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ment. At this point of the play the illusion is for me supreme, and the art of Mr. Irving and Miss Terry, the measure of the diction, the accessories of the stage, are forgotten in a moment of pure emotion. I am not alone in this experience, for a multitude of witnesses can testify to the same subjugation; indeed, a long and somewhat varied acquaintance with Mr. Irving's audiences does not incline me to the theory, sometimes hazarded, that when he succeeds, it is by an adroit employment of stagecraft, or by an intellectual appeal which arouses interest but leaves the heart untouched.

SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY.

RECENT SCIENCE.

ANTHROPOLOGY.

Aryan Status of the Negroid Races of America.-Horatio Hale contributes an article to The American Antiquarian for January, in which he makes language the distinctive characteristic of man, the only certain test of the affinity of races, the sure test of the mental capacity of a race, and in which he has the following on the "Negroid" populations of the Southern United States and the West Indies. All these populations speak some language of Aryan origin, and on the principles of linguistic ethnology should be regarded as Aryans-which, say the objectors, they certainly are not. But this assertion simply betrays in those who make it, an ignorance both of historical facts and of scientific principle. The name of Aryan originated in Northern Bactria and ancient Hindostan. Some three or four thousand years ago a light-hued people, composed of wandering herdsmen, descended from the northwest in Tartar-like hordes, upon the plains of Northern India, then .occupied by swarthy tribes, whose descendants are now known -as Dravidians" and "Kolarians." These communities of Indian Negroes, as far south as the Godavery river, were subdued and in great part absorbed by the invading bands. Other -conquering bands of the same light-hued race descended upon Southern Europe, overpowered and assimilated its brownskinned populations, probably of North African origin, received their southern color and gave them their own Northern language. If we give the name of Aryan to the dusky people -of northern Hindostan, and the brunette nations of southern Europe, why should we refuse it to the swarthy people of America who speak languages of the same stock, and have probably an equal infusion of Aryan blood? There is probably not one in a hundred, certainly not one in ten, who has not some infusion of Aryan blood.

ARCHEOLOGY.

Balances of the Peruvians and Mexicans.-The following instances of the use of balances and weights in pre-Columbian America are interesting from an archæological point of view:

In the Archæological Museum of Madrid there are two pairs of balances and four beams, from sepulchres of the Incas at Pachacamac, Peru. The preservation of this probably oldest weighing appliance of the ancient Peruvians is very curious. A flat strip of bone, suspended edgewise by a cord midway, forms the beam. To the ends of the beam are hung, by short -cords, slings of network made of fine thread, the free edges being strengthened by cord.

The long suspending cord is strung alternately with a row of small beads of turquoise and red and white shell and a large, flat, oblong piece of shell pierced through the axis. The string is terminated by the figure of a bird and a fret ornament of shell representing a seated human figure with head-dress. Three small pendants of beads and shell hang below this, and the whole forms an ornate and striking speci

men.

One of the beams exhibited is of bone, ornamented with

circles and dots, so regular that they would appear to indicate the use of another instrument of precision, the compass.

Dr. Brinton has ascertained that the weights were small stones. It would seem that, for the purpose of equalization of weights, the equilibrium of the beam being gauged by the eye, these balances are quite accurate.

In the Mexican collection at the Columbian Historical Exposition in Madrid there are two spherical objects of basalt, from the ancient Tarascos of Michoacan, which Dr. Troncoso, director of the Mexican National Museum, believes are weights. He supports this view by stating that at present the Indians use similiar stone weights on their imperfect balances, which are formed of two small trays of wood, each suspended by three strings from the end of a wooden beam, which is balanced by a cord fastened at the middle.- Walter Hough, in Science, New York, Jan. 20.

