Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Internal Troubles of French Roman Catholicism. A tempest has been raging for some time among the French clericals concerning a book by Mother Marie, of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in which she declares that the training of the teachers in conventual schools for girls has been wholly inadequate, and demands a thorough reform. She proposes as a remedy a seminary for such teachers in which the education afforded shall correspond to the demands of modern life. She proceeded also to act on her own suggestion, and with the consent of her archbishop, Seuer, of Avignon, went to Paris, where she succeeded in interesting a large number of prominent and influential people, clerical and lay, in her project. But the usual cry, raised as soon as anyone points out a defect in the affairs of the Church, was soon heard, namely, that the assertions of the book would furnish a powerful weapon for the enemies of the Church; and so a large number were found to deny the need of the proposed seminary and to oppose the whole project. Nevertheless, the pope at first appeared favorable to the course of Mother Marie, and it seemed as though the needed reform would be carried through. However, at length the whole matter was disapproved, on the plea that there was no ground for the proposed reform, although, doubtless by way of compromise, it was admitted that some of the convents might need improvement in the direction suggested. But the pope graciously received Mother Marie and granted her the right to apply herself to the work of education outside her order, though continuing to wear its garb. Wise as a serpent is this, if not harmless as a dove.

The Care of German Emigrants by Germans. This is a form of mission work with which all advocates of home missions can sympathize, but which, nevertheless, we in the United States can scarcely understand. We do something for the care of foreigners who come to our shores, but we do almost nothing for Americans who emigrate to other countries. On the other hand, German Protestants spend hundreds of marks annually for those of their brethren in the faith who forsake the Fatherland to take up their residence abroad. They have a regular organization whose duty it is to look after this work, and, as a means of diffusing information and arousing interest, issue a monthly magazine devoted to the interests of the Diaspora. Still, they feel they are doing nothing worthy of the real demands, and the friends of the cause are raising a bitter cry because in many foreign cities the few Germans resident there are unable to maintain religious services. When these Germans find themselves in Roman Catholic countries they are excusable for striving to preserve their peculiar faith; but a German society to encourage German Protestants coming to America to identify themselves. with the religious organizations here existing would be more useful than a society whose duty it is to help them organize for themselves.

SUMMARY OF THE REVIEWS AND MAGAZINES.

THE Edinburgh Review (New York) for October, 1899, has interesting articles on "Bismarck," "Anglo-Indian Novelists" (Meadows Taylor, William Arnold, John Lang, Marion Crawford, John Roy, Mrs. Steel, James Blythe Patton, and H. S. Cunningham), and "Some Tendencies of Prose Style." Of Bismarck it is said that in strength of character he approached the aspiration expressed by Tennyson in "Maud:"

Ah, God, for a man with heart, head, hand,

Like some of the simple great ones gone
Forever and ever by!

One still, strong man in a blatant land,

Whatever they call him, what care I,
Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat-one
Who can rule-

and the essayist wishes he could apply to the Iron Chancellor the rest of the quotation

-and dare not lie.

The essay on "Prose Style" is the finest in the number. It says that no one since the world was created ever wrote better prose than Swift. Comparing Milton's magnificent but mistaken prose, it says that his style, laden with wealth of illustration, sonorousness of diction, and splendor of imagery, is like an army encumbered with baggage, too unwieldy to strike. The difference of his method from Swift's is like that between an oriental host passing in opulent but disorderly parade and the lean gray lines of a modern corps, stripped of every encumbrance, supple and springy in movement, yet rigid as steel. The classics, Swift and Addison, Fielding and Goldsmith, were classics without knowing it; they wrote without affectation, with their eyes on the object. Brunetière declares their excellence was largely accidental; they were born at the happy moment when the language in its growth had just attained perfection. Walter Scott was the greatest of all romantics. Hazlitt has received his due from Louis Stevenson only, who confessed his indebtedness to him. Hazlitt said of Coleridge, "He is the only person I ever knew who answered to the idea of a man of genius. He was the first poet I ever knew. His genius at that time (1798) had angelic wings and fed on manna. His thoughts did not seem to come with labor and effort, but as if borne on the gusts of genius, and as if the wings of his imagination lifted him off his feet. His voice rolled on the ear like the pealing organ." Landor's austere style was dignified, but with the dignity of death, not life. De Quincey's profuse style smells of the lamp. His studied rhapsodies are not poetry, and have not the rhythm of song;

nor are they true prose, for they never could have been spoken by mortal lips to mortal ears. Good taste revolts against such bedizenments of style as are seen in De Quincey and Disraeli. Macaulay must be always instructing, and his voice has the strident insistance of a teacher's harangue; he talks like a book. Thackeray and Newman have afforded the best example of what English style ought to be in its perfect adaptation to all the needs of life that have to be chronicled or commented on. Newman's writing derives straight from the fountainhead of English; Thackeray's style handles the lightest or the gravest subject with equal ease and equal fitness without a trace of effort. In Carlyle's writings "the naked truth, which he was forever threatening to let loose upon the universe, comes before us so heaped upon with the rags and tatters of a windy eloquence that we can scarcely tell which end of her is uppermost." Ruskin at his best is peerless and incomparable. As an artist in style, Kinglake approaches perfection. In the historical manner, Froude's mastery is unchallenged; his story of the Spanish Armada, so succinct, yet so full and moving, is a most enthralling narrative. Louis Stevenson was a self-conscious and deliberate hard student of the craft of words, of purely technical literary qualities. It is set down against him that he did something to confuse the frontiers of prose and poetry. Many critics are now hailing Mrs. Meynell as the best essayist since R. L. Stevenson. Walter Pater weaves long-drawn-out sentences modulated with a very delicate and subtle balance, but a sickly air pervades his pages, and his dainty periods move gingerly along; it is admirable in perfection of finish, yet unhealthily fastidious. The essayist sums up by saying that the more one reads of the best prose written nowadays-since Froude's death-the more one regrets the loss of the eighteenth-century manner— luminous, not coruscant, aiming at suavity and sanity above all thingswhich by its manly directness charmed the reader into the belief that he, too, might have written the same things in just the same way, instead of filling him with wonder (as Mr. Meredith does) how on earth any human being could have cemented words and ideas together into such a jeweled but bewildering mosaic.

