4. The objection of materialists on the physiological side being thus removed, Mr. Cook would contend that the psychological argument for the existence of a soul- that which is based on our intuitons and instinctive beliefs should be accepted as valid. The argument of this work, although not prominently so stated, is precisely the argument of Butler's Analogy, modernized, popularized, and brought down to the last discoveries in the domain of organic nature. Its theological value consists in this: it shows that the argument of probability as developed by Butler is as good now, after all the advances of science, as it ever was. This argument, Mr. Cook holds, is made more complete by Revelation, for which the biological argument merely prepares the way, by removing the objections of materialists. The scientific portion of this work has suffered not a little from onesided criticism. The complaint of Goethe, "few Germans, perhaps few men of any modern nation, have a proper sense of an aesthetic whole; they praise and blame by passages," may be made of Americans even more justly than of Goethe's countrymen. Books, like men, should be judged not by special defects or special excellences, but by the general impression of the whole, the average of the good and evil that is in them; and the instincts of men, that so far transcend the reason, do in time thus judge all books and their authors, and will so judge these lectures. Over the mass of people, to whom religion is a matter of emotion, the influence of this work must be not direct, as a scientific proof of the existence of a soul, but indirect, as an intellectual and moral inspiration. But through all nature the seemingly indirect is more universal and more useful than the direct operation of all the great forces. The forest as it lifts itself toward the sky both fills our streams and saves the earth from drought; as it were by accident the revolving moon floods the world with silvery light, and carries to and fro the necessary tides of the sea. This work, whatever its faults may be, must, for the religious world in this country, make an era in the popular discussion of these themes; borne on the wings of poetry and oratory it will carry the truths of science or the record of the earnest efforts of science to find the truthto thousands of homes where hitherto all modern science, certainly all biology, has been but a dreaded and unknown wonder. It will be found in the scholar's library and lie upon the ploughman's table; and whereever it goes it cannot fail to enforce, on the dullest as on the ablest, at least the one constantly forgotten lesson of humility, always derived from the contemplation of the infinite littleness of man when brought face to face with the majesty and mystery of nature. Tenth 2. TRANSCENDENTALISM; with Preludes on Current Events. と assure himself that he has laid aside small technicalities, and has prepared himself to look at things generously and comprehensively. An address given without manuscript, taken down by a short-hand reporter, and afterward published without essential reconstruction, must, of necessity, be estimated differently from one carefully reduced to writing before delivery. Then, again, an address before a large audience will materially be quite unlike a talk upon the same topic, before a few individuals, in a small room. In the presence of a great assembly, the extemporaneous speaker, if he is judged fairly, must be judged by the conditions under which he speaks. If he is to hold his audience, and bring it back again to the same place, he cannot busy himself very much upon a thousand unessential details. His speech must move on rapidly, boldly, without losing time on the niceties of his connectives. The transitions must often be abrupt. The wide-awake listener will fill up the little gaps out of his own common-sense, and will like the speaker all the more, in that he compliments his hearers by supposing that they know something, and are able to move in the drift of his own thought. The volumes which have grown out of the Monday Lectures, ought all to be weighed by the abovementioned circumstances. Many a man can sit down in the quiet of his study and find fault with these books who would empty Tremont Temple very speedily if he were to mount upon the platform and attempt to deliver lectures, written or unwritten, upon similar themes. Nothing is more wearisome in public, or even in private speech, than merely technical propriety. The orator in a great assembly must abandon himself to his theme, not speaking carelessly and at random, but with well-considered aim. Certain niceties, however, which belong naturally enough to the essay, must be left out of the oration. - The eleven lectures which compose this volume were given in Tremont Temple, Boston, during the winter of 1876-77. It would be impossible to find any single word which could accurately measure and describe a course of lectures having such breadth, compass, and variety as these. The word Transcendentalism may serve perhaps as well as any other, but is, at the best, only an approximate title. As it was our privilege to be present at most of these lectures, we prefer to estimate them as a hearer, rather than as a simple reader of the published book. Besides, in the space allotted for this notice it would be impossible to enter upon any large and critical survey of the volume in hand. Every one who has attended Mr. Cook's lectures for any length of time, cannot but confess that he has passed through a remarkable experience, and such as he could not, beforehand, have anticipated. To find himself one, in an audience of two thousand persons, assembled week after week, at midday, listening with fixed and profound attention to discourses upon philosophy, is, in itself, an evidence of some kind of power in the speaker, which, to say the least, is very unusual. Few are the men who could hold an audience under like conditions, to such themes. Undoubtedly, philosophy can be taught, and is taught more carefully and connectedly in the recitation-room of the University than it can be before the great audiences in Tremont Temple. But in the University it can also be made very dry and technical, and often is made so. Here it is lifted into light and air, and goes out upon the broad ranges of practical use. It speaks directly to the souls of men with all the solemnity of a sermon. In the rapid sweep of the discourse little faults of manner, little infelicities of thought or expression, little inaccuracies of statement are hardly to be noticed, so grand and elevating is the aim of the speaker, and so strongly is he bearing the hearer forward toward the end he has in view. The very charm of these lectures, as one listens to them, is, that philosophy is here wedded with a vivid ideality, that the resources of literature are brought to its illustration, that history, art, poetry, are all made ministering spirits in the unfolding of the deepest workings of the soul. Something of all this must be lost when one sits down, in the distance, calmly to read the published volume. But he who reads, though he may discover some things to criticize, will find himself in converse with a man who has an