectly explained by an atmosphere on Mars, an atmosphere which is sometimes dense like our atmosphere, by reason of fogs and clouds.

The existence of a Martian atmosphere, probable from the facts just mentioned, is demonstrated by the spectroscope. Not only does Mars, shining by reflected solar light, send back to the Earth, as if from a mirror, the image of the solar spectrum, but in its spectrum are found some lines not in the solar spectrum, but which correspond to lines of absorption by the terrestrial atmosphere, and demonstrate that Mars has an atmosphere analogous to our own, in which, as in the terrestrial atmosphere, exists a notable quantity of vapor of water in a state of transparent gas.

The transitory disturbances of the atmosphere of Mars, which sometimes veil vast regions on that planet, are the result of fogs and clouds, of which the nature, in all probability, is analogous to that of the fogs and clouds on the Earth. The Martian fogs and clouds are less dense than those of the Earth; the clouds are few and vast, and do not arrange themselves, as happens on Jupiter by reason of its very rapid rotation, nearly parallel to the equator. The fogs are more frequent, and in both hemispheres more easily observable during the Martian winter than in summer.

The atmosphere of Mars is much less dense than that of the Earth. When a star undergoes occultation by the opaque disk of the planet, neither at the time of immersion or emersion, can there be traced any change in the brightness or color of the star.

While, then, we can affirm that Mars has an atmosphere, about the constitution of which we know a very little, in regard to the more important facts relating to its constitution we know nothing, and cannot trust in the slightest degree any inductions from observations of the terrestrial atmosphere.

IN

RELIGIOUS.

CREED AND DOCTRINE.

THE CONTRAST AND AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE NEW
ORTHODOXY AND THE OLD.

N the Andover Review, for January, George A. Gordon asserts that the "New Orthodoxy is born of a philosophical rejection of the Old." He defines the Old as the Calvinistic Orthodoxy, and takes the famous Five Points as the fundamental propositions of its philosophy. He believes that, while modern Calvinism introduces new departures, it is as deep a horror as unmodified Calvinism and that "consistent Calvinism is Atheism." The primal antithesis is found in the conception of God—Calvin's idea of sovereignty is contrasted with the idea of an “absolute" Being,—absolute in love as in power. Another antithesis is in the matter of depravity; the next, that between limited and unlimited Atonement; and the fourth concerns irresistible grace. The writer indicates the identity of the New Theology with the Old one, especially one point, namely, the teaching of the Nicene Creed concerning Jesus Christ. He says:

"The relation of the Father and the Son in the Godhead is that

upon which the Creed lays supreme emphasis. The Creed vindicates by implication the kinship of God and man. It is not as a mere idea or dream of some divinely-gifted man,' that this conception of the essential kinship of God and man is asserted or implied in the Creed. It has recognition or place, then, through the great historic fact of the Incarnation. The sublime faith that God and humanity are not aliens but friends rests no longer upon a merely ideal basis, but upon history, the history of the unique union of God and man in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

"Another reason for the veneration in which this Creed is held is found in its magnificent assertion of the ethical character of God. Its great ideas are of God the Father Almighty and Jesus Christ the Son of God. If we are to have an ethical basis for human life in the nature of God, we must have a faith capable of expression through the Nicene symbol. The Trinitarian conception of God is far enough from being simple, has in it, indeed, unfathomable mysteries; but it does vindicate the ethical character of God, and make eternal love a possibility in the Godhead.

"The Nicene Creed is dear to the Church of to-day as the symbol of the working-forces of Christianity, of New Testament thought about the relation of the Son to the Father, and the thought on the same subject implicit in the Christian experience of these nineteen centuries.

"Christian life is indeed a life from God, but it is a life mediated by Jesus Christ, and the Mediator never ceases to be a unique factor of it. The Trinitarian conception is as essential to the continued life of the Church as it was essential to the first. That conception essential to the earliest life of the Church, and essential to all subsequent life, finds epochal recognition and expression in the great Creed of Nicea.

"This Creed embodies a conception of God that saves His intelligence. Mere deism soon drops intelligence from the Supreme Being, and swiftly subsides into impersonal principle or law, and this, in turn, surely vanishes into atheism."

THE STUDY OF DOCTRINE.

