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clave at Rome, are devising the best means for accomplishing this. They see as clearly as we do that through the influence of our republican institutions, and universal education, and popular literature, and daily intercourse with Protestants constantly asserting religious liberty, freedom of conscience, and the right of every man to interpret the Bible for himself — that through these subtle forces, forever at work, large numbers of their people are drifting away from the control of the priest and from their allegiance to the Church. This must be stopped - hence the desperate effort, already inaugurated, to drive the Bible from the public schools wherever they can, and where they cannot to establish parish schools under the control of the priests. And the Jesuits who have been expelled from so many countries of Europe at different periods, and even been condemned by the Roman Church itself, seem now to control the policy of the Church; and, as has been said, "confront our republic as it enters upon its secend century with an intimation that they are about to control it." But we go no farther at present. No doubt some of our readers will think all this uncalled for, and pronounce these suspicions and fears wholly groundless. But to show that we are not alone in our judgment of what is possible, and that others wiser than we, and more far-sighted, are not without apprehensions in this direction, we close with the following extract from the paper by John Jay in the International Review for March, 1880:

"That there is to be a struggle, and a hard one, for the control in our republic between the people constituting the State and the ecclesiastics who represent the Roman Church, no rational man who understands the situation can for a moment doubt. In the light of history and reason it seems equally clear, either that the struggle is now to be decided by maintaining against the opposition the supremacy of the State in its right of education intellectual and moral, in its administraof justice, in the safety of elections from priestly control, and in every other legitimate exercise of sovereignty, or that, if these be yielded through treachery or indifference, the struggle will sooner or later be transferred to the battle field, and decided in the most terrible of conflicts, a religious war."

Religious World.

Official statistics have shown how largely Intemperance contributes to crime, and adds to the tax burdens of the sober and industrious portion of the community. And it is amazing that the great body of the people, who derive no gains from the infamous traffic, can be persuaded to tolerate this prolific source of evil, of cruelty, moral degra

dation and human diabolism; amazing that they can go on year after year patiently suffering themselves to be legally robbed of their earnings to support criminal courts, swarms of police, almshouses, jails and prisons — solely for the purpose of enabling a small minority of liquor-sellers to accumulate fortunes.

But statistics have shown, too, that Alcohol is not the only source of crime, nor alone responsible for the growth of pauperism among us. Ignorance and idleness, the want of a knowledge of some kind of a trade in early life, are also most active and efficient agents in the work, and every year are adding their quota to the dangerous and perishing classes. The New York State Board of Charities says, according to a writer in the Methodist Quarterly of July last, that

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By far the greater part of convicted criminals have never been educated in any branch of useful industry. They hence enter the competitions of life at a disadvantage inferior or incapable and while there is room enough for those who, by thorough apprenticeship, possess professional or mechanical skill; these others in the struggles for a livelihood are pushed empty-handed to the wall: left without employment, without money, having no alternative but to beg or steal."

In confirmation of this it is added that in the year ending November, 1881, there were sentenced to Onondaga Penitentiary, from the neighboring counties, 995 criminals. Of these 120 were from twenty different mechanical trades; while of " laborers, domestics, tramps, hostlers, and boatmen," there were 674. And if to this we add the following from the Christian Union of October, 1878, we have good ground for the assertion that the want of a trade, of employment, of a knowledge of some kind of business, is one of the most fruitful causes of crime, and deserves almost to rank with Intemperance. Let parents study these facts, and take warning in time:

"Of 408 convicts in the Michigan State Prison, seventy-two per cent. are, or were, addicted to the use of liquor; but sixty-two per cent. had no trade. Of 489 prisoners in an Iowa penitentiary 305 are without any trade education. In a Minnesota prison are 235 convicts; at least 130 of them never learned any business. In the large State prison of Illinois, of 1,500 criminals, one third had no regular occupation before commitment. In the Penitentiary of Western Pennsylvania are 396 convicts, of whom 310 never learned a trade, but sixty-two per cent. of whom were addicted to liquor-drinking."

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"Nature" cites the following from a French journal, the Union Médicale of last June, as a discovery of great scientific interest. it turns out to be real, says the editor, "it will show that pre-historic man is no longer a myth":

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"On piercing a new gallery in a coal mine at Bully-Grenay (Pasde-Calais), a cavern was broken into oontaining six fossil human bodies intact, a man, two women, and three children, as well as the remains of arms and utensils in petrified wood and stone, and numerous fragments of mammals and fish. A second subterranean cave contained eleven bodies of large dimensions, several animals and a great number of various objects, together with precious stones. The walls were decorated with designs of combats between men and animals of gigantic size. A third and still larger chamber appeared to be empty, but could not be entered in consequence of the carbonic acid it contained, which is being removed by ventilators. The fossil bodies have been brought up to the surface, and five of them will be exhibited at the mairie of Lens: the others are to be sent to Lille, in order to undergo examination by the Faculté des Sciences. Representatives of the Académie des Sciences of Paris, and of the British Museum, having been telegraphed for, are expected to be present."

