ments will be gradually adopted after much experimentation and many failures. It will be a long time before the idea of colonization will be generally abandoned, and before climatic influences and the peculiarities of races will have led to permanent results. What they will be none but the Omniscient knows-whether several of the states shall be peopled mostly with the colored race, whether the negro shall become extinct as a separate people—these and kindred hypotheses can be tested only by time. Our duty is now clear. Not "On to Richmond," but "On to justice," should be our motto. With that we cannot fail, for justice never fails.

ART. IX.-FOREIGN RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE.

PROTESTANTISM.

GREAT BRITAIN.

THE ESSAYS AND REVIEWS AND THEIR FRIENDS.-On June 25 judgment was delivered by Dr. Lushington, in the Court of Arches, on the "Essays and Reviews," or at least upon two of the compositions in that volume-the essays of Dr. Williams and the Rev. H. K. Wilson. The judge refused to go into the meaning of Scripture, or the opinions of divines, but confined himself to a legal construction of the Articles of the Church of England, and to the consideration how far the opinions of Dr. Williams and Mr. Wilson impugned those Articles. Acting on this principle, he rejected a great many articles of accusation-that is to say, he acquitted the writers of heresy in holding them that relating, for instance, to the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Second Epistle of Peter, the Book of Daniel, the interpretation of the prophecies, etc., on which he said the writers might be right or wrong, sound or unsound, but in which they did not contradict any of the Articles of the Church. In the case of Dr. Williams, the general allegation, that "the tendency, object, and design of the whole essay is to inculcate a disbelief of the divine inspiration and orthodoxy of the Holy Scriptures, to deny the truth of parts thereof, and to deny the doctrines of

original sin, justification by faith, atonement, propitiation, and the incarnation," is rejected by the court as unprecedented, and as contrary.to the fair rule established by the judicial committee, that the words or writings of the person accused must be pleaded; that the meaning which they are alleged by the prosecution to convey must be pleaded; and that the particular articles of religion, or parts of them, asserted to be contravened, must be pleaded also. But the judge finds the declaration, that "the Bible is an expression of devout reason," inconsistent with the twentieth Article, in which it is denominated "God's written word." "Devout reason," says Dr. Lushington, "belongs to the acts and doings of men, and not to the works of the Almighty." This passage, therefore, he condemns. The declaration that "the Bible is the written voice of the congregation," although it is admitted to be "not a denial that the Bible is inspired," is declared to be contrary to the sixth and seventh Articles. The doctrine of propitiation put forward by Dr. Williams, according to which a merely subjective change, and not a new relation brought about by a mediatorial act is signified, is condemned as contrary to the thirty-first Article; and similarly his doctrine of justification is declared to violate the eleventh Article. In the case of Dr. Wilson, the doctrine specified in

the fourteenth charge against him-that he teaches an intermediate state and denies everlasting punishment-was condemned, as were the doctrines specified in two other charges denying the inspiration of the Bible, and in the twelfth denying original sin. These last charges were ordered to be reformed; the others were rejected. The judge did not pronounce sentence, but allowed both parties the right of appeal.

Already before the judicial committee of the Privy Council had confirmed the sentence of the Court of Arches against the Rev. Mr. Heath, who, for doctrines like those contained in the "Essays and Reviews," had likewise been charged with deviation from the doctrine of the Church of England. These sentences have created a great sensation in England; for the state of servitude in which the Church finds herself has rarely before appeared in so strong a light. The judges, who are laymen, take the position that the courts are bound to demand of all clergymen of the Established Church a strict conformity, not with the teaching of the Bible, but with the letter of the thirty-nine Articles. The condemnation of these doctrines by the English bishops and by the convocations, as Dr. Lushington expressly stated, had no weight whatever with the court. Certainly no Church of Europe is in a more humiliating position.

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH.-The Scottish Episcopal Church being not fettered, like the established Church of England and Ireland, by a connection with the state, can decide on important questions of reform with greater liberty than the state Churches. She has held this year, after a long interval, a General Synod, at which a controversy of long standing, the change of the communion service of the Church, has been decided. synod commenced its sittings in EdinThe burgh on Tuesday, July 8-the upper chamber meeting under the presidency of Bishop Eden, of Moray and Ross, and the lower chamber meeting under the presidency of Dean Ramsay, of Edinburgh. The principal business before the synod was the consideration of the communion service, which is looked upon with general suspicion in the English Church, and by a not inconsiderable party in the Scottish Episcopal Church, as affording too much countenance to the Romish dogma of "the real presence." By a somewhat narrow majority the

synod resolved to adopt the English Book of Common Prayer as the only course the English form of the holy comservice-book of the Church, including of munion. It was provided, however, that while this rule should apply in all new congregations which might be formed, and to all existing congregations to whom it may be acceptable, it should not be compulsory on existing congregajority of the congregation should wish tions, where the incumbent and a mamunion office. In this modified form the to continue the use of the Scotch comresolution was only passed by one in the upper chamber, the primus, with the Bishops of Brechin and St. Andrews, opposing the resolution, and the Bishops of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Argyle voting in its favor. In the lower house the majority was eight to five. The new canon will not make much change in the practice of the Scottish Episcopal Church in the mean time, as the English Book of Common Prayer, most of the congregations already use but it will undoubtedly strengthen the Episcopal Church in Scotland, by associating it more intimately with the Church of England. Among the other generally interesting was canons adjusted by the synod, the most one which tent, of the lay element in the diocesan provided for the infusion, to a small exsynods.

