The Roman Catholic Church.THE SUBSCRIPTION FOR THE POPE has yielded more in Ireland than was generally expected. In Cork one Church responded to the appeal of the bishop by collecting one thousand pounds in hard money before the meeting broke up. Similar results are reported of other Churches in the large cities. It is considered certain that the total of the Irish contributions will not fall short of twenty thousand pounds. In London an account has been opened at the London Joint Stock Bank for the receipts of "offerings for the Pope." The committee of this fund consists of the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Petre, Lord Fielding, the Hon. Charles Langdale, Sir John Acton, etc.

GERMANY, PRUSSIA, AUSTRIA.

The Protestant Churches.-THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE AUSTRIAN GOVERNMENT AND THE HUNGARIAN PROTESTANTS is not yet at an end. The decree of January 16, that all congregations, which would not adopt the Imperial Patent until the end of March would forfeit their rights and claims as congregations, has not had the desired effect. In the Church of the Helvetic Confession (Calvinistic Church) at least, a vast majority of all the congregations still continued, in May, to refuse compliance with the demands of government. The Church of the Augsburg Confession (Lutheran Church) has not shown itself quite so inflexible, as a majority of congregations have wholly or partially accepted the new constitution. This attitude of the Lutherans is partly owing to the influence of the German Protestant press, which continues, almost unanimously, to advise the acceptance of the Patent as the most expedient course under the present circumstances. It has been observed that the Magyar element of this Hungarian population acts as the leader in the opposition to the government, while the Germans of Hungary are divided, and the Sclavonians side mostly with the government. The Protestants of the German provinces generally desire a constitution similar to the one offered to the Hungarians, as they think that it would be a considerable amelioration of their present oppressed condition. It is therefore likely that they will make no opposition to a similar patent regulating their Church affairs, which has already been announced as soon forthcoming. But to whatever issue the constitutional controversy may be brought, it is a cheer

ing certainty that Austrian Protestantism is awakening to a new life, and already in the midst of a vigorous development. It no longer stands aloof from the great movements agitating the Protestant world, but begins to take an active part in them. Voluntary associations, formerly unknown, are multiplying, and the religious press increases both in number and in influence, and Churches are established in districts where Protestantism has been entirely unknown for about two hundred years, and numerous converts are constantly received from the Roman Church. In Prussia a long expected decree concerning the ELECTION OF PRESBYTERIES or LOCAL CHURCH COUNCILS in all the congregations of the eastern provinces which are as yet without them, was issued on Feb. 27. It is hoped that the establishment of local presbyteries will soon be followed by provisions for the convocation of diocesan and general synods. THE TERCEN TENARY COMMEMORATION OF THE DEATH. OF MELANCTHON was celebrated on April 17 by all the Protestant Churches of Germany with great solemnity. As

Master Philippus" (thus Luther used to call his familiar friend) frequently knew, during his lifetime, how to mediate a reconciliation or a truce between diverging parties, thus the tercentenary of his death served as an armistice for all the theological parties of modern Germany, and the representatives of all assembled around his tomb in peaceful harmony. THE HIGH CHURCH LUTHERANS have had many opportunities to sympathize with the misfortunes of their leaders. In Berlin, Professor Hengstenberg has been condemned to a fine of thirty thalers, or to fourteen days' imprisonment, as well as the payment of the bail of 2,500 thalers and the establishment of the stamp duty, for having discussed political and social questions in his "Evangelische Kirchenzi tung," without having paid the securities and stamp dues to which political papers are subject according to law. In this case it is, however, not only the friends and admirers of Hengstenberg who hope that his appeal to the Supreme Court may be successful, for a confirmation of the sentence would endanger the freedom of the whole ecclesiastical press of Prussia in the most serious manner. In HesseCassel the High Church portion of the Lutheran clergy have tested their strength by means of an address of sympathy to their gifted leader, Professor Vilmar, of Marburg, who had been found guilty of having defamed his colleagues in the the

ological faculty. The address has received one hundred and forty-six signatures.

The Roman Catholic Church.THE BISHOPS OF PRUSSIA have followed the example of those of France in establishing the old ecclesiastical custom of holding Provincial Councils. For longer than a hundred years the Provincial Councils have been in desuetude in all Germany, although the Council of Trent ordered them to be held every third year, and the Roman Catholics, of course, regard this circumstance as a sign of the reviving strength of their Church. This first council takes place for the Ecclesiastical Province of Cologne, and will be attended by the Archbishop of Cologne, and his suffragans the Bishops of Treves, Munster, and Paderborn, besides whom also the Bishops of Breslau, Osnabruck, and Hildesheim, (the two latter from the kingdom of Hanover) will be present. As is usual at these councils, there will be present, also, deputies from the Cathedral Chapters, from the University, (of Bonn,) from the Theological Seminaries, and the provincials of all the monastic orders. The latter have considerably increased in Prussia since 1848; then only one order, the Franciscans, were tolerated, while now, besides them, the Jesuits, Redemptionists, Lazarists, Dominicans, and Capuchins will be represented. THE CONCORDAT WITH BADEN has been defeated, as was expected, in the Second Chamber of the Grandduchy with 45 against 15 votes, and immediately after the Grand Duke has dismissed those members of the ministry who were the chief advocates of the concordat, and appointed in their place the leaders of the opposition. After the example of Baden, the Second Chamber of Nassau has declared itself, with all except five votes, against the conclusion of a concordat. On the other hand, however, the friends of state churchism begin to see that the former relation of the established Churches to the state has become untenable, and that the spirit of the times demands at least freedom of the Churches in all internal affairs.

