THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.-The Temporal Power of the Pope may now be regarded as being at an end. Only the city of Rome and a small adjacent tract of country are still kept by French troops against their will, under the dominion of the Pope. How eager the whole population of the Papal States are to get rid of the Papal rule, and how little they care for the excommunication which has been pronounced against all who are instrumental in the diminution of the "Patrimony of St. Peter," has recently again been shown by the vote of the people of Umbria and the Marches on their annexation to Sardinia. In Umbria 97,040 voted for and 380 against annexation; and in the Marches 133,783 for and only 1,212 against. In consequence of the annexation of the Papal provinces and of Naples, THE LIBERAL ÉCCLESIASTICAL LEGISLATION of Sardinia has now been extended over all Italy. Bishops, priests, and monks have been subjected to the civil law like all other citizens, the Jesuits, as the chief promoters of despotism, have been expelled, and the extraordinary number of convents will soon be considerably reduced.

FRANCE.

THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES.-The Synod of the Union of Evangelical Churches assembled on Sept. 6, at St. Etienne, near Lyons. The usual authorization hitherto granted was this year refused, and the meeting of Synod interdicted by the Minister of Public Instruction. On remonstrance it was by stealth connived at, but since it has been announced that no future meetings of the Synod will be allowed. An important change in the "Confession" of the Union, by which the nature of the death of Christ, as an atoning sacrifice, was declared more fully and explicitly than before, was unanimously adopted. A full and interesting account was given by the "Commission for Evangelization," which throughout showed the present remarkable openings in France for the preaching of the Gospel. The Struggle between the Evangelical and Rational istic Elements in the National Reformed Church has recently led again to a painful collision. The congregation of Luneray, which for many years past has

ing formed a second pastor's place, and proposed for it three orthodox candidates, the Consistory of Dieppe has passed over all the three proposed candidates from whom, according to law, it was to choose one, and appointed the pastor of a small Rationalistic congregation at the same place, which eighteen years ago separated from the National Church, for the office and this appointment has been ratified by the government. The Rationalistic pastor has been installed over the protesting congregation, to which he has joined his Rationalists. The Espérance, the organ of the evangelical party, takes occasion from this "most deplorable affair which has taken place in the Reformed Church since the commencement of this century i to urge the imperious necessity of a prompt return to the practice of synodical organization. In the present disposition of the French government there is, however, but little hope, we fear, for any advancement of the self-government of the Churches. The French Academy, at its annual meeting held in September, awarded the first prize for peculiarly virtuous deeds, for the first time, to a Protestant pastor, the Rev. John Bost, of Laforce, for his three institutions for orphan, blind, idiotic, and incurable children. The merits of the humble pastor were eloquently set forth by one of the greatest living French scholars, M. de Remusat. The impression made in France by this decision of the Academy, has been the more profound, as these very institutions at Laforce had been the butt, for years, of the most virulent calumnies from the Ultramontanists.

Men

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.The Ultramontane Party in France have done more than their coreligionists in any other country for supporting the Pope in his last struggle for maintaining the political power of the Papacy. and money have been liberally furnished, and the bishops have made the utmost efforts to prevail on the government to come to the rescue of the Pope. This attempt, however, has entirely failed. The government, while leaving individual Catholics at liberty to show their sympathy with the cause of the Pope in any way they pleased, has prohibited the formation of committees for regularly collecting the Peter's Pence. It has again suppressed a leading organ of the

and has officially requested the bishops not to lend their help to the new arch confraternity of "St. Peter in the bonds," which required its members to use all means for the defense of the Papal power. Thus the disagreement between the government and the Church has become greater than it has ever been before.

SPAIN.

PROTESTANTISM.-The Persecution of Protestantism remains unabated. A child fifteen months old, belonging to Protestant parents of Bayonne, in France, having died at Villabona, near Vittoria,

count of the parents' religion, refused him Christian burial; and when the father, on arriving near the French frontier, had to wait for an authorization to introduce the dead body, the chief of the post on duty threatened that he would have the body cast into the river if in an hour he did not get the permission. At Bilboa about three hundred Protestants, connected with the railway now building, having collected on Sunday to worship, a number of Spanish officials entered the church during the Litany and put a stop to the service. The buying and possessing of a Protestant book remains strictly and absolutely forbidden.

GERMANY.

1. Exegetical Theology. A new Commentary on the Prophets after the exile (Die nachexilischen Propheten, Leipz.) has been commenced by A. Köhler, Privatdocent of Theology at the University of Erlangen. The author belongs, like the whole theological faculty with which he is connected, to the orthodox Lutheran school, and has previously published several exegetical articles in the Theological Quarterly, published by Dr. Rudelbach and Dr. Guericke. The first volume of his commentary contains Haggai. Another of the minor prophets, Habakkuk, has been anew translated and interpreted by J. Von Gumpach, (Der Prophet Habakkuk, Munich,) whose name we have occasionally met with as a contributor to the "Studien und Kritiken." The translation has been made anew from the Hebrew text, which, as the title-page announces, has been "thoroughly revised and, for the first time, restored to its original connection."

A new commentary on Ecclesiastes (Commentar über das Predigerbuch Salo10, Leipz.) has been issued by H. A. Kalin, who likewise belongs to the Lutheran school.

