PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION.

As man's knowledge of the world increases he finds that it is a very small world, and that it is constantly growing smaller, not by any internal process of contraction or reduction of its forces, but as the result of his comparison with his former conceptions of its magnitude, which have given way before discovery to absolute knowledge of its condition, measurement, and relative importance in the universe of phenomenal bodies. Astronomy has all along assured us that the Earth is one of the smaller planets, Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune eclipsing it in grandeur of dimension and the magnificent sweep of their orbits. The navigator and explorer, however, have taken the place of the astronomer in the thought of the race, because they have shown us that continents are but grains of dust in the balances of Jehovah, and that the Earth itself, hung upon nothing, is a very little thing, and may be speedily subdued by the aggressions of civilization. A circumference of twenty-five thousand miles is not an appalling distance; it has been encompassed in seventy-five days. A cable overcomes an ocean, a railroad masters a mountain, and a barometer forecasts the winds of heaven, teaching us that nature is the servant of man. The original commission authorized the race to subdue the earth and exercise dominion over every living thing; and this purpose has ever been in execution, with evident signs of fulfillment. The conquest of the earth is no longer a question of distances, or of the refractory spirit of nature, but rather of assimilation of the remnant of barbaric elements in the human race into the refined and consecrated forces of civilized conditions. We would not,

We

however, intimate that little remains to be done in order to establish man's supremacy over nature, or that he should rest in the dominion already acquired. It may be that more laws are to be discovered than are now known to exist; that physical phenomena in general are to be more accurately defined and explained; that geologic forces are to be more skillfully interpreted, and their relation to future changes more clearly announced; and that the exact place of the Earth in planetary history is to be better understood. Perhaps man's dominion is as yet but superficial, though his title to complete authority is divinely guaranteed. have need, therefore, of the geologist, the meteorologist, the physiologist, the chemist, the navigator, the inventor-the whole round of the sciences, and the deepest plunging into the mysteries, and the bravest conflicts with the obstinacies, of nature. Let the Earth be made smaller; reduce it to an atom in comparison with the size of its neighbors; extract its secrets, and tell them to the race; reveal its laws, too shy to reveal themselves; and declare that man's dominion has reached the divine ideal of human conquest. This is the work of science, and theology waits to honor it for its success.

The exaltation of Columbus as the discoverer of the western hemisphere proceeds on the assumption that his achievement was purely a human 29-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. VI.

phenomenon. Materialistic thinkers refuse to see any thing beyond a successful adventure in the voyage that opened the way to a new world. It may have involved genius, courage, persistence, faith in man, but it in no wise involved the Supreme Power. Buckle would materialize the event, and rob it of the majesty of a great providential turning-point in history. Professor Draper would attribute it to certain physiological laws that, ever operating in the world, must produce epochs, revolutions, and changes of the world's surface. Perhaps others, not inclined to the theory of a self-ruling world, regard it as a natural event; largely the result of the right conceptions of Columbus of the earth, and the distri bution of land and water upon it. But it is here that the dividing line is reached, and the providential hand begins to show itself. No one credits Columbus with a correct view of the world, nor that he sailed with any expectation of finding a hemisphere, nor that he had worked out a problem in his study that would startle the world. He had truer ideas of some things than his contemporaries; he expected to correct the popular geography; he believed in the existence of other lands; and as he proceeded it may have occurred to him that he would teach his teachers as to the greatness of the earth. He was, doubtless, God's instrument in the discovery of a continent, and modestly assumed nothing on his own behalf. Without divine direction it is scarcely possible to believe that, accidentally or otherwise, he would have landed at San Salvador. The prow of his ship was not turned toward the west; but God quietly shifted it by storm and wind until it could take no other than a western course. God's path is in the sea, and the ship did not wander from it from the old to the new hemisphere. We recognize the human elements in the great achievement, but the divine plan should not be forgotten. We honor Columbus for skill, prudence, daring, and the heroic qualities of a navigator, but we honor him only as an instrument. He was great; God is greater. The tendency to a materialistic interpretation of events, or the undue eulogy of human factors in achievements, tends to retire the supernatural from its just position in history. Great events are supernatural events; turning-points are divine turning-points; and God rules the world in the interest of his kingdom. There is room for God and man in every event; and it is a small conception of that event that admits one to the exclusion of the other.

