Lutheran divines and preachers. The And we may add, (which we do with sincere liturgic system no doubt has a strong hold pleasure,) that in consequence of the spread in the sacramentarian doctrine which tends of juster views of inspiration, an extensive to exalt the altar, as the seat of a present agitation is in progress for expurgating the Deity, above the pulpit; but multitudes of Bible itself by the extrusion of the ApocryLutherans reject this consequence; and the pha from its traditional place in Luther's powerful appeal of Dr. Schenkel in the late version, and every other made on the German Berlin Kirchentag, against any undue trust soil. A considerable section have already in ceremonialism, urged home by the ex-given in their adhesion to this reform. It is ample of the Church of Rome in seeking to reported, on good authority, that two of the conquer Germany at this day, not by litur-most influential clergymen in Germany, gies, but by Jesuit sermons, evidently made Sander of Elberfeld, and Kapff of Stuttgard, as strong an impression upon the more have declared in its favour; though they Lutheran as upon the more Reformed part have certainly taken no public part, that of his audience. One of the salutary fruits, we are aware of, in the controversy which however, of this liturgical awakening, is the is at this moment in its full career. Two attention concentrated on the defective state men, whose antecedents might have warof the hymn books used in most of the Ger- ranted a different expectation, Dr. Hengstenman churches. The manly strength and berg of Berlin, and Dr. Rudolph Stier have fervour of hymns of the richest and best come to the rescue of the Apocrypha, not as period, from Luther to Paul Gerhard, have claiming for it any shadow of inspired often been destroyed by the (not less Ger- authority, but vindicating with stronger man than English) gift of hymn-book editors, words than arguments its use in the same to deprave poetry into doggerel and senti- volume with the Bible, as an illustrative mentalism; while the still heavier curse of document. It cannot be denied that great unsound and rationalizing doctrine has in prejudices obstruct the success of this agitamany cases been superadded by consistories tion. But it is so far satisfactory that it is and commissions ambitious to praise God prosecuted now, not as in 1825, on strictly according to the spirit of the age. Besides, German ground, and between German comthe most hopeless diversity, both in the se- batants; so that the cause of truth need not lection and in the text of the same hymns, be imperilled by the suspicion of English has broken up all national unity, and splin- influence, of which the Germans are strongly, tered into different and differently set frag- and it must be owned, unreasonably inments, this unrivalled brilliant of German tolerant. Protestantism, beyond all question the most precious in Christendom. The rectification The sketch of German ecclesiastical of this evil, as already hinted, is attempted, activity now given would not be complete, in compliance with a unanimous demand of without a closing glance at the subject public feeling, by the united authorities of of domestic missions, including all the extra the German national churches; and German official efforts of clergymen and laymen to worship will thus become more pure and recover the alienated masses to religious more catholic. A not less laudable result conviction and practice. The alarming neof awakened activity is the attempt to cessity for such exertions became glaringly improve the rite of confirmation by impart- apparent in the year of the Revolution. The ing to it a more simple and less spectacular Church, though beginning to awake before, and dramatic character; but the same can was aroused by that catastrophe, as by the hardly be said of the effort to revive the thunder of an earthquake, in which all social ancient Lutheran practice of confession be- relations seemed about to fall in ruins about fore the Lord's Supper; which though her head. The effect was much the same advocated by men like Dr. F. W. Krum- as that caused by the excesses of the first macher, who belong, by education to the French Revolution upon England. A great Reform, is not likely to find general re- deal of the religion that followed in both ception, and is chiefly valuable as indicating cases was the disguised apprehension of a wish to raise church discipline from its men of property and power for their shaking prostrate condition. Akin to this depart- institutions, verifying so far the saying of ment are the struggles carried on, not Lucretius, "Primos in orbe Deos fecit without hope of succes, in Baden, Nassau, timor." But more in both instances was Lippe, and other states, to oust the meagre the result of genuine Christian patriotism, catechisms of the rationalized period from trembling for the ark of God; and it is to be their usurped place in the education of the hoped that the impulse will be as long young for confirmation, and to restore the sustained and effective in Germany as it has Heidelberg or Luther's smaller manual. been for sixty years in Britain. As it is, the most careless observer must notice