aim high and noble, and a philosophy which bears men toward the good, and ministers to the highest interests of human society. ARTICLE VIII. THE ORGANIC REUNION OF CHURCHES. BY PROF. J. P. LACROIX, DELAWARE, OHIO. WILL such a reunion ever take place? Have we good grounds to anticipate that churches which have once become confessionally distinct will ever, to any considerable extent, be merged again into organic unity? What has been the lesson of history thus far? Is it not of very discouraging purport? Has it not been the fate of the church from the very first century of its existence to the present day to suffer one after another of its members to break off into independence and isolation? And has she ever, to any considerable extent, had the fortune to re-absorb any of the very prominent of these revolted members? A very interesting discussion of this subject is found in a prize Essay on the Reunion of Churches, by Rev. G. Joss, of Saanen in Switzerland.1 The book begins with a general statement of the whole series of influences that are at play in the general subject of separation and reunion; there upon follows a careful historical review of the circumstances of the several 1 Die Vereinigung Christlicher Kirchen. Leiden: E. J. Brill. 1877. secessions, and of the various efforts that have been made at reunion; and finally, there is presented a judicious survey of the unionistic tendencies that are so widely prevalent in the present day, together with suggestions as to how much and what kind of church reunion may reasonably be expected in the church of the future. Mr. Joss writes in an admirably Christian spirit. In theology he is of the earnest, but mild, orthodoxy of the Rothean type. In his historical retrospect Mr. Joss has made large use of the two thorough histories of all former reunion efforts, viz. that of A. Pichler (1865) and that of C. W. Hering (1838). Let us cursorily follow him. First, what are the chief forms of reunion that are practicable? There are several. Where a church assumes that it alone holds to the whole and pure truth, as is the case with the Roman Catholic, then there can be no thought of any other union than an absorptive union (unio absorptiva), the other church being required to give up absolutely its entire individuality. The chief example of this form of reunion is the submission of the Gothic Arians at the synod of Toledo, in 589. This can hardly be called, however, a union at all. It is rather simply the annihilation of one of the parties. A real union can take place only thus: Either both of the parties. must give up such of their peculiarities as distinguish them from each other, until finally they shall become identical (which is a unio temporativa), or each is permitted to retain its peculiarities, and yet both agree to hearty intercommunion (which is called a unio conservativa). The former of these is more strictly a reunion; the latter is more like a mere alliance. As preparatory to a glance at the various efforts at reunion, let us notice the successive secessions in the order of their occurrence. The church of the apostolic age was undoubtedly an organic unit. It held to the one faith; it recognized its several members; it intercommuned. It was only in the first half of the third century (Cyprian, ob. 258) that the genuineness of the church was made to depend on its having a regu larly ordained episcopate. Henceforth the watchword was: None can have God for his Father who has not the church for his mother. No salvation outside of this church." It was this church that attained to universal dominion in the age of Constantine, and that set upon itself at Nice the seal of exclusive orthodoxy. The first secession from this compact world-church was that of the Nestorians, in 431. Nestorius held to two distinct natures in Christ. His excommunication drew a large part of the church of Syria out of Catholic unity. Nestorianism retired to the distant East, and continues to exist to the present day. Opposition to Nestorius led to the second schism, in 451. Eutyches identified the two natures in Christ. Hence sprang the Monophysites, who perpetuated themselves in the Coptic and Abyssinian churches, as also in the Armenian and Jacobite (of Mesopotamia) churches. Thus orthodoxy, in its effort to hold the true mean between two separate natures in Christ and two identified natures, saw itself forced to strike off from its communion five vital members, which have persisted in asserting themselves to the present day. The next great schism was that between the Roman and Greek churches -between the West and the East. It grew out of the expression filioque. This the Western church had added to the creed at the Synod of Toledo, in 589. It had been seriously protested against by the Greeks in 867. The quarrel culminated in 1054, when the papal church completed the schism by excommunicating the Greeks. By this act the one great Christian Catholic church was severed into two nearly equal hostile sections. The next secession from the Latin branch was that of the Protestants, which was accomplished by the decrees of Trent in the middle of the sixteenth century. A century and a half later followed the expulsion from Rome of the church of Holland. And our own day has witnessed the Döllinger movement, which has led to the organization of an anti-Romanist Catholic church in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. Since its exclusion from Rome the great Oriental church has remained practically a unit, holding fast to the primitive and earlier faith and organization. But the more positive life of Protestantism has led to several principal organic divisions, and to almost innumerable minor subdivisions or sects. Now, what have been the fruits of the very many and very earnest endeavors that have from time to time been made to heal these various breaches, and to effect a reunion of the dissevered members? It is needless to say that, on the whole, they have been absolute failures. The early popes and the Byzantine emperors, especially Justinian (527-565) and Heraclius (611-641), made the most sincere efforts to win back the early seceding bodies, the Monophysites. But in vain. In the age of the Crusades, the most sincere and protracted efforts were made by the Western and the Eastern churches towards a mutual reunion. And these efforts were seconded by the most urgent political considerations. But all in vain. The friends of the movement were doomed to the bitterest disappointment. Everything went to wreck upon the shoals of Rome's absolutely unyielding pretensions. She would hear to no union but an absorptive union, in which the other party simply gave up its existence. And such has been Rome's attitude in all subsequent efforts at reunion, both with the Greeks, the Lutherans, and the Holland Catholics at Utrecht. She has persistently and obstinately held fast to the church ideal of Cyprian of Carthage, that there is and can be but one salvatory church organism, with the addition that she herself is that organism. Holding that outside of herself there is no salvation, her attitude is necessarily absolutely intolerant. Nor have the persistent and serious efforts that have been made toward |