Easter Island Inscriptions.-The second number of the Journal of the Polynesian Society contains a paper by Dr. A. Carroll describing his researches into the language of the Easter Island inscriptions, and his decipherment of the characters employed. He considers that Easter Island was early colonized by immigrants from Western America, who were in possession of a written or hieroglyphic language, the use of which was ultimately prohibited in America by the Incas. A grammar and lexicon of the language of the inscription is promised. together with the more important renderings. The present number merely gives two prayers to the sun.-Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, London, December.

The Pharaoh of the Exodus.-It should be thoroughly understood that the Egyptian records on the one hand know nothing about the Israelites, and on the other that the Biblical references to Egyptian matters are never characteristic of any particular reign or epoch, until we have come to a much later date than that of the Exodus. It is easy enough to identify Tirhakah, or Necho, or Shishak, but we are entirely deficient in data from which to identify the Pharaohs of Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, or Moses. We do not even know whence the Biblical writers took the name or title of Pharaoh.

The early histories of Israel and Egypt, so far as the records are known to us, are so absolutely independent of each other, and so deficient in positive synchronisms, that the date of the Exodus and of the Egyptian King who is connected with it, may be assigned to any year we fancy most consistent with our individual notions of Biblical chronology, without incurring the shadow of a chance of either contradiction or confirmation from Egyptian history.-P. le Page Renouf, Proc. of Society of Biblical Archæology, December 6.

BACTERIOLOGY.

The Cholera-Germ.-In an article in the February number of the Sanitarian, Julius Frieden wald discusses the attitude of Pettenkofer towards the germ theory, and his experiments on his own person with the cholera bacillus. Pettenkofer regards the etiology of cholera as an equation of three unknown quantities, x, y, z: x represents the cholera bacillus, y local predisposition, and z individual predisposition; and so, having neutralized his saliva, he took pure cultures of cholera bacillus sent from Hamburg, and continued to take his usual food. Diarrhoea resulted, and the stools contained cholera bacilli in abundant quantities. Ten days later Professor Emmerich partook of a similar bacillus culture with like results.

From these two experiments made upon the human being. Pettenkofer draws the conclusion that the comma bacillus does not produce a specific poison in the intestine, which is the cause of cholera. But Dr. Friedenwald maintains that they prove quite the reverse of what was intended, and that Pettenkofer and Emmerich really passed through an attack of cholera, modified by the fact that the cholera bacillus loses part of its virulence after a time in pure cultures. Pettenkofer at any rate recognizes that the cholera bacillus is one of the factors

in producing cholera, and Dr. Friedenwald remarks that Pettenkofer's strictures on the sanitary regulations of Hamburg are hardly consistent with this recognition.

GEOLOGY.

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One Glacial Epoch.-From a paper by Mr. Upham, in the American Naturalist for December, on the Accumulating Drumlins," we make the following summary of the author's latest views on the periodicity of glacial epochs:

In conclusion I deem it a duty to state that this reference of the drumlins, terminal moraines, kames, and eskers to rapid accumulation from previous englacial drifts during the departure of the ice, seems to me better accordant with the view that the Ice-age comprised only one great epoch of glaciation, attended by oscillations of the ice-border, than with the alternative view which supposes the ice-sheets to have been, at least once, and, perhaps, several times, almost entirely melted away, afterward being restored by recurrent glacial epochs. I believe the ice-sheet owed its existence to a great elevation of the land, and that on attaining its maximum extension and volume, there followed a depression of the land on which it lay, and a consequent contraction of the area and volume of the ice-sheet; further, that during its retreat, the area, relieved of the superincumbent mass, was subject to a progressive reëlevation to its present height. For Europe, too, I think that there, as here, it is more reasonable to refer the whole of the glacial drift to a single glacial epoch, with moderate fluctuations in the extent of the ice-sheets and glaciers.

HYGIENE.

Cholera and Sanitation.-The Deutsche Rundschau for January, 1893 has an article by Chief of the Medical Staff, Dr. Kroeker on the cholera epidemic, in which he cites the following instance of the influence of strict hygienic measures, especially in the matter of drinking-water, in reducing the chances of infection.