the circulating essays suited to their culture; remarkable change of sentiment. Not only is and the admirable papers of Prelat Kapff on Hegel shunned like the Encyclopédie, and the "Domestic Worship," and "The Inner Misdemi-gods of the literary sphere, Goethe and sion among the Clergy," deserve to be placed Schiller, made to give place to the mighty in the same rank with the speeches of Wireturning shade of Luther; but a concen- chern. These names may be said to form trated practical effort, (as yet, alas, all too now the binary star of the Inner Missionweak!) is put forth to permeate with Chris- the former its author, and the representative tian influences the long-neglected masses of of the free associations; the latter its most the population. The Inner Mission, which eminent advocate among the clergy, and the dates from the first Wittenberg assembly, representative of the official Church. The tract in 1848, and formed its must hopeful feature, of Prelate Kapff, on the "Inner Mission is holding on its career of good with increasing among the Clergy," a tract worthy of Leighactivity. Innumerable affiliated societies ton or Baxter, and as completely free from have gathered round it, some previously High Church leaven, has been circulated by existing, more created by its influence, which the Inner Mission amongst all the clergy of attempt the rescue of the outcast and de- Germany, through the local ecclesiastical graded. Houses of refuge, orphan houses, governments, to the number of 12,000; the sick visitation and pauper societies, peniten- governments of Saxony, Baden, and Old tiaries, young men's societies-intended to Bavaria alone rejecting the gift, probably counteract the frightful immorality and in- from jealousy of interference by a free assofidelity of the travelling workmen which ciation, and the first of these expressly circulate from end to end of Germany in declaring that all the duties of the clergy thousands deaconesses' institutions and should be enforced in the name of Christ by sisterhoods (without celibacy)-temperance a body of undoubted and not of doubtful societies, necessitated by the growing in- legitimation. This is a sample of the miscrease of the use of brandy; all these and construction which the Inner Mission has had other associations have been called into to sustain from rationalism and high Lutherbeing or invigorated from this energetic anism; but it is gratifying to find that the centre. These institutions are all conducted latter has also been excited to good works, on the strictest religious principle, having if not to love, by this rivalry, and has the gospel of Christ for their beginning and organized separate missionary schemes on end. The Inner Mission besides is directly its own purist principle, to its own heart's engaged in the work of Christian teaching by content and the public benefit. Last, among its travelling and railway missionaries, and the happy results of the Inner Mission may its tract and Bible distribution in hotels, and be noticed its reaction on the existing means among the crowds of emigrants that are of religious instruction. The churches long continually leaving the German shores, as closed on the Lord's-day evening have in well as among the home population. It has many cases been opened for service, with also in conjunction with the Kirchentag, of the full concurrence of the ecclesiastical which it is an organic branch, made repre- authorities, and largely frequented. Attensentations both to the governments and tion has been strongly drawn to the evils of people of Germany, in behalf of Lord's-day the collegiate system, by which in great observance, which have in many instances cities a parish of 40,000 or 50,000 souls is produced a visible impression. It has acted vaguely divided among six or eight parish to some considerable degree as a rallying- clergy, with nothing of the pastoral tie but point for candidates for the ministry, who the name. The immense outgrowth by the are scattered, to the number of four thou- population of the existing parochial system, sand, over north and central Germany alone, which has remained inelastic and rigid for often in great destitution both inward and centuries, has been brought before the ruling outward; and has supplied to the more powers with a view to church extension; worthy a means of personal improvement and and even a strong opinion expressed by Dr. usefulness in its service. It has also re- Wichern of the necessity of street preachacted upon German society at home, ing; which, however, the overstrained etiby awakening a Christian sympathy for the quette of the German pulpit, to say nothing German diaspora in the great cities of Eu of police regulations, will probably forbid. rope, whose spiritual condition it has held up Everywhere, however, a healthy activity is in all its deplorable colours. Nor has it radiating from the Inner Mission; which, confined itself to the lower stratum of the while advocating the grand principle of the social mass, as the title "Inner Mission" universal priesthood of believers, prudently might lead an English reader to suppose. conciliates the possessors of office; and it is It has appealed also to