II. LITERARY. "THE FRENCH VAUDOIS" is the title of a little brochure just issued with the intent of calling public attention to this suffering people. The Protestants of France are not all of the same origin. In the Vaucluse and in the Upper Alps are Churches that to-day are included in the Protestant ecclesiastical organization but whose origin is anterior to the Reformation, and who are attached by an uninterrupted thread to that "heretical and unevangelical sect" to which a merchant of Lyons-one Peter Valdo-has left his name. Driven back by persecution into the elevated valleys of the Upper Alps, the Vaudois maintained their position there; when the Reformation came they joined the Huguenots, and shared their fate, and were persecuted with them, and one can say that they are all brothers, the Vaudois being the elder brothers. But unfortunately also they are brothers disinherited. The Alpine valleys where they settled were never fertile, and their soil, now exhausted, no longer suffices to supply the wants of the inhabitants, and especially in the valley of Freissinières their misfortune is deep and incurable; the earth can no longer support them. The replanting of the crests, and the transformation of the fields into pasturages for a long series of years, seem to be the only means of rendering the soil a little fertile. These are remedies that are expensive and require time, and which can only be applied if the majority of the population abandon the valley and seek another asylum. A committee formed at Lyons has assisted in establishing in Algeria a dozen families of the valley of Freissinières. The effort has been a success, and this committee of Lyons will pursue its work, but what it has done is little in comparison with what is to be done, and it is now absolutely necessary to act. On the one hand an opportunity is offered to obtain gratuitously an important concession of land near the Trois-Marabouts; on the other hand the letters of Pastor Liotard depict in the gravest light the most somber condition of the valley, where the people are literally dying of hunger. EDMOND SCHERER, the great Protestant teacher and author of Paris, has been called to his reward, to the great grief of his colleagues and thousands of his countrymen. The doctrine taught by Scherer, in the lecture-room, the pulpit, and on the public forum, was that Protestantism must be no mere negative force, that would have in it no more life than Romanism itself. Scherer was of a family originally Swiss, but he was born in Paris in 1815. While a pupil of Voltaire in England the power of a living Christianity entered his heart, and after his conversion he immediately began a course of theological study. His preparation was so thorough and his talents so brilliant that he was soon called to a Protestant faculty in Geneva. Here, with the genius of a D'Aubigné and a Gaussen, he for awhile defended the sternest Calvinism. He wrote several noted works, as Reformation in the Nineteenth Century, Alexander Vinet, Letters to My Curate, and a dogmatic guide, Prolegomena to the Dogmatics of the Reformed Church. But suddenly he was drawn into a crisis of belief the result of which was a great change in his convictions, even to going quite over into the liberal ranks. He soon began to write for the liberal Revue de Theologie, edited by Colam, and devoted himself exclusively to the study of literature and history. Then he became deputy, then senator, and finally played a political role; but through all this he was imbued with deep moral feelings. Through all his religious vagaries and wanderings he retained many of his early friends, and it is surprising to find so general an expression among Protestants of grief at his loss. THE RUSSIAN MINISTRY OF WORSHIP has just issued an annual report that does not show the best condition or temper. The procurator in this report complains loudly about the Catholic and the Lutheran Churches, which are having triumph in the Polish territory and the Baltic Provinces. In the district of Volhyia the Roman Catholic peasants are pictured as being well inclined toward the Russian Church, but the Catholic landowners are not so, and do what they can to foster fanaticisms through their priests and the Polish traditions. In Podolia the Russian priests are having all they can do to stem the tide of fanatical propaganda now being waged by the "Polish Latinists." In Warsaw it goes slowly with the expansion of the Russian Church. It seems that according to the "new style" the feast-days of the Catholic Church come twelve days earlier than those of the Russo-Greek Church, and thus cast the festivals of the latter into the background by exhausting the people. And again, it is affirmed that baptism and the burial of the dead occur without the co-operation of the "Orthodox Church;" and, in a word, so far as the Catholic Church in Russia is concerned, the Orthodox Church has nothing but complaints to make. But the Russians are encouraged by the grip which they are getting on the Lutherans in the Baltic Provinces.. The procurator announces with joy that about six thousand souls have been wrested from the Lutherans without the possibility of their return. In