The Caserne of the 2d Hanseatic infantry regiment, No. 76, stationed at Hamburg during the epidemic, escaped without a single case, although their number amounted to five hundred, and there was cholera all around them. The soldiers were, as far as possible, isolated, and every precaution taken. Their water was drawn from two good wells, the city supply having, by command of the Prussian Minister of War, been used only for washing or fire-extinguishing since 1886. The drinkingwater of the Caserne, too, was boiled before being used.

This now well-known example is regarded by the German medical authorities as of the nature of an experiment.

Russian Confirmation of the Cholera "Water-Theory." The Cholera Conference in St. Petersburg, as might have been expected from the conventional lines on which it was conducted and the affectation of official secrecy with which it was surrounded, has not been very fruitful in new information. One main and important conclusion was, however, arrived at. This was that (like the great epidemics of cholera in this country, studied by Snow and Simon, and the East London epidemic of 1866) the "pollution of the drinking-water was in almost every case the channel by which the disease was spread."

The cholera was shown to have followed the lines of human travel, and to have spread along the course of the rivers, affecting the systems of the Volga, the Don, the Dnieper, etc. This furnishes for the first time the full confirmation from Asiatic sources of the English "water-theory" of cholera, the application of which has been so fruitful in life-saving and in the prevention of the spread of cholera.-British Medical Journal, London, January 21.

METALLURGY.

Aluminum.-We have had our Stone Age, Copper Age, Iron and Steel Age, and now it looks as though we might have an Aluminum Age. It is true the Aluminum horizon is very low as yet, but if we accept as true only half of what is claimed for

arts.

the metal it possesses merit that entitles it to outrank iron and iron-products in all of the important places that iron now fills, and in all the important work that it now performs. In it we have a material with the strength of iron and a specific gravity but little greater than the heavier woods used in the industrial Such advantages cannot be overestimated, nor can the value thereof be fully appreciated until fully and fairly demonstrated. Aluminum, like electricity, is a universal product. It is to be found everywhere on the face of the globe, and, like electricity, only awaits the time when it can be produced at a cost in conformity with the supply, to assert itself and take its place in advance of all other metals. It will not be strange if electricity and Aluminum prove to be co-workers in the evolutions and changes that are to come.-Mechanical News, New York, February 1.

PHYSICS.

Color a Matter of Molecular Volume.-A color-changing body has its temperature gradually raised and its color altered in the order of the metachromatic scale: during this change its specific gravity is decreasing, and we may assume that inversely its molecular volume is increasing. Hence we may correlate the change of color from white through the scale to black with increase of whatever volume, thus: white, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, brown, black.

A smaller difference of molecular volume in comparable compounds exhibiting conformity with the laws of color here hypothecated is observable in several pairs of binary compounds, and in numerous oxids. The colored non-metallic elements also exhibit the same relations of color to atomic volume.

These examples from compounds and elements comparable among themselves, therefore demonstrate a new law, viz., that increase of absorption of light in the order of the metachromatic scale is accompanied by increase of molecular and atomic volume. -Chemical News and Journal of Physical Science, London, January 20.

"Paranoia Politica."-Professor Krafft-Ebing has added to the recent edition of his Lehrbuch der gerichtlichen Psychologie a description of what he considers to be a new form of contagious mental disorder; or, rather, under the name of "paranoia politica," he has placed many political and other movements which seemed to originate and depend upon some nervously unstable individual. Such persons either act under the influence of others, or lose their mental equilibrium in times of great excitement, and, like Hamlet, become impressed with the idea that the world is out of joint, and that they are born to set it right. They appeal to the populace as public tribunes, leaders of plots and insurrections, or founders of sects or new political parties. The masses, according to Krafft-Ebing, remain under the spell of the eloquence of these men, who are usually mentally afflicted; in the end they give evident signs of mental exaltation, but not before they have instigated their fellow citizens to party conflict, war, dynamite-outrages, or political murders. We would protest against the too general use of the word 'paranoia" (which first became familiar to us English at the time of the suicide of Leopold II. of Bavaria), which we still continue to limit to

