102. After the precedent of Baden, the Prussian Diet has also adopted a law securing to the Old Catholics a share in the property of the Catholic Church proportionate to their numbers. In Baden the Old Catholics claim to be a majority, at least of the adult male population, in fourteen parishes, and this gives them, according to the law of the State, not only a joint use of the Church edifices, but the right of electing the parish priest. The report that Dr. von Dollinger had entirely disconnected himself from the Old Catholic movement is again authoritatively denied. ́ He is, on the contrary, actively engaged in making preparations for a second union Conference, to be held in August at Bonn. He has invited, among others, the Patriarch of Constantinople, who has accepted the invitation and appointed four prominent theologians to attend the conference.

The consolidation of the Old Catholic Church in Switzerland is proceeding slowly, and the election of a bishop had, at the end of May, 1875, not yet taken place. The number of parishes which, in virtue of the new Church laws of the Cantons of Berne, Geneva, and others, have passed under the control of Old Catholic priests has steadily increased, and a number of other cantonal governments are disposed to follow the example of the Canton of Berne, and recognize the Old Catholic Church as the only true representative of the Catholic Church which was recognized in Switzerland before 1870 as a State Church. Even one of the cantons, whose population is overwhelmingly Catholic, Soleure, has shown this disposition, and the policy of the Liberal Cantonal Government has been repeatedly indorsed by an overwhelming majority of the Catholic voters. A faculty of Catholic theology has been established in connection with the University of Berne, and is now in successful operation.

The Old Catholics of Italy effected the organization of a national Church on May 1, when they met in a general assembly at Naples. The large hall in which the assembly was held was densely crowded. Votes to the number of 2,739 were cast for the first bishop of the new Church, a coadjutor bishop, and a vicar-general. Of the whole number of votes 7,061 were cast by Signor Paura, Secretary General of the Societa Emancipatrice, as proxy for members not in attendance. Monsignor Dominico Panelli, Archbishop of Lydda, was elected bishop. At the close of the proceedings it was decided that a memorial of the events should be inscribed on a marble tablet and suitably placed. It was expected that Bishop Panelli would take the oath of office May 16. Among the members of the convention were deputies of the National Parliament, members of the bar, priests, literary men, and numerous representatives of the working classes. As yet the movement is confined to Southern Italy, where it has reached Naples, Salerno, Foggia, Bari, Palermo, Messina, Syracuse, and many other towns.

ART. X.-FOREIGN LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.

A new commentary to the Epistle to the Romans has been published by Prof. G. Volkmar, of the University of Zurich. (Paulus Römerbrief. Zurich, 1875.) The author is one of the most prolific writers of the German liberal school of theology. Like all the theologians of his school, he recognizes the Pauline origin of this epistle, which, according to him, occupied in the earliest edition of the Pauline letters, as well as in that of Marcion, the fourth place, while in the "Old Catholic" edition, which is used by Irenæus and Tertullian, it has advanced to the first. The original conclusion of the epistle, which, in the opinion of many theologians of this school, is no longer extant, appears, according to Volkmar, in the two sections, xv, 33, to xvi, 2; and xvi, 21–24.

The "History of the Times of the New Testament," by Professor Hausrath, has been completed by the publication of the third volume. (Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, third vol. Heidelberg, 1874.) It embraces the time of the martyrs and the post apostolic age.

No German scholar has done so much for elucidating the history of the earliest heresies of the Christian Church as Prof. Lipsius, whose work on the "Sources of Epiphanius" (Zur Quellenkritik des Epiphanius. Vienna, 1865) is still considered a standard authority. The subject has since been discussed in Germany in a number of essays, and has even called forth several special works, as those by Heinrici (Die Valentinianische Gnosis und die heil. Schrift. Berlin, 1871) on the Valentinian Gnostics, and by Dr. A. Harnack on the "Sources of the History of the Gnostics." (Zur Quellengeschichte des Gnosticismus. 1873.) The latter has caused Prof. Lipsius to publish a new work on the "Sources of the History of the Most Ancient Heresies." (Die Quellen der ältesten ketzergeschichte. Leipzig, 1875.) The high value of this work has already been recognized by theologians of all schools.

