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actual living will by Mahomet and his suc- in all quarters of the world. They were cessors crushed the professors of it. It perplexed to find much space devoted to discould only make head against them in the cussions of minute points of organization west, by appearing once more as the an- affecting Prussia, possibly the north of Gernouncement of a kingdom that rules over many-nearly uninteresting, scarcely intelall. In that form it has had to endure the ligible anywhere else. I owe great thanks incubus of papal domination; it has had to to the book for this very reason. It made fight with the fury of Protestant sects. It me more conscious than any book I had will, as I think, overthrow them both-be a ever read before, than any book written with witness for the union of Greeks, Romanists, a less honest and simple intention could Protestants-and batter down the devil- have done-how impossible it is to conceive worship which prevails so mightily among a Universal Church, how the most enlarged all three. Not for an instant would I sur-philosophy can only describe a merely local render it to the objections or arguments of Church, if the starting-point is the GemeBunsen, or of all other objectors, lay and inde. Suppose a Divine Being, who calls clerical, together, however much I may honor out a man, a family, a nation, who then rethem; because I believe in my heart it will veals the Head of all nations, and you can do the work which they longed to see done, explain what excuses men have found for and which their religious instincts, philo- contracting the dimensions of such a body, sophical theories, even practical devotions, so that it shall be subject to the mortal cannot do without it. By all means let bishop of a particular city; so that it should them speak out their objections and difficul- be merely national; so that it should repties; it has power to encounter them, and, resent some special opinion. But take conquer them. By all means let each man the opposite course; try to ascend from the pursue honestly his own search after unity; notion of the society to those who minister I am satisfied it will meet all their different in it, to Him who is the object of its adorasearches, and will help to make them effectual. tion, and that society adapts itself unawares What I have said about Bunsen's efforts to the notions, education, epoch, circumto restore the literature of the early Church, stances of the person who describes it. His explains what I shall venture to say about desire to be useful and practical forbids him his "Church of the Future." The book to lose himself in considerations which would which bears this title embodies, it seems to fit any place, and therefore are fit for no me, the feelings which were likely to be ex- place. And this is only a small part of the cited by the democratic movement of the difficulty. The ministers chosen by the age, in a man who was full of strong reli- Gemeinde are merely officials. By the gious convictions, and who was vehemently hypothesis they can be nothing else; offiaverse to the old hierarchical system. The cials with the same temptations as men have Gemeinde is every thing. All ministers are felt everywhere to exercise tyranny over merely its officials. The services of the their flocks; to make that tyranny good by Church are acts of united thanksgiving. appeals to the grandeur of their work. And That which was supposed to be a sacrificial the object of the worship is,-what? Bunact, deriving some virtue from the presence sen would have answered reverently, "The of the priest, is the offering of the heart and God of our fathers; the God who is revealed spirit of the people to God. This is the de- in Christ." But saying so he brings back vout aspect of the doctrine of popular sove- the idea of a Church grounded on that revereignty. In this form he hoped it might be lation; the Church of the past is the Church emancipated from its atheistical accompani- of the future. Not saying so-the old story ments; in this form it might combine the is repeated. The object of worship is really old Protestant testimony for individual faith created by the worshipper; the official bewith the social cravings of a later time. comes, in the worst sense of the word, sacerOn most men this book left an impression dotal; he is the victim and organ of all the of great disappointment. Its magnificent superstitions of the Gemeinde; not less, but title led them to expect something which more for that, its oppressor. None of these should be satisfying to the hopes and wants consequences were present to Bunsen's mind. of people in all parts of Christendom, nay, He is in truth not more responsible for