Professor Arthur C. McGiffert, in Bibliotheca Sacra for January, contributes a paper on The Historical Study of Christianity. In applying the true historical method of study to doctrine, he says:

"It has shown us that a sharp distinction must be drawn between Divine truth and our conceptions of that truth; that, though the former is always and eternally the same, unchanged and unchangeable, in our conceptions of it-in other words our doctrines-there has been as real a development as in our institutions; that out of truths lived and taught by Christ, that out of truths revealed to the Apostles and preached by them, we have, by the use of our human powers, under Divine guidance as we trust, evolved an elaborate system which has been the slow growth of centuries. Out of the germs have come, by a genuine process of development, not our statements merely, but our beliefs as well, not in form only, but in the substance, of our theology. There is no more fruitful source of discord and of unbelief than the confusion of essential and non-essential truth. So often have the fundamental verities been forgotten or neglected, and the

that every age must have, its own theology, and that the theology of no other age can fully meet its needs."

BIBLICAL THEOLOGY.

Professor George B. Stevens, Ph. D., D.D., of Yale University, in The Biblical World for January, treats of Biblical Theology as distinct from Exegesis and distinct from Systematic or Doctrinal Theology. The special contrast between Biblical Theology and Doctrinal Theology, he declares, is seen in the fact that the former in its method and spirit is largely philosophical, the aim being to defend the various themes of theology, and to incorporate them into a system-"a rational construction of doctrines "-while the latter distinctly disclaims any philosophical or speculative method.

"The Biblical theologian places himself, for the time, in the age and circumstances of the writer with whom he is dealing. He asks simply what this writer says and means, not how that can be justified to reason, defended against objection, harmonized with the teachings of other writers, or translated into the equivalents of modern thought, and made part of a general scheme of doctrine. He tries to see with the writer's eyes, and to think his thoughts after him. He seeks to apprehend the form and matter of the writer's thought, according to the manner of its time to read him in the light of his age and circumstances.

"There exists just now a certain distrust of theological systems. The demand of the time-so far as theology is concerned-is for a thorough and impartial investigation of Biblical teaching in its genetic development and its various forms. Bible Theology, if developed in a critical and scientific spirit, and at the same time with a reverent appreciation of Biblical truth, will be one of the greatest aids to Doctrinal Theology. If it will do its work thoroughly, and do it now-just when it is wanted, just when it is needed it will give a new impetus to the study of Christian doctrine."

THE AUTHORITY OF CHRIST.

The Rev. E. E. Curry, in The Homeletic Review, February, interpreting the text, "All Authority is given unto Me in Heaven and on Earth," Matt. xxviii: 18, makes prominent mention of Christ's authority on all matters of revelation, all that pertains to Christian doctrine.

Christ is authority in our religion. His doctrine is embodied in the new Testament. There are two divisions of the New Testament-the faith and the doctrine. The first is preached to the world on testimony; the second is preached to the Church on authority. The question Christians should ask is: Does Christ speak this, or is it the word of men? Where Christ hath spoken we are bound, and where He hath not spoken we are free."

THE CREED-CONTROVERSY IN GERMANY. Translated and Condensed for THE LITERARY DIGEST from a Paper (4 pp.) in Chronik der Christlichen Welt, Leipzig. Vol. IV. Nos. 1 and 2.

CREED-REVISION.

The writer insists that, whereas the conditions of life have changed, so we must “adjust our statements to the new conditions," and that, if we would understand the doctrines that come to us from ancient times, we must read them into our modern tongue, into our modern way of thinking.

"To translate Divine truth into the language of to-day: that means Creed-revision, and to the true historian Creed-revision, and frequent Creed-revision,-in thought, if not in fact,-is a necessity. To accept always and absolutely unchanged, either in form or substance, and in its original sense, the Creed of a past age, is to lose touch with the historic progress of the Church, and fall behind, fossilized and forgotten. Even though we were to maintain that the doctrines of our Creeds remain ever the same, we should need, at times, to revise their statements, that the substance might really be preserved intact. Revisionists may be

more conservative than the adherents of the old Creed in its old form; but the historian is not content with such revision. He knows that every age which is not dead or stagnant has had, and