this way the Russian Churches in the Baltic Provinces have increased from one hundred and fifty-six to one hundred and sixty-eight. But in spite of the fact that the Lutherans of the Baltic can make no headway against the Russian propaganda, the procurator complains about the persecutions of those who have come over to the Russian Church! IN THE ORIENT we perceive by late reports that the patriarchate of Jerusalem is in a serious crisis. The patriarch Nicodemus, one of the founders of the Russian Palestine Society, and who, since 1884, has been advancing the interests of the Russian Church and trying to get possession of the holy places, has lately effected a loan of ten thousand pounds by pledging the estates of the Holy Grave situated in Bessarabia. The synod of Jerusalem, composed of about twenty bishops subordinate to the patriarchate metropolitan of Jerusalem, sent in a complaint to the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople and the grand vizier in which they raise the accusation against Nicodemus that he is squandering the property of the congregation of the Holy Grave, and that after spending all the cash in the treasury he has mortgaged the estates belonging to the congregation. The Porte thereupon enjoined the said Nicodemus from doing any more such transactions, when the patriarch, seeing the storm coming, handed in his resignation, which was accepted. The new election will give play to bitter conflicts, since Russia will not lightly let go of the advantages which she has already gained in Palestine. Per contra, Beyroot is rapidly gaining an important place in the Orient. By its position and its lively trade it is fast becoming the key of Syria. Colleges, schools, and institutes of learning have been greatly increased in late years. The Catholics have come in of late, and the Jesuits have established the University of St. Joseph, in which are taught theology, philosophy, and medicine to about five hundred students in all. The American Protestant College of Beyroot thus finds quite a competitor, but it keeps nobly on in its work. "ROMAN EXCAVATIONS" is the title of the latest story about the Catacombs, which in the year past have again surprised the world with revelations not before seen. The Catacomb of St. Priscilla, on the Via Salaria, has been the scene of the greatest activity, and it is now said to contain the oldest of the representations of the holy family. In the exhumed galleries and crypts have been found many mural paintings: Jonas, the healing of the blind, Adam and Eve, and another specimen of Orpheus playing the lyre. But of far more worth for archæological science is the discovery of an ancient Christian private house under the Basilica of Sts. Giovanni and Paolo. For some time it has been known that some cluttered vaults were under the Basilica and the adjoining cloister, and in 1887 Father Germano began to make excavations that are not yet concluded, but which now leave no doubt about the existence of an old Christian house under these structures. The said friar was guided by the topographical data of the two martyrs executed under Julian, and from whom the Basilica takes its name; and he was not deceived. Their Christian origin is attested by many Christian paintings, with which is allied an ornamentation in Pompeiian style. It is now to be tested whether these two groups of paintings belong to the same period. The paintings in the burial vault connected with the house where the two martyrs found a burial-place are very peculiar. An execution is very clearly delineated. Three persons, two of them women, are kneeling on the ground, their eyes covered with a narrow bandage. Two male figures, evidently executioners, are near them. The picture belongs possibly to the fourth century, and if so it is the oldest scene of martyrdom that has hitherto been depicted in Christian art. We may hope that Father Germano will come to a happy and clear result in his excavations, carried on with so much zeal; for this alone can give a reliable solution of the problem involved in this Christian monument. It may in the meantime be safely averred that the outcome of these excavations will be of the utmost importance. PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION. HISTORY is without explanation except as its movements are referred to that invincible spirit that broods over the ages, and which is slowly conducting the world out of moral chaos into the beauty and perfection of righteousness. Christianity in one form or another, notwithstanding Buckle's materialistic theory of civilization, is the root of human progress and the inspiration of the ceaseless activity of the race. The world is evolving into shape according to an underlying and overruling plan of Providence, which, sometimes permitting apparent reverses to schemes of reform, philanthropy, patriotism, and millennial good-will, in the end again grasps the reins and directs events toward the distant consummation. History is a divine plan, engineered by the divine hand, working out a purpose lofty and beneficent, and employing every thing, even the adversity that mocks at divine wrath, for the successful intrenchment of righteousness