them than a hundred theories which prevail | which it can be maintained, I must consider amongst ourselves. He has the great merit it defective. To remind English Churchof bringing these theories to the test; of men that the Puritan—and especially the showing how inconsistent we have been in Independent-was at one time a witness for combining them with another much older a liberty which they were disposed to re doctrine. His noble ambition to assert the strain, can do them no harm. It is not a rights of the Gemeinde, to clear away priest- novel announcement to them; they heard it craft, to give sacrifice a real meaning, forces a century ago from the historian who disliked us back upon that earlier faith. Without the Puritans most. But that historian would that faith I do not see how any of these ob- not have confessed that the disposition in jects can be accomplished; they must be ac- English Churchmen to persecute arose from complished some day, if it has any reality. their disposition to merge the invisible in I do not complain of him in the least for the visible ruler, civil or sacerdotal; that maintaining the position he has taken up in the force of the protest of the Covenanter— this book. His business as a German might and of the Independent, when the Covebe to ask what kind of society is necessary nanter had become a mere believer in the that the rights of men as social and spirit- Presbytery-lay in his proclamation of a ual beings may be fully asserted, and to see God who actually governed in the affairs of whether he could construct such a society. men, and to whom the monarch and the eccleWe who are not constructors at all may be siastic were equally subject. So long as that very grateful for the experiment, may learn faith is strong, there will be a witness against much more from its failure than from many the attempt to take the power from Him to successes upon which we plume ourselves. whom it belongs, to assume the right of proWe have had ages of political experience to tecting that which He alone can protect. compensate our want of the power of theo- The faith is strong when men are crushed rizing. Institutions have not been devised by mortal hands, when they can only take by us, but have grown up in the midst of refuge in the unseen. Therefore the arguus. We may ask ourselves what they sig-ments against persecution come from the sufnify; whether we have ever understood ferers; are forgotten so soon as they have them; whether we are not continually un- earned dominion. But it is the faith of a dermining them through our carelessness Church; emphatically it is not the faith of a respecting their nature and purposes. That sect. If the sects have helped to keep alive self-examination will surely be more profit- in us the belief that we are witnesses for a able to us than complaining of what foreigners, better and more earnest than we are, have done or have not done. They will help us if we are true to ourselves; if not we shall destroy ourselves, without their interference.

In his book "On the Signs of the Times," which Bunsen wrote after he left England, he did full justice to the freedom of religious opinions from state interference which our people have obtained; he claimed the like freedom for Prussia; he attributed the presence of it among us in a great measure to the action of the sects upon the Established Church; he attributed the absence of it elsewhere, principally to sacerdotal influence. As an assertion of the safety of entire religious freedom, of the danger of any restraint upon it, under one pretext or other, the book seems to me of great value. As an explanation of the method by which it has been won, and by

kingdom of God, not for certain opinions, we should be very thankful to them. For it is that belief which can alone save us from being a sect, which can alone extinguish sects. And with sects persecution-since persecution is good to maintain the dominion of sects-is a denial of the dominion of God. We in England have owed any degree of freedom we have to a faith, let it have been ever so weak, in this dominion. There has been a dim sense in our minds-however much we have resisted it-that those who touch the ark to keep it from shaking may incur the sentence of him in old time who ventured on that experiment. To strengthen this feeling, to deepen it, is, I suspect, the one method of perpetuating the religious liberty we have, and of making it greater. The maxim of Barneveld, says Mr. Motley, was Nil scire tutissima fides; on that he based his doctrine of toleration. "God wishes all to know" seems to me a much

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safer faith; the foundation of a much more the English thought, perhaps of the eighcomprehensive toleration than Barneveld teenth century, perhaps of some section in dreamed of. How Prussia may be saved this century. But if the message of the Bifrom her notion of a paternal interference to ble is a message to mankind, not in one age keep men straight in the faith: how she is to but in all ages-a message to those wants escape from state tyranny without throwing which are not satisfied by, not expressed in, herself back into ecclesiastical tyranny, I do the peculiar tendencies and conceptions of not pretend to affirm. So far as Baron Bun- any age or place, rather which are crying to sen has spoken on that subject in his "Signs be emancipated from those tendencies and of the Times," I should abstain from criticis- conceptions, each new adaptation is only a ing him—for other reasons, and because he new form of bondage. And if the Bible is has shown in this volume that such a knowl- any thing less than this-if it does not speak edge of England as none of us possess re- to us, but only repeats what we first put into specting his country did not save him from it, will the "Gemeinde," will any man conmistakes about us which an ignorant native tinue to care for it? Is not the notion that could not have committed. We ought only it is not this-that it is only a book in which to speak for ourselves. In mere protests divines or philosophers find what they hide against sacerdotal government thousands of the cause of the indifference to it in EngEnglishmen would join him, who like a lit-land and in Germany, which Bunsen detle persecution very dearly. The abuses of sired to cure? Some learned and able men sacerdotal government have come, not from amongst us hold that our people when the conviction that there is a truth for all they hear the Bible, are too ready to think men, which it is good for all to confess to- they are hearing the words of God. "If," gether but from uncertainty whether there say they, "Englishmen generally, could be is any such truth, or whether it is not better delivered from this superstition, if we, the to force men into a nominal acknowledgment teachers, did not encourage it, there would of something which will do in the place of it. be no dread of philological and physical These remarks have a close application to inquiries, lest the Bible should be overthe last work in which Bunsen was engaged thrown; other literature would not be disupon earth, his " Vollständiges Bibelwerk paraged for the sake of a single book; we für die Gemeinde." For an incredible num- should give full play to our faculties in the ber of hours in each day, he toiled at a new study of it, and in all other studies." My translation of the Bible. It was to be own solemn conviction is that our people do printed along with the version of Luther. It not half enough believe that they are listenwas to be accompanied by historical and ing to the words of God when they are lisspiritual explanations, which he hoped would tening to the Bible; that we, their teachers, remove some of the difficulties of the Ger- do not half enough believe it. If we did, mans to the acceptance of it as a national we should not be afraid of any physical or and family book, such as it was held to be philological inquiries. If we did, we should by the Reformers of the sixteenth century. not try to make people understand, by a From this book, so far at least as the inter- heap of preparatory evidence, that God is pretations were concerned, an Englishman speaking to them in the Bible; we should. may be pardoned for not expecting much. be confident that he would make them unFor nearly two centuries-from philosopher derstand his speech. If we did, we should Locke to the last issue of the Tract Society prize all literature much more than we do. -men of different schools have been labor- Those who would take from us the fragments ing to adapt the Bible to our own tastes and we have of this faith would make us tenfold capacities. That is to say, it has been made more slaves of the letter than we are. They to echo our voices; the temper, habits, con- would make us indifferent about scientific victions of our age or our coterie, have been truth, because we should cease to believe more or less skilfully brought forth from its that any thing has been established or can pages. An interpretation, which should ex- be established. They would turn us into hibit as faithfully-more learnedly-the Ger- critics of Homer and Shakspeare, not readman thought of the nineteenth century might ers or learners of either. Designing to make be some counteraction to those which exhibit us more earnest students, they would drive