The history of the various struggles by which the religious rights of man have in part been secured contains many chapters of persecution, inquisition, and intolerance, and is, tout ensemble, a record of oppression and bigotry such as is discreditable to man's intelligent sense and a dishonor to religion itself. Without defining these rights, but assuming them to be known, it is a startling fact that, especially from the time that Constantine the Great issued his edict of toleration until the present hour, the acceptance of Christianity in one form rather than another has been determined more by legislators than by the preference of the individual; more by the authority of the Church than by the free choice of

the candidate. Free to all men, and tolerant of all rights, as Christianity is in spirit and teaching, laws the most cruel and expedients the most wicked have been employed in proscription of the individual's faith or in giving direction to his duties and sacrifices. Early paganism was excusable for its intolerance of Christianity, because it knew nothing of its claims, proofs, virtues, or conservative force; but Christian countries have been as intolerant toward their subjects when attempting to exercise their religious choices as the pagans of Nero's time or the Jews of Tertullius's day. The Spanish Inquisition was the machinery of a so-called Christian Church for the suppression of man's God-given right to choose one form of Christianity instead of another; it was employed more against recalcitrant believers, or Protestants, than infidels. France dishonored itself by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and paid the penalty with the loss of the Huguenots, the best blood of the country. England, by its acts of non-conformity, evinces the same unkindly spirit toward thousands of its Christian subjects; and by protection of the Established Church and proscriptive legislation respecting Dissenters, exhibits the same hardihood of oppression and the same disregard of man's religious rights that it condemns in Romanism. Germany, once emancipated by the Reformation, has not infrequently planned to circumvent the progress of all religious associations except the Protestantenverein, and unmasked the iron hand of oppression in the execution of its purpose. The Russo-Greek Church, in the Czar's empire, punishes seceders from its faith, and permits dissenting bodies to proselyte chiefly the strangers, or those already Protestant in belief. Thus every-where in Christian Europe the spirit of opposition to religious rights has ever been manifest, and is still in exercise in many countries. The remedy for this state of things is the disestablishment of every national Church, and the permission of every dissenting organization to do its work in its own way, competing only for the largest success in building up the divine kingdom in the nation. No greater deliverance could come to Europe to-day than the extinction of the bond that legally unites the Church and State, which gives the latter control of the former. Man's choice of religion should not be determined by law, nor enforced by any system of taxation, nor the authority resident in organized custom. Happily, the Church in many lands is struggling for freedom, and man every-where is asking if he has the right of alternative choice in religion. This is a hopeful sign, and its fulfillment, or progress toward fulfillment, will be watched by our American readers, who know little from experience of intolerance or persecution on account of religion, with the interest that an effort for freedom always inspires.

The spirit of political reform is abroad in the United States. We are a people who readily yield to the influence of movements that propose to purify national conditions, promote the prosperity of the country, dignify the citizenship of the individual, and conform the activities of the Republic to the requirements of the age. Hence moral, religious, social,