certain conditions of mental disorder in which there exist. chronic systematized delusions. In Germany almost every form of chronic insanity has been placed under this head. Krafft-Ebing would appear to consider that every movement of men which depends on enthusiasm rests on insanity. Some people seem to find it attractive to think that the great leaders have been subject to nervous disorder. We have all heard that epilepsy has been present in such men. It is not necessary that such men should be classified as of unsound mind. We have classes enough of insanity already, and we do not think it at all desirable or scientific to consider everything: which is not on the dead level of respectable mediocrity as insanity.-Lancet, London, January 7.

THE TRUTH CONCERNING THE "TROJAN” ANTIQUITIES AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE.

W

ERNST BOETTICHER.

Translated and Condensed for THE LITERARY DIGEST from a Paper (19 pp.) in Nord und Süd, Breslau, December. HEN, in 1881, the Schliemann Collection of Trojan Antiquities" was opened, I inspected these ancient spoils from the refuse heap of Hissarlik. There were a great number of unglazed earthen vessels along with some gold and silver ones, countless spindles in clay and stone, all sorts of rude utensils in bronze, copper, stone, clay, and bone, idols, bones of the dead, and gold ornaments. The one thing fundamentally new about this collection was that these insignificant antiquities in close contact with innumerable human bones, and, in part, as in the case of the gold ornaments found in sepulchral urns, were regarded as having unquestionably come from a dwelling-place and, consequently, as being articles of utility, and as such affording evidence of the standard of art in famed old Troy. But I hear some one ask, "Are not all sepulchral offerings primarily articles of utility?" The answer is, No very rarely. The greater part are mere imitations of such articles." It is necessary to be acquainted with this fact, to appreciate my criticism of the "Trojan" antiquities.

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It is a mistake to suppose that the belongings of the dead were buried with them. Facts and the still-prevalent custom in Southeastern Asia teach us, that every relative and friend must contribute something. Allowing that the quality of these gifts depended to some extent on the means, liberality, and piety of the donors, the belief was universal that these gifts, however rude they were, would be reproduced for the deceased in perfection and beauty, consequently the gifts consisted of cheap imitations, which formed the objects of a special Necropolic industry. The bona voluntas, the emblematic gift, sufficed. This was carried to such lengths that a potsherd or a piece of limestone inscribed with the opening words of a literary work took the place of the expensive papyrus, and for the food and drink offerings which were renewed several times a year, the rudest representations sufficed. In Cochin China, to this day, the utensils are made of paper (simulacra), and burnt on the grave. But," it will be said, "the warriors, the heroes, were at least buried in their armor!" Only rarely; the proved weapon or armor was handed down as an heirloom. Even the foeman laid store on the good blade won in battle. The real blades continued in use, and bronze, sometimes even stone, or burnt clay imitations sufficed for the dead. The bronze swords so frequently found are of no use in actual warfare. It is a mistake to suppose that bronze was worked before steel-an artistic mixture before the simple metal so universally diffused. Homer tells of steel helmets, but never of bronze blades, and Hesiod puts steel before all things. A careful examination of bronze weapons will frequently afford evidence of their unfinished condition. Perhaps one side only is finished, or the holes for binding blade and heft together are not drilled, but merely indicated by a cross. These evidences of incompleteness so commonly associated with funereal remains demonstrate that they were not made for use. This, then, is the explanation of oil cans with solid spouts, sieves with a few holes drilled in them, knives without handles, or blades of burnt clay. As a matter of fact, our museums contain clay knives, axes, hammers, borers, nails, etc., from the burial places of Europe and Asia, not in isolated specimens, but in hundreds, showing that they were products of a special industry. I have seen numbers of them in all the chief museums of Europe, precise copies of their metal prototypes, and showing no sign of having been used for any purpose, and being in fact perfectly useless. When we see the marks of the steel implement on the stone imitations, it is perfectly safe to conclude that the latter were not intended for use. There is no evidence of the existence of a stone age in Egypt or Babylonia, and in so far as we are guided by known facts we are jus