out the spirit of patient, childlike reverence | he said, "to utter a short prayer that it may and hope which contains the only promise please God, either to shorten my sufferings, of result in any pursuit of any kind.

But

or to give me strength to bear them.
when I try to think of higher matters, my
illness drags me down. Before the last half-
hour all I could say, and I repeated it con-
stantly, was Schlafesgnade bis zum Tag ;
but for the last hour I was able to say
Schlafesgnade, so du willst; and now look,
there is the first dawn of morning, and I can
bear to be awake."

But I would repeat once more that the maxims which we can discern for our own guidance ought to be most cautiously applied in our judgment of men in different circumstances from ours. There can be no difference in the general principle, that we must become little children in order to learn any truth of divinity or of physical science. There may be the greatest possible differ- A deep human experience assuredly; only ences in the indications of this childlike to want the grace of sleep till morning, and spirit, in the obstacles which hinder us from not to find that! But how near is this loss attaining it. The Exeter Hall orator may of all spiritual consciousness and power to think that nothing interferes with it so much the discovery of that which lies beneath it as the habits of the German student. The all, its ground and support. Ich habe geGerman student may think that nothing in- funden, he said, dass alle Brücke, die man terferes with it so much as the assumption gebaut hat zwischen diesem und jenem Leben, and arrogance of the platform, as the echoes fällt, und die eine, Christus, bleibt stehen. and applause of an obedient crowd. Each It was what he had been saying always may give the other some warnings which it in hymns and litanics, what he had felt inmay be worth his while to heed. Those of wardly. To perceive that it was real, when us who are neither orators nor German stu- hymns and litanies could not be spoken, dents may be better for the admonitions of when feeling was dried up, this was surely both. Bunsen brought his doings to a brave a recompense for much agony. And it was and noble test when he appealed, not to pro- not only when all else seemed to be sinkfessors, but to the people. I cannot think ing (alles geht unter, as he said one night, that a work undertaken with such earnest-nur Gott bleibt) that he felt this standing ness, and in such a spirit, would have been ground. Brighter moments were granted in vain, even if his own part of it was in vain. The book would have made its strength felt above his interpretations, as I trust it will do above ours. And surely, a man who desires to be honest and childlike, if he cannot find what he seeks in cloisters or platforms, will have it granted him in some way which his divine Teacher knows to be better.

when he could delight in the faces around him, and in the memory of those whom he could not sec. Then came forth his strong personal affections; his gratitude to old benefactors; his sympathies for freedom and truth in every land. He remembered Prussia and England. He longed for the unity of Italy in which he dwelt so long. He could listen again to the hymns and the organ which had been so dear to him. He could say, "It is a wonderful thing to look back from above on this life and this world! Now first we know in how much darkness we have been dwelling here" (was für ein dunkles Dasein wir hier geführt haben).

