any step for the abolition of her present relation, if the State continues to call itself and to act as a Christian State. But every scruple vanishes, when the State gives up its Christian character: and this it does, when it renders the enjoyment, not merely of civil, but also of political rights, wholly independent of every religious Confession, hereby declaring that even those who are not Christians, that Jews, nay, avowed atheists, are qualified for magisterial offices and functions, not excepting the highest, so that such a person may even become Minister of Public Worship. Such however is already our condition in several German states, among others in Prussia. Therefore is it necessary that we should hold ourselves ready betimes for a great decisive step, that we should maintain the honour of our Church with all determination, resolved for every sacrifice, however great it may be. We must assemble without delay, and consider the sacred wants of this age on all sides, that, with a clear consciousness of all the difficulties which beset us, and of the great work we have to perform, we may unite to establish the independence of our Church, in the way of order and legality, not with violence and defiance, but, as becomes the Evangelical Church, with all humility, calmness, and modesty, yet, for this very reason, with a firmness which cannot be seduced from its well-weighed resolutions by any earthly interest, by any lure or threat. We in the Rhenish provinces and in Westphalia, who already possess an ecclesiastical Constitution must lead the way, calling however immediately on all our brethren, in every Province of our narrower, and every State of our larger country, to act along with us, and seeking in union with them whether God will not give us His grace, so that a German Evangelical Church may be built up, even as we have begun politically to build up a united German nation. Let us beseech Him to pour out His spirit upon us and our people; and let us use all diligence, that we may accomplish a good work, well-pleasing to Him, not with any reactionary aims, in opposition to our new political constitution, but only desiring from our position, with all love, truth, and devotedness, to help the princes and the people in gaining a permanent form for that which has any positive worth;

so that, in this new order of things, that which is God's may be rendered to God, and Truth and Love may meet together, Righteousness and Peace may kiss each other. Let us proceed to work then in Jesus name. If He is with us, all will turn out well. To Him I commend our cause it is also His. He is faithful and mighty over all. He will do it, and accomplish it."

These principles and views have not found expression merely in the writings of individuals, but in the proceedings and resolutions of several Conferences held by the leading members of the Church in the Rhenish provinces, lay as well as clerical. Should the Christian wisdom and meekness and faith, which have found utterance in the passages I have quoted from Kling and Dorner,—and I might add others from other writers animated by a kindred spirit, -be allowed to guide these councils, we might look forward with joyful, thankful hope to a time when our sister Church in Germany will rise out of her present humiliation in greater vigour and power than has ever yet been vouchsafed to her. At all events there is much in these extracts, from which we too, even now, may learn our own duty; and if we do so we shall be better prepared for meeting whatever dangers may await us. Moreover we too, if the Christian character of our Legislature is subverted by the admission of Jews, shall have to strive more urgently than we have ever yet done, to gain a properly constituted Ecclesiastical Synod.

"The State (says Dorner,—and his words would in that case apply to us) with which the Church has hitherto been so closely connected, no longer exists: a State of another character has occupied its place. Hence it can no longer be a question whether the Church shall continue in its present relation to the State. The State has already solved the question. By the same act, by which it made religious indifference its central principle, it also discarded the Christian Church from its heart. Discarded by the State as she is, she has no longer the power to regard what has been done as not done. Instead of wasting her strength in such idle fictions, she will descend to the condition of outward humiliation now assigned to her in comparison with her former eminence, but will seek,and this is her privilege and her strength, and the honour still left

to her, with God's help to turn this calamity into a blessing. Let her therefore gather her powers together, being set free from all those complexities and entanglements, which her previous relation to the State has caused, not without a perturbation of her inward nature. Let her convert this dismissal by the State into a true freedom before God, in her dependence on her Head, Christ. Let her remember the Apostolical saying, All things are yours, and Luther's, A Christian is a Lord of all things through faith. But let her not forget, as she has too often done hitherto, the second part of our Reformer's precious Treatise concerning the Freedom of a Christian, that The Christian is a servant of all things in love; studying above all to preserve love toward the poor, and to kindle it to a more glowing heat toward those classes, who, through their moral and religious debasement, accusing us as the cause of it, have become the unhappy, involuntary instruments of God's judgement against us. Let her embrace the whole body of the nation, more than she has ever yet done, with her love and care, from that position which has been forced upon her, and for which she has to set herself in order."

