the

either of some single director or particular missionaries. Combined effort there has been none; nor have the public at large, or even the great body of orthodox Christians, interested themselves at all in the subject, or even been made acquainted with the facts. They would seem almost to have gone upon principle of not letting the left hand know what the right hand doeth; one society having known little or nothing of the proceedings of the others. Nor in the present time of awakening excitement, has there been hitherto any great improvement in this respect. Societies have been established and have become individually more active; but they have as yet no united plan of action. The missionary society of Berlin, for instance, which one would suppose might naturally extend its branches, at least throughout the north of Germany, has no branches. So also of Leipsic and other cities. The nearest approach to union is in the south of Germany; where the Missionary Seminary of Basle forms a nucleus, around which cluster the affections and the exertions of Christians in the neighbouring states of Baden and Würtemburg. Here is published a quarterly Missionary Journal, and weekly Missionary Reports, which obtain a wide circulation and excite a deep interest in the missionary cause.

The reason of all this want of concert, and of this comparative public inefficiency of Christian effort in Germany, is not difficult to be discovered. Broken up as they are into fifty or more different sovereignties, without a common capital either of literature or commerce, there is no one central point, towards which either religious feeling or religious effort could easily be directed. There is moreover always a sort of jealousy of feeling between the inhabitants of different states, which, not being merged, as here, in any more powerful national feeling, prevents them in some degree from acting heartily in concert. Perhaps however we may, with more reason, ascribe this public inactivity to that want of practical efficiency and energy, which must be regarded as constituting a feature of the national character. The Germans are the subjects of despotic govern

* At the present day also, the German public at large are very little acquainted with the missionary and other benevolent operations of the age, even of their own country; much less with those of other countries. Here an ignorance of these things implies an utter indifference, if not hostility, to the cause itself; there it would be unjust and harsh to draw at once such a conclusion.

ments; they are unused to plans of public improvement; since these are there the business of the governments, and not of individuals. There is nothing to awaken what we call public spirit; and this therefore is a thing unknown among the body of the na-. tion, except in great emergencies. Such was the war of 1813, when the whole of Prussia rose up as one man, and drove the relentless oppressor of their country to his distant and desolate rock of the ocean. But in matters which depend on long continued activity; where there is no external pressure, but the impulse must come from within; they are prone to remain in the same state in which their fathers were. The same want of an enterprising spirit in practical affairs, which characterizes the people in their worldly business, spreads also its composing influence over their religious efforts. The spirit of tranquillity and dislike of change pervades their conduct throughout. In New England, a congregation becomes too large to be longer able to meet within its church; a new one is erected almost of course, and the congregation divides. A society separates from any other cause, and builds a second place of worship at once. A church is burned down, or is far decayed, or is old and out of good taste; another is immediately erected; and all this, usually, solely from the funds of the society or congregation itself. How many instances, or perhaps hundreds of instances, of this kind, might be pointed out in New England within the last ten years? In Germany, as has been said above, the present churches, almost without exception, have come down from a period before the Reformation. They are many of them in a state of great dilapidation; and often seem ready to tumble in and bury the worshippers beneath their ruins. Yet no one even thinks of rebuilding them; and if an absolute necessity arises, if a church be burned down, or itself crumbles to ruins, it is first the government that must bestow the funds; and if these be not sufficient, subscriptions are set on foot throughout the land. It is not perhaps too much to say, that if the churches in Germany were by any event to be destroyed, they could not in the present state of feeling be rebuilt. An emergency of such a kind might indeed kindle the latent spark of public spirit to a high effort in behalf of religion; and once enkindled, by whatever means, it might burn on with a flame ever brighter and holier, until the whole land were filled with its brightness, and all be led to walk and act together in the light thereof.

The remarks in this and the two preceding numbers, upon the subject of theological education in Germany, and upon the general character of the clergy and of the church at large, have been extended to a length far greater than was at first anticipated; and still many topics connected with these subjects are left untouched, in regard to which the writer is well aware that the Christian public would gladly receive information. But enough has been crowded into the consideration of the present topic; and it depends chiefly on circumstances beyond human control, whether the writer will be able to treat of subjects of a similar kind in future numbers of this work. It must depend also, in some measure, on the taste and wishes of the public; for it would be useless to deal out food which no one relishes or desires.