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That final education was bestowed in full measure on Baron Bunsen. There came a time in which a frame that had been tasked to more vigorous and tremendous efforts in reading and in writing, than most of us can bring ourselves to think of or to believe, broke fairly down; when a man who had en- Upwards, upwards. Nothing dark; no, joyed work as much as most enjoy the cessa- bright, ever brighter." He could assure tion of it, had to exchange it for the in- those who were dearest to him that his love tensest anguish. What the suffering of any to them had been always grounded upon a complaint in the heart is few of us can even love that was deep and eternal. He could guess; his form of the complaint is perhaps say to the one who was dearest of all, "I the most terrible of all to bear or to witness. shall meet thee in the presence of God." He felt the deep humiliation of "being un- One, who had read these and other recable to soar above the most ordinary neces-ords of his last days at Bonn, writes sities of self-preservation. I am just able," thus :—

man life can have been. And yet there is nothing which I remember of that, which would lead me to doubt those records of his

"They seem to me too sacred for any but the eyes of his dearest friends. Yet I am glad that they should be known at least to some besides. Simple and devout English-later hours, or to wonder at them. He apmen and Englishwomen will at once ac- peared a diplomatist without trickery; a knowledge their sincerity and their depth. man in the world without frivolity; a statesThey will joyfully throw aside any suspicions man with ever-increasing desires for the that they may have formed of him. They good of the people and the kingdom of God; will judge more kindly and hopefully of a philosopher with a human heart. There many besides him, whose statements may are, however, other recollections which come often puzzle them. They will trust more in more home to me as I read the story of his God's judgment and less in their own. I death-bed. A little more than twenty years cannot cast stones at these countrymen of ago, just before the accession of the last mine for hard thoughts which they may have king of Prussia, he was for a short time cherished respecting Bunsen. With far less the Minister to the Swiss Cantons. His excuse, with far more evidence to confute house, which had been once occupied by the them, I have often allowed the like to har- English Minister, Mr. Morier, lay about a bor in my own mind. But I have always mile outside of the town of Berne. The discovered that they proceeded not from the situation was one of the most beautiful in liveliness of my faith, but from the poverty that beautiful neighborhood. The prospect of it. They belonged to that arguing, dis- from the garden was such as one could putatious, godless state of mind, which in scarcely see in any other country. I was sitmy arrogance I should, perhaps, have at- ting with him and with some others in that tributed to him. I look back upon all such garden one afternoon, when all its near lovesuspicions as reasons for shame and contri- liness seemed to pass away and be forgotten. tion. For it seems to me, casting my thought For there came a sudden discovery of another over a number of years, that he approved world behind that a world that was altohimself in a variety of circumstances to be gether of light and glory. The same specessentially a true man; one who felt more tacle may have been granted to one since in keenly almost than any one the influences the same regions. But each of these visby which he was surrounded, yet did not ions surely has its own significance; each take his color from them; one who could not should be remembered along with the faces have been what he was to all about him, if that looked upon it. The bright outward his life had not been sustained from a hidden world in which Bunsen dwelt, and which he source. I did not see him in all the posi- enjoyed so heartily, had a brighter inner tions in which some of my countrymen saw world behind it. That was partly revealed him; I only know by the report of others to him in his chamber at Bonn. May we what he was to those who visited Rome whilst he was the German Minister there. But the existence of an ambassador in London seems a greater contrast to those scenes in the chamber of Bonn, than even his Ro

not be confident that it will be revealed hereafter to us all, and that human faces, earthly sights, will be transfigured in its light?"

COLUMBUS.-The following anecdote may be nut shell was a piece of parchment covered with interesting to some of your readers :

very old writing, which none of those present could read. An American merchant in Gib

Captain D'Auberville, in the bark Chieftain, raltar then read it, and found that it was a brief of Boston, put into Gibraltar on the 27th of account, drawn up by Columbus in 1493, of his August, 1851. He went, with two of his pas- American discoveries up to that time. It was sengers, across the Straits to Mount Abylus, on addressed to Ferdinand and Isabella. It stated the African coast; as they were on the point of that, according to the writer's judgment, the returning, one of the crew picked up what ap-ships could not survive another day; that they peared to be a piece of rock, but which the cap-were between the western isles and Spain; that tain thought to be a kind of pumice-stone. On two similar narratives were written and thrown examination it was found to be a cedar keg into the sea, in case the caravel should go to the completely incrusted with barnacles and other bottom. marine shells. The keg was opened, and within was found a cocoa-nut enveloped in a kind of gum or resinous substance. Within the cocoa

Captain D'Auberville's narrative was given in the Louisville Varieties, whence it was copied into The Times of that year.-Notes and Queries.

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