the higher classes by possible that even at the eleventh hour its indefatigable efforts and the other labours even the dreams of her philosophy, to say of the noble-hearted men who form its life and soul, may yet save Germany from the throes of another revolutionary convulsion. On this point, however, we are by no means sanguine; and it has often occurred to us, with sad presentiment, that all these fair creations of Christian faith and love are only like the flowers that bloom on the confines of the avalanche, or the vines that cling to the sides of the volcano. triumph without them. And whatever great Christian names may yet arise-greater perhaps than any of the past, the name of Luther, not as a dead historical name-but in its living and quickening influence upon his own countrymen, appears destined to act mightily along with them in leading on that gathering struggle, to which the Universal Church must call both its veterans and its levies from every province, for the final deliverance and regeneration of the world. nothing of its realities, looked at one time solid enough to crush the faith and reason of other nations. From her literature,-the latest-born of the creations of the west, richly endowed peoples like our own, are only beginning to be ashamed to borrow when all is abstracted; and the shock of her theological aberrations, though happily well-nigh exhausted, has made its recoil felt in all the churches of Christendom. Such a people We will not predict the religious future have not yet lost their hold upon the deof Protestant Germany. Great and radical velopment of Christianity; nor can they changes seem to us inevitable and to be shut up themselves, or any one else for only gathering force by delay. For these them, in an enchanted circle of non-interwe believe it to be immensely better pre-vention in the great religious struggles of pared than France, which has no Christian the future. The theology of the Reformgolden age to look back to like the Refor-ation of which they were the teachers,-almation, and whose public heroes are all most the discoverers, and to which in its smitten with the leprosy of unbelief. Even essential principles they have again returned, the Church of England is hardly better will not attain its ultimate purification and equipped for the storms of time, for though its inner life be greater, it is more distracted and divided against itself. Whatever the issue of the next few decisive years, we can hardly agree with an opinion of Dr. Merle d'Aubigné uttered with great courage in the presence of the Berlin Kirchentag, that the destinies of mankind have fallen away from the control of the church of Luther, and have attached themselves to the Reformed. That eloquent speaker pointed to Islam, India, China, all moved from England and America, while Germany remained in passive isolation. This, however, is a one-sided statement, and but touches a fragment of the case. We shall not be so unpatriotic as to deny the glorious pre-eminence of the Anglo-Saxon race on the field of missions. Even here, however, Germany has had its trophies, for who can leave out of view the Moravians, or the multitude of German labourers that have served in Africa and India, under the English standard, as well as their own? who can forget that America has absorbed the flood of four millions of Germans that circulates through all her fu. ture destinies? The country men of Burckhardt and Humboldt, of Barth and Overweg, do not want sea board to become as great under the evangelistio impulse in the cause AMONG the great men who have been the of missions as these names in the cause of ornaments of their country and their age, scientific adventure. They are naturalized François Arago will ever occupy a distinon this field, and neither England nor Ge- guished place. The philosophers of the Old neva can exclude them. And what impartial and New World will not hesitate to rank mind does not feel the weight of Germany him in the list of sages of which Newton is in other and equally vital points to the the type and the head, while his country Christian cause? Every one knows her still will honour him as a patriot who vindicated dominant European influence,crippled though its liberties and fell in its cause. It is diffiit be by false spiritualism, in music, paint-cult to estimate the claims of genius when ing, and all the fine arts. In science she national feelings influence the judgment, and may have rivals, but not in learning; and more difficult still when it has thrown out ART. VII.-1. François Arago. Par J. A. BARRAL, ancien Elève et Répétiteur de Chimie de l'Ecole Polytechnique, Directeur du Journal d'Agriculture Pratique. Paris, 1853. 2. 