EUROPEAN INTELLIGENCE. found employment in the railway offices. They complain that their institution is not adequately supported, and especially that promises made to them by some English friends have not yet been made good. They also subjoin a copy of the House-regulations for the inmates of the Refuge. PASTORAL CONFERENCE OF THE RHENISH PROVINCE OF PRUSSIA, written at their instance by Pastor Huyssen, of Xanten, near Wesel. He says that all present at the Conference received with the greatest interest the intelligence of the formation of the English-German ComThe last article consists of a letter committee, and declared themselves delighted municating the kind feelings and desire of at the prospect of a close fellowship with co-operation in the objects of the Com- British Christians. mittee on the part of the PRUSSIA. THE THREATENING WAR-THE MARRIAGE LAW-DIVORCE-OPPOSITION TO THE MEASURE. Berlin, April 18, 1859. The more decisive the immediately approaching days are likely to become, the more should Christians feel the obligation devolving on them to fulfil their Evangelical duties. This is no season in which they may lull themselves to sleep; rather they should use their utmost energy to keep their eyes open, and to work to the utmost of their ability, lest they should be found standing helpless, guilty, and distressed at the loss of property the conservation and increase of which might have been profitable to themselves and to mankind at large. To serious meditations such as these we are led by the thick clouds which impend over Europe. We are not, however, to be induced by them to enter into political discussions, though it may be permitted to us to advert to the influence they will probably exert on Christendom, and consequently on Christianity. Great as is the material power of Austria at present, she becomes more and more aware of her perilous situation. She is threatened by the Emperor of the French, who did not scruple to pave his way to the Imperial throne by perjuries, and to build up his power by blood, and who will despise no means by which he may secure his position and gratify his lust of power; she is threatened by his ally, strong in national feeling and all the revolutionary elements which gather round her; she is threatened by revolutions in her own territories, both on political and religious grounds; she is threatened by the probable insufficiency of means to achieve her heavy task; in short, she is threatened from without and within; and as she has taken refuge in English mediation, so, for the same purpose, her Emperor has commissioned his Royal relative, the Archduke Albert, to come to Berlin and make such arrangements as his exigencies require with our Prince Regent. Now the question is, what course a really Protestant policy ought to take in this quarrel between France and Austria; for Piedmont, deep as her sympathies may be with Italy, oppressed at once by Rome and by foreign tyranny, is, in relation to France, nothing but the play-table of the French Emperor-a mere doll, which must either move or keep its peace as he commands. The conflict is really between France and Austria, two Roman Catholic Powers, and both distinguished by their zeal and rivalry for the Pope's favour; for the Emperor owes his throne in great part to the Romish priesthood in France, and Austria, by her Concordat, has shown that she cannot do without Rome, and a Protestant policy might say, "If they will devour one another, let them do so. If their Christianity consists in exercising their love to one another by sword and cannon, let us stand aloof, and leave them to the consequences of their own fatal criminality." But who can help deploring that so many guiltless persons should perish through their wickedness? Besides, when the flame of war has been once kindled, who can say where it will stop? A really Christian policy can have no other calling than to aim, by all means, at preventing those enormous calamities which must result from the collision of these Romish Powers. Prussia, in taking her course in accordance with England, has done her best, and will be true to her principles through all contingencies. She can do this all the more easily as the Government is backed by the nation, which is full of indignation against the mover of these confusions, Notwithstanding the polite and kind recep tion which the Austrian Archduke Albert met with from the Prince Regent and all the princes of the Royal house, there is no reason to suppose that Government will depart from its course. But as soon as the EUROPEAN INTELLIGENCE. M. war-should it be begun-ceases to be a local | if a bill so ungodly as to sanction civil mar-- THE MARRIAGE LAW, of which I spoke in my last, has been amply discussed in the House of Deputies. There were three points of view that presented themselves, contradictory to each other. The Minister for Ecclesiastical Affairs, M. von Bethmann-Hollweg, was the energetic supporter of the bill, which was fully approved by the Committee, except as to some alterations which were suggested in its framework, and which the Minister thank fully accepted. This bill provides, in the first place, that the religious character of marriage shall be maintained when its legality depends upon it being performed by a clergyman; but it provides also that the civil lawfulness of marriage may be based on a declaration