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Dulcigno to Prince Nicola. The threatened sequestration of the revenue of the port of Smyrna was more than he was prepared to stand, and so he gave in, as Mr. Gladstone has ever said he would when pressure was brought to bear upon him. The Conservatives, of course, are very angry at all this, and talk as if the enforcement of the Treaty of Berlin or of the engagements that have risen out of it was a sin. For two years it lay, so far as the minor nationalities in the East were concerned, a dead letter while Lord Beaconsfield was in power, and it seems as if there had never been any serious intention on the part of the Tory Chiefs to give effect to its provisions. It was obtained for show, that was all. The men in power now regard it differently, and, with prudent forbearance, will make it effective by means of united action on the part of the Powers. The Concert of Europe has not been maintained without some difficulty-there is so much clashing of national interests; but it has been maintained in relation to the claims of Montenegro, and there is reason to hope, notwithstanding the present attitude of France, that it will be a sufficient instrument to secure justice for Greece and Armenia. Shere Ali, the puppet prince whom Lord Beaconsfield set up in Candahar, has betaken himself to India, thus removing one great difficulty which lay in the way of the retirement of our soldiers. There is really no reason why the occupation of Candahar should be prolonged, and the sooner we return within our own frontier and leave the Afghans to themselves the better, though the effects of this miserable Conservative meddling will be felt for many a year. Lord Ripon, in Durbar at Lahore, has announced to the princes and chiefs of India the resolve of the Government to return to the old lines of policy as laid down by Lord Lawrence. If this is done, and attention given to internal government, India will have a brighter future. The state of affairs in South Africa is serious, the native rising is spreading, and the colonists have evidently more work on their hands than they can manage. Small successes have been gained here and there by the colonial troops, but they have been as yet barely able to hold their own. There can be no severer condemnation of the policy permitted by the late Government in South Africa than the present state of affairs there. Thousands of natives, who have been loyal for a generation or more, have been provoked to become hostile, and the youth and strength of the Colony have been called from their peaceful occupations to the battle-field, and for what? Absolutely nothing, except the gratification of the earth-greed and ambition of a few. The present Government seem disposed to allow the Colony to feel the full results of the policy pursued. To

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some extent this may be right; but if a wrong has been done, we cannot see why steps ought not to be taken to rectify it; and that the natives have been provoked into rebellion and hostility few will dispute. The present Government have received a sad legacy of trouble from their predecessors both in India and South Africa. A madman can do mischief in a few minutes that it will take sane men months to repair-that, indeed, cannot be fully remedied at all; and reckless, showy statesmen, governed by foolish ambitions, are as much to be dreaded as madmen.

THE French Government have been carrying out their policy against unauthorised Monastic Orders sharply, though they have not yet ventured to meddle with the Nuns. They have not only expelled the Jesuits, but Capuchins, Marists, Dominicans, Bernardins, and Barnabites. In many cases the expulsion has been forcible, the monks taking care to make as much of it as possible; and though this action. is approved by the extreme party in the Republic, it is awakening in the religious section of French society an intensely bitter feeling. The policy pursued is rather high-handed for a Republic, and cannot be regarded as anything else than a serious violation of religious liberty. The Orders may, in some sense, be dangerous to the State; but the suppression of them will not remove the danger. Forcible repression

is no remedy, and in adopting it in this case the French Republic is committing a serious blunder. The Ferry Ministry, which has succeeded that of M. Freycinet, is endeavouring to pass a measure suspending, for a time, the irremovability of the Judges, with a view, as it seems, to clear the Bench of all but Republicans. This can hardly be considered a good measure, and the Senate will probably reject it. A wiser course would be to remove the few who are in the habit of insulting the Government, and between whom and the Republic there is not that harmony that ought ever to exist between judges and the supreme legal authority. This tendency to exercise a despotic power is a tendency in the Republican Government of France that cannot be admired, and that seems to indicate a consciousness of weakness, or, at any rate, a nervous irritation and suspiciousness from which a strong Government is ever free.

THERE have been rumours that Prince Bismark intended to introduce some Bills into the German Parliament to conciliate the artisan classes, and organise them, in some way, in reference to trade management. If the Prince does entertain such intentions, he delays executing them. In the meanwhile, however, he has obtained from the Prussian Parliament a Bill by means of which he can come to an

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understanding with the Pope, if he so please, and replace the Romish Bishops who have been dispossessed of their sees. He has declared Hamburgh and some neighbouring towns in a state of minor siege; and, as a result of this step, the Socialist presses have been seized, and one hundred and twenty Socialist 'agitators,' including two members of Parliament, have been summarily exiled. The Berlin police, a short time ago, warned the booksellers that they had received orders to seize all copies of Heine's Schloss Legende,' a poem forty years old. The reason assigned was that it contained an attack on the Prussian Kings. This is an act that would be paralleled in this country if the Government here were to seize all old Jacobite songs. The nerves of the German rulers must be strangely shaken when they are afraid of literature a century old. Prince Bismarck may have some conciliatory measures in intention by which to bring over to his side the strength of German Socialism, but as yet he only shows the iron hand.