OT for decades has the Protestant Church of the Fatherland passed through such an excitement as that under which she has been laboring for the past months, and which is agitating her yet from one end of the country to the other. It is the controversy as to the origin, character, and especially the Scriptural character and authority in the Church, of the Apostles' Creed. The controversy began in the little kingdom of Württemberg, where Pastor Schrempf, one of the not small number who, through the critical and philosophical studies of the present theological generation, have internally broken with some of the traditional views of the Church, declared that he would no longer use the Apostles' Creed in baptism nor in the general liturgical services of the Church, as he no longer could, with a good conscience, accept some of its statements. A similar position was taken by Pastor Längen, of Baden, who prepared two pamphlets in which he urged the most radical innovations in the Creed and practice of the Church. What was a cloud of the size of a man's hand becomes a storm covering the theological heavens from horizon to horizon when, in Berlin, Professor Harnack, asked by his students whether they should enter upon a movement looking to a removal of the Apostles' Creed from the vow of ordination, replied that this should not be done by students, but that this venerable Creed

contained not a few statements at which a historically and dogmatically-trained Christian must take offense, especially at the statement "Conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary." In Prussia and in Baden a relative end of the controversy was effected by the declaration of the Superior Church Consistories. The latter was issued November 25, the former November 15. The former assures the congregations that the authorities will see to it that the Apostles' Creed continues to be the official confession of the Church, assures them that some of the ablest theological professors still maintain the Evangelical and Biblical character of the birth of the Saviour from a virgin, but that freedom of scientific theological research must be allowed. The Baden declaration discusses the relation of such freedom of research to the traditional faith of the Church. In Württemberg the case of Schrempf has indeed been decided by his removal from office, but on the principles involved no official declaration has yet been made.

The chief battle-ground is, however, Prussia. On the 13th of October the Christliche Welt, the organ of the more liberal section of the Evangelical Church, published a declaration of representatives who met at Eisennach on the 5th of that month, and among them fifteen theological professors from the universities of Berlin, Bonn, Breslau, Giessen, Göttingen, Halle, Heidelberg, Jena, Leipzig, Marborg, Tübingen, and ten pastors and high church-officials from Prussia, Saxony Württemberg, Hessen, and Gotha. In this declaration the standpoint of Harnack is endorsed, and special stress is laid upon the fact that Harnack does not aim at a removal of the Apostles' Creed from the liturgies and the confession of the churches, but has maintained the right of freedom of theological research and innovations in this line within the limits and folds of the Evangelical Church. In other words, the right of liberal theology in the Protestant Church is claimed without reservation. For this reason the adherence demanded by the ordination-vow and by membership in the Protestant Church shall not be understood, in a juridic sense, an adherence to each and every statement of the Creed in its historical meaning, but an adherence to the spiritual contents of the Creed in general. The Eisennach declaration also pronounced against the claim that the birth of Christ from a virgin was a fundamental article of the Christian faith, the basis of Evangelical Christianity, since this birth was claimed only in the introduction of the two Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and afterwards is not again referred to in the New Testament. The ground of hope and salvation is declared to be confidence in life and death in our Lord Jesus Christ. This declaration had a double effect. In the first place, it deepened the controversy, by laying bare the chasm that exists between theological research and the Church's practices. On the other hand, it widened the controversy, by drawing the fire of conservative criticism from the one man, and directing it against the whole liberal school.

Declarations, resolutions, articles, brochures, pamphlets in almost endless abundance followed; even the Emperor's confession of his faith in the God-Man Jesus Christ, spoken on the occasion of the rededicatien of the Luther Church in Wittenberg, was repeatedly used as a manifesto against Harnack. Finally the Upper Consistory issued its declaration, which, on the whole, is also against the position taken by the Berlin professor.

No controversy for years has so enlisted the attention of the most famous theological professors in Germany. Harnack himself has published a brochure in which he employs the fact that the Apostles' Creed in its present shape is of comparatively late date. The ablest reply to him was given by the New Testament authority, Professor Cremer, of Greifswald, in which the thesis is defended; that even if the present form and shape of the Creed can be traced only to the third century, still the thoughts and ideas have their roots is the Apostolic period. The most learned discussion from the conservative side is that of Professor Zahn, of Erlangen, who aims especially