made before a civilian. Parties, therefore, are at liberty to choose either method. That no improper inducement may be held out to parties to resort to civil marriage, and that they may not be prevented from having the religious services of a clergyman after they have made the required declaration before the civil functionary, they are entitled to have their expenses paid to him returned in the latter The Roman Catholics were strongly inclined not to acknowledge any marriage which was not celebrated by their Church. The Minister of Justice, or rather his deputy, Mr. Friedberg, well replied by deducing the logical consequence of this doctrine. If (said he) you insist upon the ecclesiastical celebration of marriage only according to the Romish Church, you must necessarily ask for the abolition of the Royal prerogative; for, since the King nominates the lawyers, this right would be annulled if you succeeded in introducing your canon law, which gives the bishops the power of appointing matrimonial judges. As long, therefore, as this House of Deputies refuses to declare against the Constitution of the country, they must and will reject your proposals. This party, since their defeat, keep the peace, but not so the Kreutz Zeitung party. These people, full of anger against the Ministers of State, and disregarding the danger, daily fill their organs with furious provocations, and convene meetings to excite people against the liberal measures of the Government. The next meeting will be held at Gnadau, the place famous for pastoral conferences in the province of Saxony, on the second of May; and its object is to make a demonstration against M. von Bethmann-Hollweg and his sentiments, especially in relation to the law of marriage and education. This Minister expressed his opinion in the House of Deputies, to the effect that Government had nothing to do with religious education; the responsibility of this rested with parents, and the time was passed in which it could be deemed reasonable to force them to have their children educated against their religious convictions and principles. It would do no good, rather it would tend to demoralise the people if the children were taught in public schools in opposition to the spirit of their families. You will understand that this declaration referred to Dissenters and the so-called Free Congregations, and M. Р EUROPEAN INTELLIGENCE. von Bethmann-Hollweg was quite right in stating it as he did. Let us State Churchmen do our duty; let us show that we are able to satisfy the wants of the people; and we shall have the pleasure of seeing that no law can, as they say, un-Christianise the people, or injure the rising generation. This party will succeed as little as Superintendent-General Dr. Büchsell did, who refused to solemnise the marriage of a couple, one of whom had been divorced, although their marriage was allowed to be ecclesiastically performed by the Oberkirchenrath; he was suspended from his office for half a Sunday, and another clergyman was appointed to discharge his ministerial duty and solemnise the marriage. Dr. Hengstenberg, after having published in his Ecclesiastical Gazette a "Protestation" against the measures and declarations of the Minister for Ecclesiastical Affairs, has met with a strong rebuke from the Evangelische Oberkirchenrath, issued in the official paper Preussische Zeitung. He dares to compare the acts of the Minister to Peter's denial of Christ, to the treachery of Judas, and the shameful flight of the Apostles, and says that he places his confidence in the whole Church, assured that she will be bold enough to convene meetings, conferences, and synods, to assert and maintain her independence, which, he says, is on the verge of destruction; and to remember those who know what they are doing, and who are still witnesses for the truth. The publication of the Oberkirchenrath is not addressed to Hengstenberg personally, but to the clergy, warning them not to lend their ears to such seducing voices; and it concludes by showing them the serious measures that would take place if political agitation should spread over the field of the Church. I cannot conclude these observations without the remark that all these conflicts, both political and ecclesiastical, sink into insignificance in face of the common foe beyond the Rhine. Let him carry his schemes into effect, and he will learn that all Germany will forget her interior strifes to give him a united and due reception. His bitterest antagonists are those who oppose the liberal tendencies of the Government and nation; and they would like, if they might, to take their swords to-morrow and join the Austrian army. The Marriage Law having passed the Commons, as you say, has been sent up to the Lords (the Herrenhaus), where it is referred to a Committee. This Committee, with two exceptions, is composed of gentlemen who are unfavourable to the measure. But let us wait and see what changes it may undergo there before we say more about it; for as I learn there are not a few of the members of that House once unfriendly to it, who now look upon it with other eyes. 0. GRAND-DUCHY OF BADEN. THE NEW In our last number we gave a letter on this subject, addressed by the Rev. E. Frommel, of Carlsruhe, to the Rev. Dr. Grandpierre, of Paris. It spoke in high terms of the new liturgy which, under the sanction of the Grand-Duke, had