One of the most important recent theological publications is a new biography of Luther by Dr. Julius Kostlin. (2 vols. Elberfeld, 1875.) A new work on the great reformer of the sixteenth century was one of the greatest literary wants of the theological literature of Germany, which abounds in excellent biographical works, but as yet has no biography of Luther worthy of the great man. The author has made this subject a special study for more than twenty years, and has published in the theological periodicals of Germany a number of essays on prominent events in Luther's life. He was probably better qualified for the difficult task than any other German theologian.

The new volume of the Allgemeine Kirchliche Chronik, (“Ecclesiastical Year-Book,") which contains the history of the year 1874, is edited by A. Werner. It is somewhat larger than the former volumes; but the part of the book referring to American affairs is as unsatisfactory and incom

plete as ever. It contains very brief notices of Bishop Cummins and the Reformed Episcopal Church, of temperance societies, of Unitarians and Shakers, but not a word of Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Congregationalists.

ART. XL-QUARTERLY BOOK-TABLE.

Religion, Theology, and Biblical Literature.

The Unseen Universe; or, Speculations on a Future State. 8vo., pp. 212. New York: M'Millan & Co. 1875.

What becomes of all the pins? Millions upon millions of them are manufactured and used; they disappear, and never a ghost of them reappears, and it would take a ghost to tell what becomes of their corporeities. The authors of this work move even a profounder question: What becomes of the stupendous amount of force expended, as the latest science tells, and poured into an unknown immensity by the material universe? The entire system of worlds is growing weaker as it grows older. Its fires are going out. Already our satellite, the moon, once a whirling fire-ball, is a cold, dark block. The planets, satellites of the sun, are losing their heat; and the sun, satellite of some other center, is wasting in space his vital fire. Meanwhile their orbits are narrowing, and they are all, slowly but surely, concentrating into one final fireless, rayless, lifeless, hopeless dead-head. Whither goes the uni- . versal Force that is thus separating from universal matter. Our authors answer: These forces go into immensity in order to crystallize into an "Unseen Universe," which is that Future State to which our faith is looking, including that "new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness," of which an apostle utters "promise." And, negatively at least, theology may appropriate this key-thought to answer science when she asks, Where is this heaven about which you talk and sing so sonorously?

If heat be merely what Professor Tyndall calls it, "a mode of motion," then a mere mode of moving in space, with nothing to move, would not form a very tangible world. If, however, heat be a real entity, a self-subsistent Force, then we have no difficulty in conceiving a purely dynamical system. If force is self-subsistent and "space-filling," then it may be made compacted and solid, and fulfill all the offices of matter; and a world so constructed would seem to be a veritable solid world.

What, then, becomes of the force-deserted dead-head? With this question the writers seem a little perplexed. If they accepted this FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXVII.—32

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dynamical theory in regard to our own mundane Matter, it would be easy to conceive that the dead-head, composed of pure force, should dissolve, disperse, and go into other forms and uses. But this theory they reject. Yet we might here suggest that, as the authors believe in the existence of an Evil and a Gehenna even in the new eternal future, this Dead-head may be the Gehenna they require. Inasmuch as the entire present worlds of matter, the whole present material universe, exhibit all the defects and scars which theology has hitherto viewed as the results of sin, so all may be under the doom of sin. Why, then, may they not forever stand, the dead-head monument of the evil of sin; the eternal monitor of the criminality of rebellion by God's free creatures against holiness and God? The Bible abounds in dim reminiscences of sin before man; of the fall of a more ancient order of beings, of whom the Satan who instigated the sin of Eden is a specimen. What the relation of the universal corruption of the material system, extending through the system as far as our knowledge can reach, may be to this earlier sin, we cannot fully know. But the sentence of destruction for sin may rest upon the whole. And so the final mass of earthly and stellar matter, including the resurrection bodies of the finally-lost men, may concentrate into one awful eternal Gehenna. It may, indeed, be objected that by that theory the flames of "the Lake of fire " are finally extinguishable. The reply is, that if fire is one of the images of the final penalty, "outer darkness" is another. Each may be, in its own way and time, true.