tified only in saying that, for the last seven thousand years, highly cultivated people and savages have existed contemporaneously, just as they do to-day, and that the latter have helped themselves out with stone implements even when familiar with the use of metals, as African negroes to-day forge iron with stone hammers on stone anvils, and as stone knives were used by the old Jews for circumcision, and by the old Greeks for disemboweling for embalming purposes.

In ceramics, too, it is only exceptional to find glazed pottery in graves, although glazed pottery is found in dwelling-places of the same age. These unglazed, porous vessels were useless for the purposes to which glazed vessels of similar forms were applied, and afford another instance in favor of the conclusion that these unglazed vessels were only emblematic. Moreover, my experiments show that not only were the vessels unfitted for holding water on account of their porosity, but the cookingpots made of this material can never be cleaned and in a short time would stink so that a dog would not eat out of them.

Now, accepting the possibility that these remains from the Hissarlik tumulus were really Trojan, it is much to be regretted that precisely the man who accepted Homer's glowing picture of Troy literally, with such passionate enthusiasm, should have been misled by a false theory to regard the rude articles of Hissarlik as representative of the real state of culture, while, properly understood, they are only indicative of it. And they do most assuredly indicate a very high state of culture, affording, as they do, evidences that they were produced by a people among whom art had reached a high state of development. Look, for example, at the great vessels, the so-called pithoi, the only good, perfectly burnt, vessels in the whole collection. Some of these are over eight feet high, and their production involves such perfect technical skill that our best ceramists say it would be a work of great difficulty to reproduce them so perfect in form and so uniformly fired throughout. The gilded copper and bronze vessels, too, are fire-gilded, and the workmanship, together with the variety of tints imparted to the gold, prove clearly enough that the goldsmiths had great technical skill, while repoussé intaglio and enameling are seen to be familiar arts; then the fact that these rare products of art are rudely duplicated in innumerable samples in clay is another proof of the distinction between the articles in use among the living and the simulacra of the sepulchre.

There remains now only one more conclusion of the learned to dispose of in respect of this find, that is that the Hissarlik mound is the site of a fortified city or camp. On this point I will rest on the authority of the distinguished military engineer, General Schroeder, who thus concludes his summary of the evidences: "If the distinguished archæologists reject the theory that this is the site of a fire-Necropolis, the military engineer, unskilled in archæology, has nothing to reply; but when they ascribe to it the character of a fortification, the engineer has simply to say that the conclusion is based on fantasy and not on the simple facts."

MEDICAL DIAPHANOSCOPY.
DOCTOR A. Cartaz.

Translated and Condensed for THE LITERARY DIGEST from a Paper in
La Nature, Paris, December.

ONE OF the most novel purposes to which electricity has been applied is the diagnosis of certain maladies by illumination of the affected parts or organs.

THE

HE most curious experiment in this direction, and one which in fact has become a matter of everyday practice,

is the illuminating of the maxillary sinus, showing the condition of the mouth and the cavities behind it. Heryng, of Warsaw, has perfected a process, invented by Toltolini, of Breslau, which is now in common use with specialists.

If you introduce into the mouth an electrical lamp of average intensity, you see, through the transparent skin, the cheeks, the lips, the back of the nose, the eye lighted up with

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marvelous clearness. The whole face is illuminated like the hand held before a lighted candle. Of course, the experiment must be made in a dark room. By this illumination in the mouth you can detect, through defects in the transmission of light on certain points, lesions difficult to discover by the eye alone or by manual explorations.