NOTE Z: p. 64.

In some of these latter Notes, I have been illustrating the feelings and principles, which ought to regulate our conduct here in England in these times of trial, by shewing what the wisest men in Germany regard as the duty of the Church in a condition of far more terrible trial. I will add two more extracts of the same kind. The first shall be from the Preface to the new Volume of Nitzsches Sermons, where, after stating that he had preacht at Berlin on the morning after the fatal night of the 18th of March before a very small congregation, but that, in doing so, he had rather prayed than preacht, as became such an awful moment, he adds: "The time into which we have been plunged unawares, and which is compelling us, by the most painful strokes from the rod of a great Master and Teacher, to learn the alphabet of all civil and legal order anew, must needs call the preacher also to his work

His outward position may seem changed and periled. The flood of our political life, which has too long been represt, and here and there vainly staved back, and which now is rushing over us all the more vehemently, may soon spread over the Church and our Universities and their constitution. So long however as we have hearers, and our Churches will rather grow fuller than emptier,the essential groundwork of our efficiency will not be altered. There is nothing new, the Scripture says, under the sun. The word of God is not astonisht by any of the things which have happened, and are daily happening. Very simple truths, which we have long misheard, will now, without our having any cause for onesided complaints, or for merely desiring the restoration of times gone by, be confirmed and illustrated by these events, and will be received as they never were before, in those tempers of mind which they have produced. The mischievous cupidity of selfishness, under the name of zeal for the public, has almost deprived us of that oath-hallowed inviolable centre, which must needs exist and be acknowledged, if a large mass are to act together for a great end, and to have a secure starting-point and goal. It has almost deprived us of the religion of social love. For this we have all to do penance, even such as may be able to trace the course of that spirit of errour, to which the Lord has given us up. We must point more than ever to that common enemy, who has not flesh and blood; and we must teach those who are called to the Kingdom of God, to put on and wield their true civic arms. For certain though it is that Providence will again shape this chaos into order, yet the work will still fail time after time in our hands, unless we seek in the fear of the Lord for the beginning of that wisdom, which looses and binds, which clears away and builds up. During this season of penitence and of the Passion, the tone of which must still predominate for a long time in our Sunday exercises, we may employ this evil time for unspeakable blessings; and they who proclaim the old and the new commandment, may go before all in that action and suffering which are requisite for carrying them into effect."

I know not how I can close these Notes more appropriately than

with the conclusion of Dorner's admirable Pamphlet. After unfolding his plan for the convocation of a general Synod of the German Evangelical Church, in such a manner as might be consistent with the establisht forms of their Ecclesiastical Law, with a view to the consolidation of the various Provincial Churches, whether holding the Lutheran or the Reformed Confession, into a United German Church, he says: "If this plan, which would secure the rights of evangelical freedom in a legal manner, with a faithful adherence to that which is already establisht, cannot be adopted, or if there be an unwillingness to follow it, then, for the moment, I see nothing else than the necessity of our acting for ourselves, with all the dangers, though transient ones, of anarchy and confusion. But I do not fear this. On the contrary I hope in God that our German princes, especially the Evangelical ones, will know how to act greatly in this great and solemn time in which we live. The ancestors of many of these princes took a glorious part in the Reformation in the sixteenth century. The illustrious descendants of these ancestors will be in their stead, when we are carrying out the second act of the Reformation, the Constitution of the United Evangelical Church. And as their noble ancestors did not ask, what shall we gain by affording protection and help to the Gospel? but, in a pure, princely spirit, did what was good and right, so their sons will not ask, what increase of power and dignity shall we obtain if we help in establishing the independence of the Evangelical Church, and in building up a United Evangelical German National Church? but will seek and find their reward in this good and great work itself, and in the thanks of posterity, who will bless their names, and rank them with their glorious ancestors of the age of the Reformation, still living in the hearts and mouths of all men.

"Are such thoughts of too lofty a flight? Is the hope too bold, of having a German National Church faithful to the Gospel? O, I know well in what a glaring contrast to this the real condition of Evangelical Christianity in Germany stands, and that too, not so much by reason of her sufferings, as of her guilt. Nor will I take my place among those, who, hovering to and fro between