3. Discours de M. FLOURENS, Secrétaire Perpétuel de l'Académie prononcé au funéraille de M. F. Arago, le Mercredi 5 Oct. 1853. François Arago. Par M. DE LA RIVE. its light amid the darkness of political revo- and though they carry on their operations in lution, and has been summoned to the re-distant lines, their hallowed influences still sistance of arbitrary power. There have converge to one common focus-that goal been men of high name so absorbed in the in the world's destiny, where the race is to abstractions of geometry, so dazzled with the swift, and the battle to the strong. metaphysical illusions, or so entranced in Jean François Arago was born at Estagel, the regions of fancy, as to forget that they then a village of a few houses, near Perpig had a country and a home. In such men nan, in the department of the Eastern Pythe hallowed name of liberty excited neither renees, but now a town of 3000 inhabitants, hope nor fear, and among their heartstrings on the 26th February, 1786. His father, the names of tyrant and slave never found who had but a small patrimony, was treaa jarring or a sympathetic chord. The phi- surer to the mint at Perpignan, and his molosopher who has no opinions in religion and ther was an active and intellectual woman politics, or is ready to adopt those in the who made great sacrifices for the education ascendant, is unworthy of the name. He of her numerous children. François was forgets that the end of all knowledge is to the eldest of a family all of whom have disennoble and elevate the mind, and to intro- tinguished themselves in their separate caduce into the social system the harmony reers. His two brothers, John and Joseph, and order of the material universe-thus as- were distinguished officers in the service of similating man and his institutions to that Mexico. John died in 1836, and Joseph is higher rule where truth, and mercy, and still in that country. James and Etienne justice reign. The discoveries of science, were distinguished in literature. The latter and their diffusion among the people, would is now an exile from his country in consebe shorn of their chief lustre did they not contribute to the moral and physical happiness of our species. quence of his political opinions. Arago had also two sisters, the elder of whom died several years ago, and the other is married to Though reared amid free institutions, the M. Claude Louis Mathieu, an eminent aschiefs of English science have seldom exhi- tronomer at the Observatory, and Member bited that nobility of nature, and that self- of the Academy of Sciences, whose amiable sacrifice to high principle which characterize manners and great acquirements we had an the sages of other lands, and which so well opportunity of witnessing when discharging become the student of material nature. Our along with him the duties of a Juror in the philosophers are supposed to have fulfilled Tenth Class of the Great Exhibition of their highest functions by burrowing geolo- 1851. gically in the earth, or floating in ether The ambition of being a soldier, an officer among nebulæ and double stars. Hence it of artillery, was the first aspiration of young is that the British sage so frequently vege- Arago. His father was anxious that he tates in college halls and professorial chairs; should study for the law, or for some adphosphorescent, indeed, with intellectual ministrative office, but the military passion light, yet resisting the amelioration of our prevailed, and an incident occurred which institutions, and denouncing from the bars determined his choice. Having one day of his cloister or the gratings of his den, the encountered an officer of engineers, who bold and the brave assertors of reform. It was drawing plans on the ramparts of the is by such men, numerous in England, tha town, he asked him what steps he should the conduct of Arago has been censured, take to obtain the right of wearing so fine a his political labours decried, and his motives uniform. To be received as a pupil of the misrepresented. They forget that their own Polytechnic School, was the reply; and Newton, the philosopher of gentleness and from that moment the career of Arago was peace, girt himself against the encroachment marked out for him,-not that to which he of arbitrary power, and resisted the tyranny then aspired, but one more useful to science of James II. on the very footsteps of the and to humanity. throne. The earliest studies of our young philoOur readers will be prepared by these sopher were exclusively literary, and he had observations to view the distinguisued sub- a particular predilection for the classical ject of this article not only as a man of writers, a taste which he continued to inscience, enlarging our knowledge by his indulge during his life, and which he was ventions and discoveries, but as a member anxious to diffuse as a suitable accompaniof the great social body which the Almighty ment to the high scientific education of his has planted on the different oases of his countrymen.