In trying to extend the application of this system, Mr. Heryng has endeavored to illuminate the stomach. A physician of the United States, Dr. Einhorn, conceived the same idea, and has realized it under conditions nearly identical. He has given to this process of diagnosis the elegant name of Gastrodiaphany.

The instrument of Heryng consists of an elastic œsophagean probang, having at its extremity a little Edison lamp with a luminous intensity of four candles. The electrical probang contains two threads connecting the lamp with the source of the electricity, and two tubes, allowing the passage of a current of water, to prevent the surrounding parts being heated, The intention is not to see into the interior of the stomach, but simply to study the modifications presented by the transparency of its walls.

The Gastrodiaphanoscope is introduced into the stomach in the same way as the probang for washing. The upper wall of the stomach is then shown clearly. In looking at this wall, you see, when the lamp is burning, the outlines of the stomach in the form of an oval line, bright red, on a base of a deep gray-red. When the lamp is at the centre of the stomach, you can distinguish the lower, lateral, and upper limits of the organ, and can 'outline the shape with precision. When the lamp is placed near the upper orifice of the stomach, you can see the cul-de-sac, called the fundus cardiacus, forming a bright-red band, elongated, of the breadth of two fingers. In case of an enlargement of the stomach you can see the limits of the lower part descend, as far as the pubic symphysis, as is the case in certain maladies.

The experiment is very simple, apart from the introduction of the apparatus, which, however, is not more painful, or more complicated than the insertion of the tube employed to wash the stomach.

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The phrase Church and State, upon the lips of an American, smacks of European absolutism or absolute mediæval encyclicals; but translated into the words Christ and country, the heart of our problem is revealed.

Would you look upon a nation almost robbed of the faith which is born of Theistic belief? Look, then, at contemporary France! Gambetta, unable to distinguish between Christianity and Ultramontanism, between a monarchical Catholicism and Christly liberty, cried far and near-Down with Clericalism, down with Clericalism.' Christianity unfortunately had no representative save the Church, and the Church unfortunately had forsaken the simplicity of Christ. Here and there were noble exceptions. When Clericalism' went down, France went down with it. Yea, France had already lost her religion, and the Prussian victories of Sedan and Metz, the Commune, and the bloody train of anarchism were the fruits of her infidelity. 'No God, no State, no marriage tie'-was the watchword! Thank God, a new light is breaking over France. Her noblest sons have learned that there can be no true national glory, no brotherhood without Fatherhood.

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To-day the profoundest philosophy and the richest literature unite with Christianity in her theistic teachings. What science calls force, and philosophy the absolute, Christianity looking_still deeper calls Father. 'Remember,' says Le Conte, in his Evo

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Grow old along with me

The best is yet to be,

The last of life, for which the first was m'de ;

Our times are in his hand

Who saith, A whole I planned,

Youth shows but half; trust God; see all nor he afraid.'

Martineau has most truly said Were not our humanity itself an Emanuel, there could be no Christ to bear the name.' It is 'God in us' that gives the hope of glory."

The reverend author maintains that national life must be founded on and controlled by religion, and that without the control of religion it must end in anarchy; that it must have a conscience and recognize a "higher law."

As to the domestic mission work of the Church at the present day, in its exemplification of the essential truths of that Gospel which He gave to His disciples, our author finds three phases which need special emphasis. First, a clear and bold declaration of the majesty and eternity of law. Second, the arousement and satisfaction of holy aspirations. Third, the realization of Christian coöperation and brotherhood. Of the first of these he says:

'Our age is drunk with liberty. The word law, to the average man, falls upon his ear like the sullen roar of the angered ocean. And yet beneath and above all this delirium of freedom, science, and jurisprudence, ethics and sociology, have been telling as never before the tale of the reign of lav. We are enswathed in

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a universe of irrevocable law. And this should bring us peace, not pain. All order in stellar space as well as in harvest-field, in municipal life as well as in physics, is conditioned by law. All progress in nature, in art, in manufactures, in social amelioration, in individual morality, has its basis in law. It is the eternal laws of social duty that need thundering emphasis to-day." Of the second phase he says:

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"This age, as did the first, aspires, not to God-likeness, but to God-equality. It echoes the spirit of the Miltonic Satan- Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.' It is not by crush

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ing out faults, but by arousing aspirations and love that men are made like unto God. The streams of divine life come pouring through science, through art, through civic justice, through domestic love, as well as through the technical sacrament and inspired Word. Why quarrel with the Union Seminary Professor's declaration that through Reason, Church, and Bible God finds man? It may grate against the conception of some of our Protestant dogmaticians, but the facts of life and Paul's own words lend strong support to the defendant's position. The true genius of Lutheranism lies in this, that her universal priesthood is but the ecclesiastical expression of the heart to heart communion between God and every man who calls Him Father."

In discussing the third phase he says:

"The Church should be the centre of social redemption. The impending paganism overshadowing our land can be driven back only by combined effort. We profess to believe in

a holy Catholic Church. The shameful waste of home-mission funds engendered by denominational zeal must stop. In a neighboring village of one thousand people there are ten dwarfed churches, ten rival sects, ten starving ministers, ten types of Christianity, and the business sense of every thoughtful man condemns such littleness. A so-called Christian denomination which puts another struggling church amid a half-dozen other struggling churches must be branded as an intruder. I know of many villages where the best work a missionary could do would be to burn rather than to build a church. Are we ready to coöperate with other divisions of the Church in husbanding the resources of Christendom, thinking first of Christ's kingdom, and then of denominational prestige? Let us be the first in the field to offer this challenge in denominational coöperation. This advance, like the other grand conquests of Christian brotherhood, will come only as we are ruled by the law of love."

TH

WHY DO MEN REMAIN CHRISTIANS?

HE Reverend T. W. Fowle, in The Contemporary Review for January, answers this question by describing the ultimate reasons which impel different sets of men, equal upon the whole in moral excellence and intellectual power, to accept or reject the Christian Revelation." The actual question turns upon the historical Christ. The writer insists upon a separation between the arguments employed and the motives which determine the position of the opposing parties, and declares that "the causes which determine men's beliefs at any given time are partly those of circumstances-i. e., historical events and movements, which belong to the domain of historical science, partly those of nature-i. e., the original constitution of the human mind, which belongs to philosophy."

"

In the case before us the recent discovery of Evolution is the chief historical event, and the certainty that the human mind is an outcome of the evolutionary process is the chief fact of nature with which we have to do. But first we must ask, as the combatants too rarely do, what we mean by the Christian religion. And this we answer, as is surely best, in the words of its Founder: 'God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal (spiritual) life.' Those who believe that this is true are Christians; those who disbelieve, it I will venture to call Rationalistsnot by way of disparagement, but simply because the word describes the state of mind which examines the facts of the Universe in the light of science, and comes to a conclusion adverse to the Christian claims."

The writer then declares that there is no necessary antagonism between Rationalism and a belief that nature shows traces of a rational source of things, such as Deism accepts and teaches. And, secondly, that Rationalism is not constrained to take an adverse position to the belief that the Author of nature is a moral Being to Whom the word Righteous" can be applied. It merely points out that absolute proof is impossible." As bearing upon the great question, offered as the crucial test, the writer says:

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"Is this righteous Being, supposing Him to exist, a Being of Whom it can be said that He loves the world, especially with the Christian addition that He so loves it as to have wrought a transcendent act of mercy and power on its behalf? In an instant the whole scene is transformed into one of active and angry antagonism. Is it possible to state a reason for this in some short, decisive phrase which shall place us at the centre of the problem and enable us to see what direction the solution will take, even if we cannot all at once work it out? Let us try. Rationalism, being deeply offended by the proclamation of the love of God without evidence, answers curtly that Jesus Christ was too good a man to be the son or representative of any being that reason can find traces of in a world which ex hypothesi he must have created. The human heart may confess, indeed, to the existence of an instinctive craving after Divine love, to which, however, no response that reason can approve has yet been given, and so may come to resent the Christian solution of the problem as a slight upon its wounded affections.