to show that the controverted proposition, "Conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary," in sentiment and idea, can be traced to the earliest period of the Church. To Professor Cremer's brochure Harnack has replied. The most noteworthy recent utterance in the matter is that of Professor Beyschlag, of Halle, the author of the famous Life of Christ. He is a conservative, yet claims that the type of teaching represented by Harnack should be tolerated in the Protestant Church. His article is found in the Deutsche Evangelische Blatter, 1893, No. 1. He declares that the fruits of a policy curtailing the rights of liberal theology and free research in the Church would be to keep the best talent out of the ministry, to destroy Evangelical freedom of thought, to educate the candidates to commit the sacrificio d'intelletto, i. e., to become hypocrites. The view of Harnack, says Beyschlag, does not deny the fact that the Son of God became man, as this is not expressed in the statement" Conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary." So little do these words teach that God became man in Christ that the General Synod of Prussia in 1846 declared this as one of the non-fundamental articles in the Creed, even if the statements of Matt. I and Luke 1 are to be taken as strictly historical, they contain nothing else than the fact of the wonderful conception of a human being (Erzeugung eines Menschenkindes), a conception which is not essentially different from that which Paul in Gal. iv.: 29 and Rom. iv.: 19-21 ascribes to Isaac. The two Gospel writers in question know nothing of a preëxisting son of God who has become man in Jesus. That God became man does not find formal expression in the Apostles' Creed; and so far as this lies in the Creed it is not to be found in the controverted passages concerning the birth of Christ from a Virgin, but is the Christological leading statement of the second article of the Creed, "The only begotten Son of God," and this Christological statement neither Harnack nor any of his defenders have in the entire controversy called into question. No fundamental article of the Christian Creed was therefore endangered, as the statements in question are indeed part of a Biblical narrative which is to be received with all veneration (Pietät), but which contains only a determination of the human origin of Jesus. This, concludes Beyschlag, can be maintained also by those who are inclined to doubt the narrative concerning the Child Christ found in the Gospels, on account of reasons drawn from the Scriptures themselves. This is the view which it can at least be expected that Evangelical scholars will take.

MISCELLANEOUS.

MORE ABOUT BLUEBEARD.

LAST WEEK'S LITERARY DIGEST contained, in condensed form, the story of the real Bluebeard-Marshal de Retz of France, -condensed from the long article in the January number of Belgravia. Below we add other interesting details of the de Retz case, from the same article. All this happened, it will be remembered, in the year 1440.

JOHN

a man

V., Duke of Brittany, could not believe that his relative, a man who had served his country so bravely, who was in such a position and known to be so devout, could possibly be guilty of the horrors laid to his charge. He poohpoohed the accusation as preposterous and ridiculous, and would have taken no steps to investigate the truth had not some of his nobles insisted on his doing so. Jean de Châteaugiron, Bishop of Nantes, and the wise and noble Pierre de l'Hospital, grand seneschal of Brittany, also wrote to the Duke, expressing very decidedly their views, that such a scandalous charge demanded thorough investigation.

At length John yielded to their representations, and authorized them to seize the persons of the Sire de Retz and his accomplices. Several of the accomplices of the Marshal took to flight, but his treasurer, Henriet, and another of his servants, Ponton, surrendered with him.

The people gathered in crowds to see the redoubted Sire de

Retz ride through the streets a prisoner, surrounded by the soldiers of the Duke of Brittany, and without a retainer of his own save only the two mentioned, who were also prisoners. A strange hush was over the crowd as the blue-bearded manmonster passed, till suddenly it was broken by a woman's voice crying, "My child! Give me back my child!" Then a howl of wrath broke from the lips of the throng. Execrations and curses were freely showered upon him as he rode along the Nantes road, and only stopped when the prisoner disappeared within the great gates of the Chateau de la Tour Neuve, at Bouffay.

John V. nominated the commissioner, Jean de Toucheronde, to collect information and take down the charges against de Retz; at the same time he was given to understand that the matter was not to be pressed and the charges were to be softened down as much as possible. Jean de Toucheronde opened the investigation on the 18th of September, assisted only by his clerk, Jean Thomas.

Witness after witness deposed to the loss of their children, till there was a terrible array of evidence against Sire de Retz and his servants. Always it was the same tale; either the little ones had atttracted the notice of Bluebeard himself on his way through the village, and had been sent on errands to the castle, or had been enticed into the place on various pretexts. Whatever it was, not one of the children had ever been seen alive again.

On the 2d of October the commissioners sat again, and the charges became graver and the suspicion stronger against the inmates of the castle.

Yet John V. hesitated; he could not bring himself to judge a kinsman, the most powerful of his vassals, the bravest of his captains, a councillor of the King, and a Marshal of France.

A letter he received from the Marshal, however, determined the course he must pursue.

In this letter the Sire de Retz acknowledged having sinned horribly again and again, but reminded his cousin and Sire that he had never failed in his religious duties, having heard many masses and vespers, always having fasted at Lent, and on vigils, and confessed and communicated regularly. He was

to acknowledge expiate his by retiring a

Ponton, had confessed to the horrors in which they had joined, that he saw it was in vain to equivocate any longer.