been introduced into the Protestant Church of Baden, and defended it from the opposition it has had to encounter. This is one side of the subject, but we wish our readers to see both. For this purpose, therefore, we now proceed to lay before them the principal portion of another letter said to be written by one of the most venerable clergymen of Germany, and which appears in the Semaine Religeuse, published at Geneva. The writer says: "Although the worship of which Baden has been in possession for these three centuries has answered in every way, by its Christian spirituality and thoroughly Evan LITURGY. gelical simplicity, to the wants of the great majority of the faithful, it is now attempted to introduce the communion according to the Lutheran rite, and the former worship is decried as being of too indefinite a complexion, and strongly infected with Ra tionalism. The new liturgy puts the altar above the pulpit, and after the same manne attaches more value to the prayer presente at the foot of the altar as an oblation, tha to the preaching of the Word of God For this reason it is forbidden to preach fo more than forty minutes. Kneeling, th use of the crucifix, and other ceremonies are recommended. Our Reformed have beer above all, profoundly grieved to find kneel ing authorised at the moment when, at th holy communion, the sacred symbols ar received from the pastor. They do n forget that this practice was introduced EUROPEAN INTELLIGENCE. the same time as the dogma of Transubstantiation, by Innocent III. "Lutheranism wishes to stifle the Reformed worship in Baden, where it is freer than anywhere else in the south of Germany. The parishes, with sufficient reason, look upon these attempts as Romish tendencies, and the Catholics themselves regard them as real approximations to their Church. The agitation produced in the parishes by the debates on the subject is excessive, and makes it easy to foresee that the new liturgy will be accepted only by a very small number of them. It is thus hat they deal with the Protestant Church it a moment when the Badish Government las contracted a Concordat with Rome! We ee with great satisfaction that our parishes re so seriously Protestant, for the clergy, or the most part, follow the current which n almost all Germany favours a Lutheran estoration. One circumstance which I orgot to mention is, that the new liturgy ontains a formulary for baptism, in which is declared that the infant is regenerated he same instant that it is baptized. The inroduction of this ritual is a triumph of Luheranism over the Reformed Church. The rayers and formularies which it contains re, almost without an exception, conceived (together in a Lutheran spirit. "It is a calumny to say that Rationalists ly protest against the new liturgy; I can firm, on the contrary, independently of e fact that at the present time there are ry few Rationalists to be found in the rand-Duchy of Baden, that it is precisely e most pious of the clergy who object to , but they do not wish to speak about it." To the foregoing we subjoin the followg from the Revue Chrétienne, published at aris: "The introduction of a new liturgy in e Grand-Duchy of Baden has given rise a most animated controversy. It is a mptom of much importance. The decline religious life in Germany, of which we ave often spoken to our readers, strikes all e pious men in the country; but when e remedy is considered, two parties are found opposed to each other. The one desires, in imitation of America and England, to engage an active evangelisation among the masses, to associate laymen in the work with pastors, and to multiply religious meetings. The other place all their dependence upon an orthodox liturgy, the introduction of ceremonies, and a more imposing ritual. It may be understood how this last want would be felt in a Reformed country, where religious life has become extinct. The worship of the Reformed Church, the most simple and severe of all, can least of all dispense with warm and faithful preaching; if this be wanting, if her pastors, without conviction and without life, retail from her pulpits mere flat moralities, nothing will conceal the melancholy spectacle of spiritual death; no moving chants, no striking ceremonies will cover the hideous skeleton of a service through which no Divine spirit breathes. Corruptio optimi pessima. Does it follow that the most efficacious means of quickening this religious death is to hide it under a ritual which appeals to the senses? We think not. No doubt one of the most important things in Protestant worship is to minister to the sublime necessities of sentiment and of the imagination; but if the external ritual is not the expression of the faith of the Church-if it is only a brilliant mantle with which they seek to cover her mental palor-we deem it every Christian's duty to tear it off with a determined hand, and, at all costs, courageously to expose the spiritual death which it is meant to conceal. These reflections will make it intelligible why we regret what is passing in Baden. They have imposed there by the authority, in part, of the Grand-Duke, upon a Reformed Church, a liturgy in which the real presence and baptismal regeneration are plainly taught. If it is thus they think to regenerate the Church, they deceive themselves. By compelling the clergy to recite formularies which they do not believe, they