The following is from Dr. McCosh's "Certitude, Providence and Prayer," No. 4 of the "Philosophic Series." Perhaps it is pertinent to ask why he should believe that God has constituted the natural world on more beneficent principles than those ruling in the spiritual world. If there is a struggle in the material universe in which "it is certain that in the end good will gain the victory," is it bad philosophy or bad theology to conclude that in the struggle going on in the moral and spiritual realm, it is also certain that "good will gain the victory?" "When we look to this crowning goodness (of God) we feel as if there were something unnatural in the evils which appear in our world. It looks as if creation were unwillingly subject to them. Nature seems to rebel against the evils that are in it. For the creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who hath subjected the same in hope.' The creation is striving against the tendency to evil. If there be diseases in our world, there are also remedies. Nature everywhere seeks to restore itself. If there be winters in the succession of seasons, they are followed by springs, going on to summers and autumns. If there be travailing it is in order to birth. If there be deaths, there are also resurrections. Nature is struggling, but it is in order to improvement. It is ploughing in order to sow and reap in due season. All creation is moving onward, but also upward. There is a struggle for existence, but a certainty also that in the end the good will gain the victory."

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If Dr. McCosh cannot apply this reasoning to the moral as well as the physical universe, we commend him to the larger belief and more logical reasoning of " Big Thunder," with whom George S. Merriam had the pleasing and instructive interviews which he reports to the Christian Union of Dec. 6 To the question of Mr, Merriam, "And what is your belief?" he replied, "Well, I believe there is a Greater

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Power with us. He is all about us; He hears every words the atmosphere! I wish I could say what I want to; I haven't any English to put my thoughts in. I don't believe that when we die we shall go to a place where we burn up. It isn't reasonable. It's something here that we've got to do with. If I put my hand in the fire, it will burn; if I don't, it won't. Some people say, after being miserable here, we shall be burned forever. dren suffer? end in a good place."

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I believe in heaven.

But would we make our chilThe Greater Power's works must

-The newspapers and religious journals have lately been so full of reports of the person, mission, sayings and doings of the Hindu philosopher and teacher, Baber Chunder Mozoomdar, that it would be superfluous for us to attempt any description of the man or his lectures. Never was a heathen man, if such he may be called, received with such universal welcome by orthodox and heterodox alike, as this representative of the Brahmo Somaj, this missionary of the ancient East to the modern West. Never was a man listened to with more interest, or his eloquence and fervent piety more thoroughly appreciated and frankly acknowledged. And never before has it been understood how near some phases of reformed heathenism approach to the teachings of Christianity when freed from the dogmas of the Church. The Congregationalist reports Dr. Scudder as saying that he considers "Mozoomdar one of the ablest men he knows, and Chunder Sen, at the head of the movement, one of the grandest men the world has to-day. "He had read Mozoomdar's Oriental Christ, and from that and his talk he believes him to be a Christian. That was why he invited him into his pulpit."

We give below some of the articles of belief held by the Brahmo Somaj, from a recent statement, which will surely commend themselves to the approval of our readers:

"The Brahmo Somaj believes that God is, that He is a Spirit, and that He is One without a second.

"That God is present in us and with us. He directs all the functions of the body and mind according to fixed laws. He watches over our thoughts and actions. His spirit surrounds us and fills us, and is the cause and centre of all physical and mental forces.

"That God is present in all the aspects and laws of nature and nothing takes place without His will and power.

"That as God's general providence superintends the affairs of all mankind and the world at large, so His special providence presides

over the circumstances and destinies of individual men, and leads them through mysterious ways from evil to good.

"That the immortality of the soul means eternal progress in goodness and godliness.

"That without faith in a future existence, religion is impossible. "That sin is the wilful violation of God's laws, material, moral, and spiritual.

"That there is neither a material heaven nor a material hell; but that heaven and hell are the states and relations of a man's being, according to the merits of his life, both here and hereafter."

CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE.

1. The Philosophical Basis of Theism; An Examination of the Personality of Man to ascertain his capacity to know and serve God, and the validity of the principles underlying the defence of Theisin By Samuel Harris, D.D, LL.D., Professor of Systematic Theology in Yale College. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. $3.50.

To give our readers a detailed statement of the contents and character of this volume would require an entire number of the QUARTERLY. We must be content with a very inadequate statement of its aims. It reveals the pleasing fact that, no matter at what point Religion, Christianity, may be attacked, there is always somewhere a defender amply competent to repel the attack, and put the enemy himself on the defence and in this case Dr, Harris is the man. His work is purely and profoundly metaphysical, embracing the ripe results of years of study and teaching in psychology, ethics, theology, the philosophy of religion, and the relations of science to religion.

In his survey of the vast field of inquiry nothing seems to have escaped him, nothing is superficial; no difficulty is treated contempuously, no honest doubt, no serious objection is passed by without notice. He takes up every question in a judicial temper, and seems to seek and desire only truth. He appears to have studied carefully the leading thinkers and authors. at home and abroad, in almost every school of philosophy, theology and speculation. The extent of his reading is wonderful, and the amount of thinking put into these pages is incalculable. tires us to think even of the days and nights, the months and years of brain labor that this volume must have cost the author. And yet his style, his clear statements, the variety of subjects treated, the rich fruits of his vast reading, the informing character of his historical allusions, his interesting illustrations and the sharpness of his logic, make it easy, and often very pleasant, reading.

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We can only allude to a few points. He magnifies his office, or his subject more correctly, and insists that metaphysics investigates and declares ideas and principles on which all science depends, and reaches results the reality of which cannot be impugned without disintegrating the results of all scientific thought. Experimental or empirical science must deal with metaphysical ideas and principles; and physics to-day rests on these, and is largely occupied with the discussion of metaphysical and theological questions. The reality of scientific knowledge ultimately depends on the reality of the existence of God as the Absolute Reason energizing the universe, and the primary ground of all that is.

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