"

Gilles de Laval, when confronted with the rack, shuddered and declared that rather than be tortured he would confess all. When the confessions of Henriet and Ponton were read to him he turned deadly pale, and exclaimed that God had loosened their tongues so that they had spoken the truth. Urged to relieve his conscience by acknowledging his crimes, after a moment's silence he said: Messires, it is quite true that I have robbed mothers of their little ones, and that I have killed them or caused them to be killed, either by cutting their throats with daggers or knives, or else I have had their skulls broken by hammers or sticks; sometimes I had their limbs hewn off one after another; at other times I ripped them open, that I might examine their entrails and hearts; I have occasionally strangled them or put them to a slow death; and when the children were dead I had their bodies burned and reduced to ashes."

"

This horrible frankness staggered Pierre de l'Hospital.

When did you begin your execrable practices ?" he asked. The Evil One must have possessed you.'

"It came to me from myself," answered Gilles de Laval; "no doubt at the instigation of the devil; but these acts of cruelty afforded me incomparable delight. The desire to commit these atrocities came upon me eight years ago. I left court to go to Cantoncée, that I might claim the property of my grandfather, deceased. In the library of the castle I found a Latin book, Suetonius, I believe, full of accounts of the cruelties of the Roman Emperors. I read the charming history of Tiberius, Caracalla, and other Cæsars, and the pleasure they took in watching the agonies of tortured children. Thereupon I resolved to imitate and surpass these same Cæsars, and that very night I began to do so. For some while I confided my secret to no one, but afterwards I communicated it to my cousin, Gilles de Silé, then to Master Roger de Briqueville, next in succession to Henriet, Ponton, Rossignol, and Robin."

The Sire de Retz confirmed all the accounts given by his two servants. He confessed to about one hundred and twenty murders in a single year.

When pressed to tell the exact number of victims, Gilles averred that there were so many he could not remember. So horrible were the revelations that the judges cast down their eyes and had the figure of the Redeemer veiled.

WOMEN DOWN SOUTH.

distributing his goods among the poor.

He wound up this extraordinary document by signing himself "In all earthly humility, Friar Gilles, Carmelite in intention."

On his trial, the Marshal saluted his judges, begging them to expedite his matter, as he was peculiarly anxious to consecrate himself to God, who had pardoned his great sins. He also added that he intended to endow several charities in Nantes, and distribute the greater portion of his goods among the poor, for the salvation of his soul.

Pierre de l'Hospital gravely bade him remember that though it was always well to think of the salvation of one's soul, what they were now concerned about was the salvation of his body.

And this was the man-monster's reply, tranquilly spoken: "I have confessed to the father-superior of the Carmelites, and through his absolution I have been able to communicate; I am therefore guiltless and purified!"

It does not appear to have entered the Marshal's mind that he could possibly be condemned to death for his crimes. He seems to have made sure that his godliness and piety would procure him that admission to a monostery which he craved. But he reckoned without the Bishop of Nantes, who was horrified at the number and magnitude of the crimes Gilles de Laval was said to be the perpetrator of.

He behaved with the greatest effrontery at first, declaring that all the people who deposed upon oath to the loss of their children lied, and that the charges were all false and calumniIt was not till informed that his servants, Henriet and

ous.

The Chautauquan, has something to say, from the amplitude of her experience of upwards of a dozen years' travel among and acquaintance with them, concerning the "Women Down South." Among these she finds

"Good old ladies, frisky village belles, hungry boarding-school girls, majestic matrons, lovely maiden aunts, too sweet to be married, for they bless a whole community with a perpetual benediction; devoted churchwomen; nobly ambitious school ·maʼams,' at vacation ransacking Christendom to bring home some new device for the dear expectant girls of the 'female-college'; in short, all sorts and conditions of women, of both races, and every variety of each now developing as never before since the last thunder of civil war rumbled out, and the new sunrise of 'liberty and union, one and inseparable, now and forever,' broke, like the smile of God, over our afflicted land."

Rejoicing that the only cause of the isolation of the Southern woman from the great opportunity of American womanhood is forever buried out of sight, she says:

'Henceforth the American girl of the period will learn that the best things in life are not those which come to her from any superiority of environment, but the things open to the striving, free as air and the light to every mother's daughter who, in the love of God and man, and the high self-respect becoming her citizenship, reaches forth to take the best that Providence has reserved for her. It is this half-conscious sense of relief from a situation becoming intolerable; this growing realization of the stepping out and up from the limited life of a section to a wide range through the boundless spaces of the new American life, that gives to our superior young women of the South that wonderful magnetism of hope, that splendid enthusiasm, that hearty enjoyment of every opportunity which fills their Northern visitor with amazement that, with all its drawbacks and deprivations, there is often more enjoyment of life as it goes down there than in the centres of culture and wealth at home.