That the ancient conception, both of the Old Testament and classical antiquity, which found Hades in the bowels of our earth, finds no disproof from the physical nature of the interior of our globe, (which is in fact unknown,) may appear from the following extract given by our authors from an eminent physicist :

The deservedly famous Dr. Thomas Young has the following passage in his lectures on Natural Philosophy:-"Besides this porosity, there is still room for the supposition, that even the ultimate particles of matter may be permeable to the causes of attractions of various kinds, especially if those causes are immaterial: nor is there any thing in the unprejudiced study of physical philosophy that can induce us to doubt the existence of immaterial substances; on the contrary, we see analogies that lead us almost directly to such an opinion. The electrical fluid is supposed to be essentially different from common matter; the general medium of light and heat, according to some, or the principle of caloric, according to others, is equally distinct from' it. We see forms of matter, differing in subtility and mobility, under the names of solids, liquids, and gases; above these are the semi-material existences, which produce the phenomena of electricity and magnetism, and either caloric or a universal ether. Higher still, perhaps, are the causes of gravitation, and the immediate agents in attractions of all kinds, whicu exhibit some phenomena apparent y still more remote from all that is compatible

with material bodies. And of these different orders of beings, the more refined and immaterial appear to pervade the grosser. It seems, therefore, natural to believe that the analogy may be continued still further, until it rises into existences absolutely immaterial and spiritual. We know not but that thousands of spiritual worlds may exist unseen forever by human eyes; nor have we any reason to suppose that even the presence of matter, in a given spot, necessarily excludes these existences from it. Those who maintain that nature always teems with life, wherever living beings can be placed, may therefore speculate with freedom on the possibility of independent worlds; some existing in different parts of space, others pervading each other unseen and unknown, in the same space, and others again to which space may not be a necessary mode of existence."-Pp. 160, 161.

Our authors in their entire theory make large concessions to the latest demands of science. Their fundamental purpose is to secure the principle of Continuity; that is, the permanence of an eternal order of nature throughout the universe. God is the primitive Unconditioned upon whom all else is conditioned. He is the living personal Absolute upon whom and from whom all depends. Yet he is made by them to recede into the back Eternity. In that back eternity alone is Creation, and all in time is Development. The authors rank themselves, therefore, most fully on the side of Development; able and ready, as they conceive, in accordance with the strictest biblical Christianity, to grant if necessary all that a Spencer or a Darwin may ask. And Development, they affirm, is threefold; namely, of Matter, of Globe, and of Life. Out of the anterior Unseen, first, is Matter developed. From primordial matter in nebular form comes Globe development. Last comes Life development. But nothing but a verbal gain, we think, is made when the origination of matter and life is called development rather than creation. One is as much of a break of Continuity as the other. And when our authors come to miracles, and bring them within the law of Continuity, by defining them as the product of the operation of the anterior Unseen World upon the present visible world, so that the Continuity is uninterrupted, nothing is gained. We think the law of Continuity is easily maintained even with miracles if that law be viewed as an Idea in the divine Mind. We would state it thus.

The divine Mind finds permanent and regular laws imposed upon Nature to be necessary in order to the well-being of finite created beings. Only thus can finite intelligences be enabled to reason, to calculate, and to regulate their conduct. All our reasoning is based upon regular and orderly classification of objects and events for which law is necessary. Hence, laws of nature are God's Epistle to his creatures, informing them what to depend upon, how to infer, and what to do. Permanent law is the medium by which an intelligent God is in constant communication with his intelligent crea