FRANCE.

The Protestant Churches.-FRESH ATTACKS UPON THE RELIGIOUS LIBERTY OF PROTESTANTS have repeatedly been made. The Minister of Public Worship has addressed a circular to the consistories of the Reformed Church, in which he decides that the Pastoral Conferences,

The

which have been held for several years without molestation on the part of the government, and have already been a great blessing to the Church, cannot in future meet legally without his approbation, obtained through request and under the eye of the nearest consistory. The minister declares that this measure has for its aim only the preservation of the organic constitution of the Reformed Churches. But it is especially the Dissenters who have to suffer from the illiberal provisions of the French law. evangelical congregations in the Haute Vienne, a large portion of which consists of converts from the Roman Church, although at length allowed to meet again for divine worship, are still deprived of their schools closed in 1852. Since then devoted schoolmasters have itinerated among the peasants, teaching the children singly or in family groups, always avoiding the simultaneous teaching of two children of different families, which in the eye of the law would constitute a school. Suddenly, one of these faithful men, Jusnel, was called before the tribunal of Ballac, because children of different families had been present simultaneously at his instruction, though he was teaching them singly. The court fined him fifty francs for illicit school-keeping, and the superior court of Limoges, to which he appealed, confirmed the judgment. A MOVEMENT FOR THE RESTORATION OF THE NATIONAL SYNOD is gradually increasing in the Reformed Church. An energetic layman, M. de Coninck, of Havre, has circulated a printed letter calling attention to the importance of coming to an understanding respecting the duties of such an assembly, as on its decisions will depend the very existence of the Reformed Church. He has taken the opportunity of the annual assemblies for laying the subject before the ministers of the Churches. Either the Reformed Church of France would be reconstituted on her old basis of taking the Bible as the perfect and only authority in matters of faith; of believing in the fall of man, and his state of condemnation before God; in free redemption by the expiatory blood of Christ, true God and true man, and sole mediator between God and man; or she might fall into the hands of the fatal school of theology which admits neither doctrine nor discipline. THE STRENGTH OF THE TWO PARTIES in the Reformed Church has been recently tested at the nomination of a candidate to the vacant professorship of Montauban.

The nomination belongs to the one hundred and six Reformed Consistories of France. The evangelical party had presented Pastor Bois, the Rationalistic Dr. Viguie, besides whom a third candidate, Professor Joy, offered himself as belonging to neither of the two parties, and as being therefore a fit person to receive the votes of both. The result was a decisive victory of the orthodox candidate, who received the votes of fifty-seven consistories; while the candidate of the Rationalists received only forty-four, and the representative of the third party not more than five. Counting, not the consistories, but their individual members, Bois received 790 and Viguie 615 votes, a majority of 175 votes for the orthodox candidate. A comparison with former elections shows that the orthodox party is making progress, and the opposite party to be on the decline, for in 1856 the vote stood only 47 to 45 for the orthodox candidate, and at the preceding, in 1849, the Rationalistic candidate was elected with 46 against 36 votes.

The Roman Catholic Church.Great astonishment has been excited by Two LAWSUITS AGAINST THE BISHOP OF ORLEANS. The bishop, the Atlas or the Goliath of the clerical army, thought proper seriously to attack one of his predecessors, Bishop Rousseau, who had taught that the popes have no need of a temporal sovereignty, and whose opinion on this point was often made use of by the liberal press. After a close examination of the private papers and confidential correspondence of his predecessor, Bishop Dupanlous essayed to prove that M. Rousseau was an ignorant man, a servile priest, a vile adulator of Napoleon I., a pitiful fellow, a traitor, etc. At the same time he grossly insulted the writers of the Siecle, calling them cowardly calumniators and dishonorable men. For these attacks one charge was brought against him by the editor of the Siecle, and a second by Madam Bertin, the grandniece of Bishop Rousseau, who, being in her eighty-fourth year, wished to carry with her into another world the consoling thought that the justice of this world protects the tomb of the dead. The trial lasted three days, and ended in an acquittal of the bishop. The complaint of the Siecle was declared unfounded, as the bishop declared he had had no intention to insult that paper; and that of the heirs of Bishop Rousseau was beyond the reach of the law, which does not punish insults