...

THE Journal of Theological Studies (New York) is a new venture in the department of religious publication. Its October issue is the opening number of the quarterly, and in its American form is a reprint of the English periodical issued by Macmillan & Co. in London. Of its purpose it declares: "No English journal hitherto has devoted itself exclusively to the furtherance of theological learning. . . . We still desiderate a regular organ of communication between students whose lives are spent at the universities and elsewhere in the pursuit of scientific theology. The Journal of Theological Studies is intended to supply this want. It will welcome original papers on all subjects which fall within its province, as well as shorter discussions or brief notes upon matters

of detail. It will print ancient texts which have not appeared in type, or which for any cause may need to be printed afresh. A portion of its space will be given to summaries and notices of recent literature, and it will review at length a few of the more important works in cases where a fuller examination may serve to contribute to the knowledge of the subject. Such a periodical will appeal, in the first instance, to professed students and teachers of theology." The contributed articles in this initial number are: "Recent Research on the Origin of the Creed," by Canon Sanday; "St. Anselm's Argument for the Being of God," by the Master of Balliol; "A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of HymnSinging," by Robert Bridges; "The Acts of the Apostles, I. A Criticism of Lightfoot. and Headlam," by Rev. J. A. Cross; "The Acts of the Apostles, II. A Plea for an Early Date," by Rev. R. B. Rackham; "Documents: The Sacramentary of Serapion of Thumis, Part I," by Rev. F. E. Brightman. The miscellaneous departments which follow are entitled "Notes," Reviews," "Chronicle," and "Recent Periodicals relating to Theological Studies," and all are filled with important matter. Advanced students of theology in the United States, as in England, will be interested in this valuable periodical.

[ocr errors]

THE Indian Evangelical Review (Calcutta and London) for October, 1899, has several articles of interest, the foremost of which is a statement of "The Differentia of Christianity," by Dr. John Robson, of Aberdeen, Scotland, reprinted from the Contemporary Review. It begins by saying: "There is no doubt that if Christianity is the only religion suited for all the world a knowledge of the religions of the world will but make this all the more apparent. It will be seen that it alone is possessed of truths and principles which are needful to make a religion suited for all mankind. And those who claim this place for Christianity, and refuse to give it a place merely as one of many religions, must examine what gives it this preeminence-what differentiates it from other religions." The key-note of the article is in this sentence: "That repentance or remission of sins should be preached in Christ's name among all the nations,' is the message which Christianity bears to the world."

IN the New World (Boston) for December are found: "The Dreyfus Affair," by Albert Rêville; "Nemesis, or the Divine Envy," by P. E. More; "The Legendary Story of Christ's Childhood," by M. A. Potter; "The Distinctive Mark of Christianity," by C. C. Everett; Abraham, the Heir of Yahweh," by B. W. Bacon; "Inductive Homiletics," by C. H. Leonard; "Horace Bushnell and his Work for Theology," by C. F. Dole; "Is Nature Christian?" by Frederic Palmer; "The Educational Skeptics of the Commonwealth," by Foster Watson; and "Ashera in the Old Testament," by Karl Budde.

BOOK NOTICES.

RELIGION, THEOLOGY, AND BIBLICAL LITERATURE.

The Four Gospels from a Lawyer's Standpoint. By EDMUND H. BENNETT, LL.D. 12mo, pp. 58. New York and Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Price, cloth, $1. The substance of this little book was prepared by the late dean of the Law School of Boston University, largely as a matter of personal interest to himself. Finally he based a lecture on the material he had collecteda lecture which he delivered many times, especially in the latter years of his life. His subject is treated under four heads: "Peculiarities of Each Gospel," "Confirmations in the Gospels, ""Variations in the Gospels," "Inconsistencies in the Gospels." The effort of this very eminent lawyer is to ascertain whether or not, independently of divine revelation, independently of devout Christian faith, independently of any appeal to our religious sentiments, the truth of the story told in the four gospels could be satisfactorily established by a mere reasoning process, and by applying the same principles and tests to the Gospel narratives that we observe in determining the truth or falsity of any other documents or any other historical accounts. He approaches his subject with a personal reminiscence: "A few years ago, while writing an historical address for one of our Massachusetts cities, I came across, in a newspaper file of the Revolutionary period, a letter, or what purported to be a letter, written from that place, giving an account of a meeting held there in 1774, and a copy of some patriotic resolutions passed thereat. The writer of that letter, if there ever was one, had long been dead; all the persons said to have taken part in that meeting were also gone; the printer and publisher who gave that account to the world had likewise vanished from the earth; there was no person living who could make oath or testify that such an occurrence ever took place. But yet I had no hesitation in adopting the account as genuine, and using it as an established event in the history of that town. The mere fact of the existence of such a document under such circumstances was prima facie proof of its genuineness and authenticity quite sufficient to justify the acceptance of it as true until the contrary be proved. What would have been my joy and confidence had I found four such letters, in four different papers, written by four different persons, giving an account of the same transaction? And although, in a close comparison of these four accounts, some variations should have been found as to the particulars of that event, would that overthrow all belief in the truthfulness of the accounts? Nay; would it not rather furnish stronger proof of their integrity? Had all four accounts been exactly alike, the suspicion would have been irresistible that one was copied from the other, or that

« AnteriorContinuar »