* With these tastes Arago globe, to work out in unity and peace the * Our literary readers, who, like ourselves, did intellectual regeneration of our race. Reason not expect from scientific men such a strong testihas her missionaries as well as Revelation, mony in favour of classical instruction, may be grati VOL. XX. 17 entered the Polytechnic School, at a time measurement to the Balearic Islands in the when there was no Professor of Mathematics. Mediterranean. This arduous task was He finished his scientific studies by himself, entrusted to M. Biot, and to Arago, who and that too without the luxury of the was his junior by twelve years, and to two thousand tutors which are given to the can- Spanish Commissioners, MM. Chaix and didates of the present day,-studying the Rodriguez. On this great errand the two writings of the original authors-the treatises French philosophers set out for Spain in of Euler, Lagrange, and Laplace, and not the 1806, on a footing of perfect equality, and manuals of the second and third order in commenced a journey which, as far as Arago which the youthful intellect finds nothing to was concerned, was marked with adventures excite it. Arago did not at first understand the most curious and often the most draall that he read, but he was encouraged by matic. Biot and Arago were stationed on the sentiment of D'Alembert, "Go on, and the summit of Mount Galatzo, one of the the light will come to you." highest of the Catalonian branch of the In 1803, when he was in his seventeenth Eastern Pyrenees, while the Spanish Comyear, and self-educated, he was received at missioners occupied the summit of Mount Toulouse by the younger Monge, the first of Campecey in Iviça. The tents in which his class; and at the end of a year his de- they dwelt were pitched on high peaks, votion to the study of the sciences, and his which often had little more than twenty acquirements, which greatly surpassed those square yards of surface to allow them to of his comrades, induced him, with the ad- make the fire-signals to one another during vice of the celebrated Monge the elder, to night which were necessary for fixing their attach himself to the Observatory at Paris, respective positions. In these cold and where he devoted himself to inquiries of desolate regions our astronomers remained the highest importance to astronomy and for several months, exposed to the severe physics. cold which prevails on those lofty sum As the basis of the decimal system of mits and to the fierce blasts which occasionweights and measures established by the ally sweep over them. The tents in which National Convention, who adopted as an they lived were frequently blown down, invariable unit of measure the ten millionth and their lives were endangered by the atpart of the arch of a terrestrial meridian, it tacks of robbers, the chief of whom afterwas necessary to determine with great accu- wards became the protector of the men of racy this minute fraction. Delambre and science. Mechain had already measured the part of the meridian between Dunkirk and Barcelona, but it was necessary to continue the In order to give an idea of the risks to which they were exposed from the ferocity and ignorance of the mountaineers of Catalonia, Arago used frequently to describe the fied by the passage in the Eloge of M. Barral, (him- state of civilisation in Spain scarcely fifty self an eminent chemist), in which he discusses the years ago. In 1807, the tribunal of the Insubject. "We may here be permitted to remark, quisition still existed in Valentia. It did (speaking of classical learning,) that no preparation is more suitable for a great destiny. There is a desire not, it is true, condemn its victims to be in the present day to abandon a system of education burned alive; but a woman having been which has produced such distinguished men. A accused of sorcery it was decided by that youth between the ages of thirteen and fourteen is terrible tribunal that she should be paraded obliged to choose between science and literature, and through the streets of the town sitting astride then to receive a course of instruction which is neces sarily incomplete. Almost all of them rush into the upon an ass, with her face turned to its tail, department of science, and thus enter upon life with- and having the upper part of her body out any literary acquirements. This is a great mis-naked down to her girdle The poor wofortune to the rising generation. Arago felt it acutely, and in now expressing our own opinion, so conform man was smeared with honey, and when a able with that of our illustrious friend, we are doing drapery of hen-feathers had been thus made homage to his memory. We are decidedly of to adhere to her body, she was exposed to opinion, that no man is great even in science, unless the gaze and ridicule of the mob." Here he has gone through a complete course of literature, is an example," exclaimed Arago, in de"of the kind of spectacle and we implore our age not to allow itself to be carried away by a reaction in which the national scribing this scene, glory will be fatally obscured if we do not stop in which was presented to the people at the time before we plunge into the abyss. It is not true beginning of the nineteenth century, in one that we wish to lower the standard of instruction in order to put it within the reach of men of ordinary of the principal towns of Spain, the seat talent. Such men derive more advantage from that of a celebrated university, and the residence which is above than from that which is below their of numerous citizens, distinguished by their level. Upon this subject we would wish to be in the knowledge, their bravery, and their virtues. wrong, for we love our country better than ourselves, Let not the friends of humanity and civilisaa sentiment which doubtless was that of Arago."tion be disunited, but form an indissoluble Pp. 8, 9. |