The Prophets and their Prophecies (Die Propheten und ihre Weissagungen, Gotha) is the title of a new work by Professor Tholuck, which, like the former works of this gifted divine, meets with a large circulation.

Dr. Stier, well known as the author of the Words of the Lord Jesus and the after the model of these works, a volume Words of the Apostles, has published, of "The Words of the Angels," (Reden der Engel, Barmen,) the first work ever published on this subject.

Dr. Tischendorf has issued an extensive prospectus of the important Sinaitic manuscript of the Bible, which was discovered by him on his Oriental journey in 1859, and the publication of which is announced for the year 1862. (Notitia Editionis Codicis Bibliorum Sinaitici, Leipz.) The work contains full information on the history of the discovery, on its contents and high age, a list of six hundred passages of the New Testament which are of special critical interest, and, as specimens, twenty-six columns of the Old Testament and thirty-four of the New, as also the works of Barnabas and Hermas. A second and a third part contain reports, with specimens, on other important discoveries made on the same literary journey.

2. Historical Theology. Dr. Hase, the learned Church historian, has recently published a second revised edition of his work on the "Empire of the Anabaptists" at Münster in the sixteenth century, (Das Reich der Wiedertäufer, Leipz.) The first edition of this treatise formed part of a volume, entitled New Prophets, and containing, besides, treatises on Savonarola and ou

work on the Anabaptists of Munster, by Dr. Cornelius, a Roman Catholic writer, which is recommended by the German journals as an able publication, the second volume has appeared. (Geschichte des Münsterischen Aufruhrs. Zweites Buch., Leipzic.)

The celebration of the so-called "Passion Plays," which take place every tenth year at Oberammergan, in Bavaria, and theatrically represent the Passion of Christ, has called forth a work from Dr. Hase on the history of "the Ecclesiastical Plays," (Das Geistliche Schauspel, Leipz.,) of which the Passion Play of Oberammergan is the last remnant.

Professor Hagenbach, of Basel, has continued his popular "Lectures on Church History" by the publication of "Lectures on the Church History of the Middle Ages." The first part contains the history from the death of Gregory the Great to Innocent III., or from the seventh to the twelfth century. (Vorlesungen über die Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters, Leipzic.)

Among works on modern Church history are the fourth volume of Kampe's History of the Religious Movements of Modern Times, (Geschichte der Religiösen Bewegungen, Leipz.,) the completest work on the attempts made by Ronge, Uhlich, and many others, to organize in Germany Rationalistic churches; a second edition of Dr. Stahl's important work on the Lutheran Church and the Union, (Die Lutherische Kirche und die Union, Berlin,) with an appendix which contains a review of the attacks to which the first edition has been exposed; a memoir on the last days of "G. H. Von Schubert," one of the noblest men and best Christians among the great scholars of Germany, by Ranke; and a biography of Rev. Imm. T. Sander, a venerable pillar of the Lutheran Church, and of orthodox Christianity in its struggles with the neological and materialistic tendencies of the times, by Dr. Krummacher. (J. F. Sander, Eine Prophetengestalt, Elberfeld.)

To former periods of the Christian Church refer a picture of "The Christian Church on the Threshold of the Irencan Age," (Die Christlische Kirche an der Schwelle des iren. Zeitalters, Leipz.,) by Dr. Graul, the president of the Lutheran Missionary Seminary at Leipzic; a History of the Cosmology of the Greek Church,

tic systems (Geschichte der Kosmologie in der Griechischen Kirche, Halle,) by Dr. Möller, Privatdocent of Theology at the University of Halle; the third volume of a History of French Calvinism, (Geschichte des Französ. Calvinismus, Gotha,) by Polenz, one of the most thorough works on the history of French Calvinism; the second and last volume of a History of Calixtus, (the celebrated German theologian of the seventeenth century,) and of his times, by Henke, (Calixtus und Seine Zeit, Halle;) and the third volume of the History of "Ulrich von Hutten," containing a translation of his most memorable discourses with commentary, by David Frederick Strauss, the author of the "Life of Jesus."

An important work on the History of the Koran, (Geschichte des Qoran, Gottingen,) has been published by Nöldeke; and the valuable recent literature of Germany on the history of Buddhism has been enriched by the translation of an excellent Russian work, by Professor W. Wassiljew, on "Buddhism: Its DocBuddhismus, seine Dogmen, etc., St. Petrines, History, and Literature," (Der tersburgh.) The first volume contains the "general survey."

The author has made use of many sources of information to which no other European writer has previously had access.

3. Dogmatic Theology. A highly important contribution to the history of modern German theology has been furnished by J. Bodemeyer's "Doctrine of the Kenosis," (Lehre von der Kenosis, Goetting.) Kenosis is the technical term for a doctrine which has gained quite a number of adherents among the Lutheran theologians of Germany. According to it the Logos, at his incarna tion, voluntarily divested himself of his divine self-consciousness in order to develop himself in purely human form. The doctrine has been in particular developed, though in different form, by Thomasius, Liebner, and Gess, and on account of the importance which is theologians, well deserved to be made attributed to it by a large number of the subject of a special, thorough work.

A comprehensive work on Man, the Image of God, his relation to Christ and to the World, (Der Mensch das Ebenbild Gottes, Basel,) has been commenced by