against the dead. Yet the court added a very strong disapprobative consideration of the bishop's conduct in the abuse he made of private documents, and it was the general opinion that, before the public, the bishop lost his cause. The LITERARY ACTIVITY OF THE ULTRAMONTANE PARTY remains unabated. Every new number of the monthly bulletin of French literature brings the names of dozens of pamphlets on the Roman question, and there is hardly one celebrated man in the ranks of the Catholic party who has not given utterance to his views. Some of the pamphlets have a very large circulation. Thus of a tract of M. de Segur, the blind chamberlain of the pope, entitled Ques tions of the Day, more than 140,000 copies were circulated up to February. The language of all these pamphlets with regard to Protestantism is violent and abusive to the extreme, and full of daring untruths. But they sometimes take one step too far, as did M. de Segur in April, when his secretary requested the insertion in the Archives du Christianisme of a letter in which he denies that the association of S. Francois de Sales, of which he is president, had anything to do with, or even any knowledge of some tracts published at Lyons, which are so openly calumnious and untrue, that even the Association of S. Francois de Sales thought it proper to decline the responsibility for them. an examination of the tracts showed that five of them were verbatim reprints of chapters of M. de Segur's book against Protestantism. Ever since the society has maintained a prudent silence on the subject. Also the big gun of the ultramontane periodical press the Univers, after having been spiked for a short time by the French government, has reopened its fire, bearing now the name Le Monde. It preserves its former animosity against everything which is not ultramontane; but as its chief editor, Louis Veuillot, has not been allowed to resume his post, it is conducted with much less ability.

ITALY.

But

The Protestant Churches.-THE PROGRESS OF PROTESTANTISM has been less marked than was hoped from the juncture of favorable circumstances; yet it is still advancing and taking root in all that part of Italy which has been recently annexed to Sardinia. TUSCANY is still the focus of the religious movement. Besides the congregations of Florence, Pisa, and Leghorn, mentioned in the last number of the Quarterly, another has

been established at Pontedara, and besides there are many other places in which believers unite together for reading the Bible. Although nearly all the leading statesmen declare themselves in favor of religious toleration, prohibitory measures are sometimes taken against Protestant worship, from fear that the name of Protestantism is still abhorred by the lower classes of the people. Several measures of this kind were complained of during the provisional government, and since the annexation to Sardinia, M. Ribetti, the Waldensian minister of Pisa and Leghorn, has been prohibited from conducting his services in Leghorn by the delegate of police of the quarter of the fort, and by the governor, and no reason has been assigned, except that the laws of the grand duke against proselytism are still in force, and that he exposed himself to ten years in the galleys. The internal dissension in the congregation of Florence continues, and will, as it seems, lead ultimately to the establishment of two separate congregations. Also an "angel" of the Irvingites has made his appearance at Florence, and it is believed that he will soon commence operations there. In LOMBARDY the prospects are less favorable than in Tuscany. Religious reform with the Lombards is something German, and therefore odious, because the Lombards, in general, mortally hate anything that savors of Germany. Besides, indifference in regard to religion is more general in Lombardy than in any other part of Italy. In spite of these hinderances, a number of colporteurs work for the spreading of evangelical Christianity with unabating zeal. There is especially one, whom Dr. de Sanctis, in a letter to a London paper, calls the pearl of colporteurs. He is a Turinese Christian of fiftyfive years of age, has been a colporteur for six years, and his labors have been the means of many conversions. While he goes about the country, his wife sells Bibles and tracts in the square of the cathedral, and one of their sons, fourteen years of age, goes for the same purpose to the cafés and shops. An evening school was opened at Milan on January 1, which is very promising. It is conducted by a converted priest, and supported by the Christian liberality of some ministers of the canton of Berne, at the expense of

£27 a year. THE CIRCULATION OF THE BIBLE in the newly-opened-up portions of Italy has largely increased. The British and Foreign Bible Society, at its recent anniversary, reported for Italy a circula

tion of 24,000 copies. In Florence alone 400 copies had been circulated in a few weeks.

