own knowledge, what are his views on the subjects I have mentioned above; and even had he spoken of them, I should not tell what passed. The fashion of repeating whatever the personages we meet with in our travels may have said, and of describing their personal appearance, will long, I hope, among us be considered as a mark of indiscretion, even when a king is concerned. I can only say that, in my interview, I had an opportunity of verifying the words of the wise man, "there is grace in the "mouth of a king." It was his father's birth-day. I was not aware of it; and having spoken of the late king with an expression of gratitude for Geneva, his son started and looked up. This sudden touch of filial emotion affected me. We saw all the castle, and afterwards its delightful environs, even the old stone which marks the spot where, in ancient times, the electors of the empire used to assemble by the river's side, in a simple and rustic manner, to exercise their august functions.

With any other prince than the king of Prussia, the wish of the church to be freed from governmental leading-strings, would, no doubt, have been greeted with a decided refusal; let us hope that it will not be so now. Yet, let us acknowledge how difficult is the position of a king, and not be too ready to accuse him, as is the wont of men who are always exacting, and always unsatisfied. During his reign the bark of the church, and the bark of the state, are both about to launch into an

unknown sca: may the Lord be the pilot to steer them through the numerous shoals!

VI.

THE GERMAN CATHOLIC QUESTION.

The first step taken by Germany to free herself from the isolation which had hitherto characterised her, was the foundation of a vast society including all Protestants. The second was the formation of evangelical Presbyterian churches in all the countries of Germany-churches which will be united by common bonds. Yet a third step might be taken. A great part of Germany is still Roman Catholic: to establish a complete unity, it would be therefore necessary to amalgamate the Romish and the Protestant parts into one church. This, in the opinion of many, is to be effected by the late German Catholic movement. I do not coincide with this opinion myself, yet I must own, that this third step might be practicable, and even desirable; and in any case, I cannot take leave of Germany without adding a few words on German Catholicism.

I did not see it in its centre, in Silesia and Brandenburg. I did not visit the place where this new blast had raised the storm. I only saw a few of its waves breaking at my feet. Nevertheless, the

very countries in which I saw it, are those in which it is now exciting public attention to the greatest degree. You are aware that in the Grand Duchy of Baden, numerous petitions have been signed, both for and against religious liberty; as it is not on the shores of our lake alone* that worldly men are not ashamed to attack that first of all rights.

At Manheim, the new church, now in a flourishing condition, was just forming when I passed through it. It is a gay and worldly town. " Why," said some one to a Roman Catholic, "do not you, "who are opposed to the priests and the pope, join "the German Catholic church?"-"For two rea"sons," was the reply. "The first, because I "should have to go to church, and I had rather amuse myself; the second, that I should have "to give money, and I had rather keep it." These are some of the motives that keep the adherents of the pope faithful to their standard.

(6

While I was at Heidelberg, the new church had neither priest nor minister; the members celebrated divine worship among themselves. "I must own "to you," said one of these, "that up to the time

(a month ago), when I joined the German Catholic "church, I had never opened the Bible; but I read "it now." This person, who had been reading the Bible "for a month," was a teacher in these meetings!

The Canton of Vaud, and the persecutions of the Free Church there.

At Stutgard, the capital of Wurtemberg, I attended, at seven o'clock on Sunday morning, the worship of this new church in the Reformed chapel. There were very few women, but many men; several, no doubt, strangers like myself. I observed very little seriousness before the service began; they were standing in groups, and even talking somewhat loudly. It was more like the commencement of a political or literary meeting, than of one for religious worship.

At length the priest, having put on his canonicals in a corner of the building, came and stood before the altar, which was somewhat shabbily ornamented with garlands, tapers, and a picture. He was a tall, stout, red-faced man, with a drawling tone and coarseness of manner, which are not uncommonly found in the Romish clergy. He told us he knew the papacy well, for he had been a priest twentyfive years, which was plain enough to be seen.

The only satisfactory part of this worship was the singing: it was almost too good, but the words were not very Christian; even what was sung during the Lord's Supper, or the mass (in which four persons, one of whom was a soldier, took part), celebrated Christ merely as a model. God was the "universal father" (Allvater). The sermon was pretty long, inveighing against Rome, principally as to confession, but I could discern in it no trace of a truly evangelical spirit.

Let us now inquire, what is the religion of this

new church? Is it Catholicism? Is it Evangelism? Or is it something new?

Is it Catholicism, as we might be led to think, by the name this church has taken? Rejecting the narrow and sectarian Catholicism of the Council of Trent, and even that wider and less definite, though equally superstitious one of the middle ages, it might indeed fall back upon the Catholicism of the earlier periods, the Catholicism of Augustin and Cyprian, as a powerful party in the Anglican church professes to do. But this has not been done in Germany. It must, in that case, have adopted the Nicean and Athanasian creeds, the doctrines of Irenæus and Augustin, while it will not have even the Apostles' Creed. And as for church government, the episcopal aristocracy and strict discipline of the early ages would be most distasteful to these new Catholics. These, then, have nothing to do with the re-establishment of primitive Catholicism.

Are they, then, simply an evangelical church, similar to those formed by the Reformation in the sixteenth century? By no means. They reject the name, for they are tenacious of the appellation of Catholic; they reject the faith, for they dislike the creeds of the sixteenth century, still more than those of the fourth. Lastly, they reject the communion, for they will not amalgamate with the Protestant church; they are determined to be an isolated sect.

But as they belong to neither of these great mani