On August 24 the Dissenters of EnTHE NON-CONFORMIST BICENTENARY. gland celebrated with great solemnity ejectment of two thousand ministers the two hundredth anniversary of the from the Church of England on account the ejectment took place-St. Bartholoof Non-Conformity. The day on which mew's-fell this year again, as it did two hundred years ago, on a Sunday, and the accordingly determined that, in connecNon-Conformists throughout the country their services of the anniversary day tion with other forms of celebration, should have a special bearing on this great and critical event in their history. Their pulpits throughout the kingdom reminded the Protestant Dissenters of confessors, and exhorted to admire and the patience and sufferings of those early imitate their unfaltering fidelity to conscience, and supreme devotion to what they held to be the truth. The consequences of the event have invested it results have been of the most various, with peculiar value and importance. Its

to Vienna, which, therefore, can now stand a comparison with other theological schools. Hitherto the bigotry of the Austrian government had refused the incorporation of the faculty with the University. As the isolated position in which the faculty was thus placed was a great obstacle to its efficiency, the faculty itself and the Protestant Churches in general have petitioned the government to order the incorporation. This petition has been violently opposed by the entire ultramontane party, and the Archbishop of Vienna has even threatened to prohibit all students of Catholic theology from attending the lectures of the University, in case the Protestant theological faculty should be recognized as a part of the University. But these threats have been of little avail. The most numerous of the faculties of the University, that of Philosophy, has at its last meeting voted with an immense majority in favor of admitting the Protestant theologians, and little doubt is felt that the government will soon pronounce the incorporation.

THE BREACH BETWEEN THE PROTESTANT CLERGY AND GERMAN PEOPLE.We have often called attention, in former numbers of the Methodist Quarterly Review, to the great danger into which a large number of the Protestant clergy of Germany are bringing the Protestant Church, by their unceasing efforts to force what they consider an ecclesiastical and doctrinal reform upon an unwilling people by means of the secular arm. They are thus driving the members of the congregations by the thousand into the ranks of the Rationalists, who are the only great party in Germany which openly advocates the separation between Church and State. The most recent example of this conflict between clergy and people is furnished by the kingdom of Hanover. On April 14 the king issued an edict, according to which the old catechism was to be supplanted in the Lutheran day-schools of the kingdom by a new work of the same kind, but of a stricter character. This new catechism is so distasteful to a large portion of the population that opposition to its introduction has broken out on all sides. Petitions covered with thousands of names were presented to the king, praying him to rescind his decree. A pamphlet against the new catechism was published by a minister of the state Church, Pastor Baurschmidt, of Luchow,

who on that account was summoned before the Consistory of Hanover. The people have given him unmistakable proofs of their sympathy, and in the city of Hanover hostile demonstrations were even made before the houses of two of the chief counselors of the consistory. The crowds had to be dispersed by the soldiery.

ITALY.

THE WALDENSIAN SYNOD.-The annual meeting of the synod of the Waldensian Church took place in the parish church of San Giovanni, about three miles from La Tour, on the 20th of last month. An important discussion arose on a conflict in the parish of Turin. There are at Turin two congregations, one French, the other Italian, and the former was constituted, long before the constitution, the parochial congregation of Turin. Unfortunate divisions have existed for some years between the two ministers and congregations, and when the time of electing representatives to the synod came round this year, the votes of the Italian members were refused, though there is but one consistory. The case was taken by appeal to the synod, where, by a large majority, the election was declared invalid, on account of the Italian members' votes being refused, and the deputies from Turin were unseated. The table reported that the corps de pasteurs had examined the contents of the letter published in the Diretto (the Garibaldian organ of Turin) last year by Mr. Bert, the pastor of the French congregations at Turin, and had found it to contain sentiments unworthy a Christian minister, whereupon the table had most solemnly admonished Mr. Bert. The committee appointed by the last synod to examine into the divisions existing between the two congregations of Turin, and the causes thereof, reported that they arose solely from Mr. Bert's not preaching the Gospel, and that he should be admonished to do so; the synod found in terms of the report, and unanimously approved of the solemn admonition given to him by the table. A long discussion ensued on the report on education, and the state of the schools; also, as to whether their schools should be put on the same platform with all the other schools of the kingdom, or maintained as they now are. The latter question remained unsettled, as there were difficulties in the way which required