GREECE is arming to the teeth, and evidently means serious work in relation to the clauses of the Berlin Treaty affecting the frontier next to the territory over which the Sultan has been ruling in his peculiar way. When the Chamber met, some weeks ago, the King told the representatives of the people that the decisions of the Powers imposed action upon Greece, and the regulation of this action was the question of the hour to which the members of the Chamber would have to devote themselves. The army has been mobilised, and at the time we write Greece has about 70,000 men under arms. Volunteers are flocking in from the Greek provinces of Turkey and from Roumania, and the aspect of affairs is serious enough. There has been talk of compromise, promoted by the influence of Germany, and if anything like a satisfactory settlement can be reached this way and the horrors of war avoided, it will be well for Greece and the rest of Europe. But, as King George admitted when he met the Chamber, the army cannot be disbanded unless something that will meet the claims of Greece is done and, as he pointed out, it will also be impossible to keep the army for any long time in inactivity. There is a little better prospect now than when the King opened the Chamber, towards the close of October last, that an amicable settlement will be reached. Greece will need to exercise some self-restraint, and the Powers will need to put pressure on Turkey, though France has recently taken up an equivocal attitude in relation to the Greek Question; but we are not without hope that, as in the case of Montenegro, the Greek claims will be settled without the horrors and miseries of a war.

THE

PRIMITIVE METHODIST

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

APRIL, 1881.

L.-DR. CHALMERS AND THE DISRUPTION.*

THE publication of this small but interesting volume in connection with the centenary of Dr. Chalmers's birth revives the memory and rekindles the interest of the ever memorable struggle which culminated in the disruption of the Scottish Church in 1843. This battle for liberty may be said to have commenced in 1833, when Chalmers took up the patronage question in the General Assembly. For many years previous to that time complaints and overtures had been sent to the Assembly, all of which were simply unheeded by the Moderate party, who for long had ruled the supreme court of the church. In 1833 the matter was taken up by a man whose energy and intellectual resources were only equalled by the lofty attributes of his character and the intense ardour of his spirituality. We may have occasion to speak of Chalmers's colleagues and comrades in the fight, but sober truth compels us to say that the battle was his-his to initiate, to direct, and to inspire, and his in victory to wear the welldeserved laurel as first Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland. It is not too much to say that, humanly speaking, he created that church. No wonder, then, that his name and work bulk largely in any faithful record of the 'ten years' conflict.'

The history of the Church of Scotland is a series of heroic struggles and conquests, which are not surpassed in the history of any church in the world. In the early years of the sixteenth century Scotland was

* Thomas Chalmers: his History and its Lessons. By Rev. NORMAN Walker, London: T. Nelson and Son, Paternoster-row, 1880.

VOL. III. NEW SERIES. Vol. XXIII. from the beginning.

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agitated by the new life of the Reformation which was pulsating through Europe. The times of James V. and Regent Moray were Scotland's morning after a long and dreary night. The ancient Scotland ends, and a new Scotland begins. The feudal framework of society was

breaking up. The husbandman began to pay rent instead of rendering military service. Towns were shaking off the yoke of subjection to the nobility and becoming free communities, exercising powers of selfgovernment. The burgher wanted no man's protection, and would submit to no man's oppression. That huge confederation against human freedom and well-being-the Church of Rome-was being found out. Ambitious and worldly prelates, as well as rapacious and immoral priests, were pushed aside, and their mummeries laughed at. In no other country had the tyranny of Rome reached a greater height. Fully one-half of the property of the kingdom belonged to the church, and, in addition to many other institutions, there were two hundred and fifty conventual establishments giving sanctuary to the vilest eriminals. To crown all, the clergy had declared themselves independent of the civil law. All this was past now: it was doomed, and the men who dealt its death-blow were men who feared not, nor turned at danger or death. Nowhere was the Reformation more thorough than in Scotland. After a severe and protracted struggle, the incubus of Popery was cast off utterly and for ever. In many countries the Reformation was only partial. Enough of Popery was retained to make the Christian ministry into a Priesthood; but here the Augean stable was purged wholly of its foulness. It may be a matter of regret that many fine specimens of ecclesiastical architecture were destroyed or injured, that gem of Gothic, the shrine of St. Mungo, being only saved by the prompt action of the authorities. Rather than concession to and compromise with Rome, let them all go. So said the people of Scotland.

The books and teaching of Luther came to Scotland and were like good seed in prepared ground; the fruit was immediate and abundant. One of the earliest of Scotland's martyrs was the young noble, Patrick Hamilton. His martyrdom was a political mistake as well as a crime, for the wanton destruction of this innocent youth gave an impulse to the Reformation, and did much towards the waking up of the national mind. The truth was stated in the saying of a noble to the Archbishop of St. Andrew's, 'My lord, if ye must burn any more, let them be burned in a cellar, for the reek of Patrick Hamilton has infected as many as it blew upon.' An important factor in the reforming work was the wide dissemination of Tyndal's Bible. But the chief agent

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