The Roman Catholic Church.THE VOTE OF THE PEOPLE in the States of Central Italy (Tuscany, Parma, Modena, and the Romagna) on the annexation of these provinces to Sardinia, is a fact of the utmost importance for ecclesiastical no less than for secular history. For it was known to all the voters that the official authorities of the Church opposed the annexation with all the means within their reach. The inhabitants of the Papal legations had moreover been notified, that all who would aid in depriving the Pope of a part of his territory would incur excommunication. In view of this attitude of the clergy, the vote leaves no doubt that the Church has entirely lost the control of the Italian people. The Romagna, Parma, and Modena have together a population of 2,127,105 souls, and the number of those who voted in favor of annexation was not less than 406,791, or about one-fifth of the total population. The proportion of those who have the right of voting, to the total population, is about one fourth, which leaves only about one twentieth part of the voters as having either abstained from voting or voting against the annexation. In Tuscany 70 per cent. of all the voters have voted for annexation. The statistics of this remarkable popular vote deserve to be preserved by all who care about knowing the real sentiments of the Italian people. They only confirm what was generally inferred from former expressions of the popular will, but they express it for the first time in figures, which give no longer room to a shadow of a doubt. The reception which THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF THE KING of Sardinia has met with everywhere in Italy well agrees with the result of the vote. Public opinion has not been changed by it; on the contrary, all the manifestations of the popular will since the issuing of the excommunication have been more decidedly liberal and antipapal than before. It is also remarkable, that a considerable portion of the lower clergy side with the people, fearing no longer the ecclesiastical censures to which they generally expose themselves on the part of the bishops. Even "Le Monde," the chief ultramontane paper of France, mentions a number of deputations of the clergy who have called on the king to assure him of their loyalty and their de

votedness to him. Of course we do not mean to deny that they have also been DEMONSTRATIONS IN FAVOR OF THE POPE. The bishops, in particular, seem without exception to side with the Pope, and in this respect there appears in fact a greater unanimity in the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church than at any previous period of her history. Many addresses of sympathy are also reported to have been received by the Pope from the lower clergy, the nobility, and all classes of the people. But nothing has as yet been published concerning the details of these addresses which would demand a rectification of our above statements respecting the numerical proportion of the papal and the antipapal party among the Italian people.

TURKEY.

Mohammedanism.-MOVEMENTS OF AN EXTRAORDINARY IMPORTANCE are going on among the Mussulmans. While hitherto the labors of the missionaries in Turkey have been chiefly confined to the Greek and Armenian portions of the population, now also the movement among the Mohammedans within the last three or four months has become the object of the greatest and most intensive interest. More than nine thousand Bibles have been sold to the Turks of Constantinople during four months, and the number of Turks who are reading the Bible is one of the marked features of the present movement. It is now sold publicly in the streets, and even in the mosque side by side with the Koran. The exact number of Bible readers cannot, of course, be definitely ascertained, but the Turks themselves say there are not less than ten thousand in this city alone who are diligently and earnestly studying the Scriptures, and there are great numbers also in other parts of the empire. In Jerusalem, according to a letter from Bishop Gobat, eighty soldiers and seven officers of the Turkish army were accustomed to meet regularly with one of the colporteurs for the purpose of reading the Bible. Some thirty or forty Mussulmans attend at Constantinople the service of the Rev. Mr. Williams every Sunday. Within three years more than twenty Mussulmans have been baptized in Constantinople. Several have been baptized recently, among them a mollah, or Mohammedan priest, and the nephew of a pasha. Unfortunately, the present

government of the Sultan is not much inclined to carry out the pledges of religious liberty which have been given to Christendom.

New cases of religious persecution have occurred, and Russia has therefore proposed to the great powers which signed the treaty of Paris, to inquire into the way Turkey has fulfilled her promises concerning the rights of her Christian subjects.

The Greek and other Eastern Churches.-THE NATIONAL COUNCIL of the Greek Church, which assembled in 1858 in order to take appropriate measures for a reorganization of the Church, closed its deliberations on February 4th of the present year. The most important points which the majority of the Council agreed upon were, to deprive the Patriarchs and Synods of all secular and judicial power, and especially of the right to levy taxes, to establish a secular board of administration, and to assign fixed salaries to the higher and lower clergy. The Patriarch Kyrillos and a considerable portion of the higher clergy support the reformatory measures, which are principally opposed by the seven chief bishops of the Synod of Constantinople. At the present juncture of circumstances the progressive party feels confident of a victory. The contest between the hier archical and the progressive parties is not the only question which agitates the Church. THE SLAVONIAN AND ROUMENIAN PROVINCES (Bulgaria, Servia, Wallachia, and Moldavia) demand more urgently than ever before their entire ecclesiastical independence of Constantinople, the appointment of National Patriarchs and Metropolitans, and the convocation of National Synods. Partial concessions have been already made to them, and it is the general belief that ere long they will form three or more independent Eastern Episcopal Churches. On the other hand it is rumored that the ARMENIAN CHURCH, at the instigation of Russia, seeks a union with the Greek Church, and that the Catholicos Mattheos of Etchmiadzin has already taken initia tory steps to this end. THE JACOBITES have recently lost by death their Maphrian (that is, chief bishop of the Eastern part of the Church in Turkey) Benan, at Mosul, whose sympathy with the Protestants has caused much rejoicing among the Roman Catholics at his death, as an enemy of their Church.