only encourage hypocrisy. This is the direct consequence of their beautiful Reformation." AUSTRIA. LOW SPIRITUAL CONDITION OF THE PROTESTANT CHURCH. To the Editor of Evangelical Christendom. Austria, April 10, 1859. Dear Sir,-I have observed with much tisfaction that, for some time past, your arnal has turned its attention more and more to my native country, and that the time is past for our English brethren to show a deeper interest and sympathy for the heathen inhabitants of the islands of the South Sea than for the Protestants of Aus EUROPEAN INTELLIGENCE. tria, who amount to almost four millions of souls. I wish to put you in possession of a few facts, which may enable you and our Protestant brethren of other lands, who read your pages, to form a correct idea of our present situation. Some things I must mention which I shall be told ought not to be reported, and it is a grief to me to have to state them; but I am not exposing our wounds to an unfeeling world, but to the Church of Christ, who will desire to heal them. In Evangelical Christendom, and other foreign journals, many complaints have been made of the oppression of the Government and of the Romish Church, and these things were brought under the notice of the Conference of the Evangelical Alliance. Other complaints are also made of the great poverty of the Austrian Protestants, and whenever a new church or school is needed, they turn to foreign lands for help. But in your number for January last, a very different voice was heard, which spoke of the spiritual wants of the Evangelical Church, and a dark picture was drawn of it-indeed, one that seemed to me rather too dark, whilst many light spots and encouraging signs were left unmentioned. No doubt these complaints are, to some extent, well-founded. That there is a great want of spiritual life amongst us is not denied even by the most unbelieving of our pastors, while, on the other hand, the more godly among them account for it by referring to our poverty and the oppression we suffer. Oppression, however, we are taught by the Gospel, to expect should have an opposite effect, and lead to a deeper and more earnest spirituality. And Luther aptly remarks, "If the devil were only so wise as to be silent and allow the Gospel to be preached, he would suffer less harm; for when the Gospel is not opposed, it grows rusty, and has no opportunity to show its power." In continuing the present letter, I will restrict myself to some remarks on the oppression which the Evangelical Church of Austria has to suffer, and reserve other matters for future communications. Some time ago, a highly-educated man, who at one period studied theology, but afterwards turned his attention to something else, said that he had lost all respect for the Bible since he had learned how ambiguous its doctrines were; for a Minister in Hungary, and that Minister a dignitary, made use of them to show the duty of fighting for freedom, and then, after the overthrow of the political party, he employed them again to enforce submission. Is it to be wondered at if, in a country where the Word of God a few years ago was made to preach, sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other, of revolutionary movements, and where some of the ministers placed themselves at the head of their con gregations to fight for national freedom with carnal weapons, so that a large number of them were involved in political examinations-is it, I ask, to be wondered at if the Government, itself Catholic, which hears incessantly from that side that the Reformation is the cause of all revolution should become distrustful, or that, in spite of the avowed principle of equal rights every movement of the Protestants should be watched with suspicion ? 1. Let me mention, first, what the Hun garians complain of, and, indeed, a larg proportion of the Protestants of Austrianamely, that the Government has abolished the old laws of 1791, and thus brought the old constitution of the Hungarian Church into danger. How far this is a just ground of complaint, I do not pretend to decide but this much is certain, that at the time when these laws were still in force, they exercised no visible quickening influenc upon the inward life of the Church. 2. A second complaint seems to me o more weight, that through the new organ isation of the schools in conformity with the regulations of Government, there is th prospect of their being separated from th Church. This, however, the future mus decide, and meanwhile, the hope may b entertained that the Government, whic certainly in this case means to act sincerely will not cut the very life-thread of th Protestant Churches, and at the same tim grant unbounded freedom to the Romanist and thus estrange the sympathies of a her Protestant subjects. On the oth hand, the Protestants, whose schools a excelled by those of the Catholics, mu endeavour not only to meet the demands the times but of the Gospel as well, and train up true servants of Jesus Christ. 3. A further and general complaint that of the protection shown to the Rom Catholic clergy, in the matter of "Reverse from parties contracting mixed marriag On this subject I would recall attention an article in your number for Septemb last. For the clearer comprehension of I may mention that the Protestant brid groom about to marry a Roman Catho bride can make no pretension to have |