in the earth. Christianity is the agent of the world-wide and age-long progress which the nineteenth century has witnessed and is emphasizing. There is no reform that it does not stimulate, no philanthropy that it does not suggest, no patriotism that it does not sanctify, no industry that it does not approve, no calling that it does not beautify, and no race that it does not endow with the rights of brotherhood and a share in the providential work of establishing paradise again in the earth. Whatever Gibbon's explanation of Christianity, it is here as the instrument of progress; whatever Buckle's theory of history, there is little left with Christianity as the impulsive force omitted; whatever Comte and Häckel may attribute to humanity, it owes to Christianity the spirit of development that now is manifest. Interpret history from materialism, atheism, infidelity, agnosticism, or from humanity apart from the significant influence of the religious element, and it is inexplicable, or it appears a gigantic failure; interpret it from the stand-point of Christianity, even from the accident of Eden, and riddles disappear, while truth shines with its own illumination. That the Quebec The Jesuits have scored another victory in Canada. Legislature should vote the payment of $400,000 to the Roman Catholics on the ground that certain estates had been wrongfully taken from them many years ago is an evidence of the preponderating influence of the Romish Church in the governmental affairs of the Dominion. We do not often learn of the spiritual work of the old Church, but it is no new thing to hear of its financial conquests, secured by tricks in legislation, frauds in will-making, or indirect confiscation of the property of its members. We hear of temporal projects on a grand scale; of its political maneuvers in all lands, of schemings for office and control of empires, but little of reforms, public philanthropies, popular education, patriotic enterprises, and spiritual achievements. Why should a Church be the foe of civil government? Why should monarchs tremble at the keys of St. Peter? What spiritual power has the lonely inhabitant of the Vatican over the nations? Neither Methodism nor the American Republic fears the infallible mortal nor bows to his mandates. Let Canada, England, Europe, quench the viper, or expect to be bitten by it and die ! Chemistry yields to the inevitable, and vacates its long-taught maxims concerning elementary substances. Of the seventy elements supposed to enter into the composition of the earth's crust. it was found that only thirteen were prominently active, and of these only four, oxygen, carbon, silicon, and nitrogen, could be obtained in quantities. Recently, the chemist who believes in going on until something new is discovered has contradicted the theory of the principal elements, declaring that they are compound, and therefore resolvable into many constituent, or simple, elements. A chemist of Vienna has announced the decomposition of some of the simple elements. Dr. Kruss, of Munich, has decomposed cobalt and nickel, which have been on the list of elementary substances. Lord Crawford, of Scotland, has found bright lines in the spectrum, a discovery that startles astronomers as well as chemists. This is all in harmony with Dr. Prout's theory that hydrogen is the atomic unit, a starting-point of the universe; a theory ridiculed at first, and supposed to be shaken by subsequent discovery, but recent data confirm the general view of an atomic unit which, under the manipulation of divine power, evolved into the universe. We believe in the atomic unit, whether it be hydrogen, oxygen, or any thing else; and that the compound implies the simple, and the simple implies the original unit. In this way the unity of the universe is deciphered, and when proclaimed it makes for the unity of God. Thus chemistry is theology in disguise. The civilization of Africa depends more upon the agencies employed by the nations engaged in that responsibility than upon any resuscitating energies and concurring influences supposed to exist in the native tendencies of the two hundred millions now inhabiting the great and dark continent. Degenerate peoples do not, by their impulses and intuitions, lift themselves into regenerate conditions and environments, but must be assisted by external and superior forces. The lower is not of itself projected into the higher, but the higher stoops down and lifts the lower to its level. The antecedent condition of the regeneration of Africa is a civilization imparted to it by nations themselves civilized and Christianized, but the method of this impartation is one of serious concern, as it involves the introduction of vice as well as virtue. England forced the opium traffic into China, and is now largely responsible for intemperance in India, making the civilization of the one an uncertainty and that of the other a burdensome task. Africa is in danger of the double influence of civilization. The Congo Railroad, uniting the eastern and western sections of the Congo basin, and to be completed in two years, is offset by the introduction of rum from Boston into the pleasant valley. Thus the destroyer |