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So long as fidelity to convictions, in spite of pleasant inducements to the contrary, is held in honor among men, so long ought Rationalism of this kind to be accounted honorable, and not stigmatized as positively wicked by those who dissent most strongly from it."

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The author then presents Idealism as the oposite of Rationalism, "a positive to the negative pole." Having traced the way up to the question, "Why do men remain Christians?" by the 'stream Rationalism," he leaves it by the "streamlet Idealism." Defining Idealism as an "innate tendency of the disposition of man to break away from the "thraldom of fact and law," as that which "denies the sufficiency of reason to deal with all the facts of life and humanity, and claims reality for what is incapable of proof," he adds:

"And so by a strict natural order and necessity we arrive at religion, which may be defined as Idealism in its search after some justification for its own existence, finding what it wants ready fashioned to its hands, completely answering its expectations, in the Christian religion, or, more correctly, in the person of Jesus Christ."

Making note of the fact that in the field of warfare Christian advocacy has made many mistakes, and not infrequently been worsted in the encounter, he goes on to demonstrate that

"The real effective method of defense, philosophical rather than scientific, is to show that Jesus Christ in so treating the world as to make the essence of His religion-God so loved the worldirresistible to the spirit of Idealism, which is itself a product of nature, and a result of Evolution."

Our author then cites the life, works, and words of Christ to show that he performed the task of "idealizing nature and life completely and to perfection," and that in this task he stands quite alone, for

"It is (among other things) precisely this unique power of Idealization which places Jesus Christ out of reach of comparison with other masters-for instance, Buddha and Mahomet.

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HAPPINESS IN HELL: A REPLY.

THE REVEREND FATHER CLARKE, S.J.
Condensed for THE LITERARY DIGEST from a Paper (10 pp.) in

Nineteenth Century, London, January.

HE general reception given to Professor Mivart's article* shows that the subject with which he deals is one of no small importance. It contains a great deal that is true, and that is put with great force and clearness. But there are certain passages in it to which all the rest is subordinated. They may be summed up in the three following propositions, which I quote almost verbatim :

1. The condition of the damned in Hell is one of evolution and gradual amelioration. Many of the Fathers held that a mitigation of their sufferings is vouchsafed to them from time to time, and theologians of weight recognize this tenable opinion.

2. The damned find in Hell a certain harmony with their own mental condition, and, as it were, hug their chains, esteeming as preferable those lower activities and desires which had been their choice and solace here on Earth.

3. For all, the lost existence is better than non-existence, and St. Augustine distinctly affirms that they prefer their existence as damned souls to non-existence.

First, as regards Professor Mivart's authorities, I have to observe that the opinion of an individual, or of a small number of individuals, among the Saints and theologians in past ages, is not enough to make that opinion a tenable one at the present time. There is scarcely a single Father of the Church in whose writings may not be found some false opinion. There is not a theologian of whom we can say that he does not err on any point. Hence, if all Professor Mivart's authorities laid down what he represents them as asserting, he would, thereby, prove nothing except that certain mistaken opinions, long since discarded, were held as true or probable by a few theologians.

Professor Mivart has been guilty not only of the old "Fallacy of authorities," but of a far worse fallacy-more dangerous, too, because more difficult to detect-I mean the "Fallacy of quotations," which consists in alleging passages from wellknown authors as proving some disputed point, when they do not prove it at all, but something resembling it as far as words go, though quite different from it in reality. I am sorry to say that, in the quotations given by Professor Mivart which I have been able to verify, I find this to be the case in almost every instance.

Of the two passages quoted from Augustine, the former does not, and cannot, mean what it is quoted to prove, and the *Vide THE LITERARY DIGEST, Vol. VI., No. 9, p. 237.

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