If now we cast our eyes over the remarks and illustrations which have been offered, two reflections seem to present themselves spontaneously to our notice. The first is, that they all go to exemplify and confirm a remark made at the very outset (p. 1), that the Germans are a nation of little practical energy, but of vast intellectual exertion and activity." We do not need to dwell upon this point; because this feature may be, and is, properly assumed as nationally characteristic; and all the remarks hitherto made, afford an incidental, though not intentional, elucidation of it.

The second reflection above alluded to is this; that we have in the case of the German churches, a practical exhibition of all the benefits which can ever be expected to arise from a dependence of the church on the state; with perhaps only those evils which are inseparable from such a connexion. We see the church armed with the power, which in this country she can never possess, of authoritatively regulating the qualifications of her pastors; and furnished with all the apparatus of schools and universities and able and learned teachers, to carry her requisitions into complete effect. We see the civil power lending its aid to enforce all these requisitions; to erect and repair churches; to augment the income of the clergy; to recommend attendance on public worship and the practice of virtue and religious duty. What more, it may be asked, can a church need, in order to go on and prosper, and grow every day in strength and influence and usefulness? Alas! these things are but the frame-work, the naked skeleton strung together with wires, which an external hand moves and regulates at

will! Unless the flesh and blood, the warm vigour of life, the all pervading and directing soul, be there, then is all power and authority, all talent and learning however profound, of no avail whatever. In Germany the governments give to the church all the aid which human power can afford; but still they are but the external hand that manages the wires. Nor can it be otherwise. How can laws infuse religious life and spirit into a body politic? How can they render this pastor orthodox, or that one pious? They may make indeed such a requisition; but how can they enforce it? Laws can do no more than establish a creed; and this creed may demand of all those who take it, the fullest orthodoxy and the holiest feelings. But can it excite or produce them? Can it reach the heart and conscience and bring them into subjection? The example of every nation where a creed is thus enforced, proclaims the negative; and proclaims, moreover, that wherever law thus undertakes to regulate religion and religious belief, there the latter droops and dies; and that wherever religion has flourished and shone with the greatest splendour, it has been in spite of such laws, and often against the influence and power of civil government. Indeed the history of the church establishes this as a universal fact. Christianity arose at first and gathered strength in defiance of civil power. She has ever sunk when this power has taken her under its protection. Let the American churches then rejoice, that here the arm of the civil government cannot be raised to proffer them help, and to demand in return the sacrifice of their independence. Let but the spirit of love dwell in their hearts, and the spirit of active devotion animate their bosoms, and then, if God vouchsafe his Spirit, the churches of this land will need no human aid; trusting in God and Christ their Head, they may go fearlessly onward; and while they find, as they will find, their own strength to be weakness, they will also learn that in this very weakness lies their greatest strength.

ART. II. ON SIMPLICITY IN THE INTERPRETATION OF THE

NEW TESTAMENT.

By J. A. H. Tittmann, Professor of Theology in the University of Leipsic. Translated from the Latin by the Editor.*

THAT the church of Christ is governed not by the will of man, but by the Spirit of God, we are admonished by the approach of the holy festival, on which we are to celebrate the remembrance of that Pentecost, when the apostles were first divinely imbued with this same Spirit; in accordance with the promise which our Lord had given them at his departure from the world. At that time, indeed, it was the case, as often happens to those who seek the hope of safety or the cause of fear in the external vicissitudes of things, that the full import of the high benefit which the apostles then received, was understood by very few. Nor was it entirely comprehended at a later period, when the church had become corrupted by the lust of power and the authority of mere human opinions. But in this our day, when we behold all things governed by an external power, and the laws of right reason haughtily contemned, it is very seldom that men raise their minds to the contemplation of the holy, pure, divine, internal, and eternal kingdom of God; but borne down under the sense of present evils, they either acquiesce through torpor in those things which they see and feel to be inevitable, or are compelled, however unwillingly, to yield to them the service of their whole lives.+ There are also not a few, so forgetful of the promise of our Lord that he will bestow τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας upon his church, as to regard the church of Christ as little other than a human institution. But this opinion is refuted by the voice of time; for never has the Spirit of God wholly deserted the church, even in the periods

See the Introductory Notice in No. I. p. 160. The present ́article appeared originally in 1811, as a Programm or invitation to the celebration of the festival of Pentecost or Whitsuntide. This circumstance will account for the manner in which the subject is introduced. The introduction, as well as the conclusion, is here retained as a specimen of this mode of writing.-ED.

†There would seem to be in this sentence a general allusion to the political thraldom and despondent feeling of Germany, at the period when the article was written.-ED.