and literary réforms have not been unmeaning or isolated attempts for the conservation of the public welfare, but rather the significant symptoms of a vital and aspiring consciousness that was entitled to respect and foreboded practical elevation. The attention paid to political reforms in the different States, growing out of ominous conditions, is neither misplaced nor will be unfruitful if continued until certain needful changes shall have been secured. In view of the confessed bribery and corruption employed in political elections ballot reform is discussed every-where, and already nine States have adopted, in whole or in part, the Australian system of voting, while other States have enacted registration and other restrictive laws intended to prevent the misuse and abuse of the right of suffrage on the part of the conscienceless citizen. The civil service is still struggling with the problem of its purification from partisanship, and making progress with evident slowness; but the sympathy of the people is in harmony with the ideal end proposed. We all agree that the spirit of party is too intense, too radical; but it is often temporary and superficial, subsiding when the votes are counted, and resuming its mischievous tendency after the next nomination. The great evil of partisanship lies in its interference with needful legislation respecting moral and political reforms. The extinction of Mormonism is made not less a party question than was the resumption of specie payments; and yet party affiliations delay the ponderous stroke by which the evil might be destroyed. The naturalization of the foreigner, a question of national concern, is enveloped in the mystery of party machinery; and self-protecting laws against the foreign invasion cannot be enacted. In ancient times one did not reach his legal majority until he was thirty years of age. Aristotle advocated thirty-six years as the proper age. We crown the native subject with the full rights of citizenship at twenty-one, but extend them to the foreigner almost before he has had time to learn our language or become acquainted with our constitution. This is an evil of mammoth proportions, unchecked because of the supremacy of party spirit in political councils. No less an evil is the immigration of paupers and criminals from Europe to this fair land; but partisanship renders powerless the effort to prevent it. While reforming in some directions, it will be well to consider evils that, permitted to continue, must endanger civil liberty and subvert the idea of free gov ernment. If it were not in the nature of a political evil to produce its own reaction-and if the American people were not influenced by a sense of responsibility to posterity-one might at times indulge in a pessimistic view of the country's future. But it has always happened that a political evil, however strong in resources or wise in the use of expedients, in the course of its development has met with a counter force sufficient to overcome it, and rescue the nation from destruction. This is our hope of the future. Whether by the violent method of war, or the more peaceful method of legislation, or by the spontaneous sentiment of reform, stimulated by right education, the outcome of political evil will be the advancement of political righteousness, and this means the security of our institutions.

SPIRIT OF THE REVIEWS AND MAGAZINES.

GODET, in his New Testament Studies, observes that "the whirlwind which is now carrying the world captive is the inspiration of the Jewish spirit. It is the Jewish mind which is guiding the religious and moral movements of society in our day." Perhaps this is an overstatement of Jewish influence, albeit the increase of that influence during the last halfcentury has been so unexpected and surprising that many thoughtful men are giving serious attention to it as "a source of danger to Christian faith." Among the March Reviews, for example, one notes in the Presbyterian and Reformed Review a paper entitled "A Tendency of the Times," and one by Dr. Gracey, in the Missionary Review, on "The Jew in the Nineteenth Century,” both of which contain facts that confirm, at least in part, the observation of Professor Godet.

These papers present the Jews in Europe as having already obtained "most important positions for the education of the coming generation, and for molding the thought of the masses through the press." In Italy there are fifty Jewish professors in the leading universities. In France the highest education is to a most remarkable extent in the hands of Jews. In Paris, for example, in one institution, "of thirty-five professors seven are Jews." In Germany, in 1887, out of 1,326 professors ninetyeight were Jews. Their control of the press is equally significant. The late Professor Christlieb is credited with the statement that "almost the entire Liberal press of the German Empire is in the hands of the Jews. In France their control of the press is scarcely less commanding." Equally striking is the fact that the Jews furnish the European universities with many more students than their proportion to the general population. In the University of Berlin they number one tenth; "in the University of Buda-Pesth of 3,100 students 1,072 are Jews, and that in a country where they are only four per cent. of the population." And, to cite Godet again, "Journalism and the lesser literature belong to the Jews almost entirely, especially in Germany." Dr. Gracey very correctly affirms that "no list of eminent painters, philosophers, poets, professors, physicians, editors, lawyers, members of parliament, and bankers could be given without naming a modern Jew.”

Evidently the Jew is a factor of great power in modern society, and is destined to become still greater. He must, therefore, be considered in one's estimate of the forces now working with unprecedented activity and ability for the overthrow of man's faith in the claim of the Lord Jesus to be "the Son of God." The final triumph of the Gospel hinges on the maintenance of this faith, which the avarice, the skepticism, and the selfism of mankind are vehemently assailing. On which side of this supreme conflict will the Jew be found? To this question there can be but one answer. He still sides with his ancestors in their charge of blasphemy against Jesus because he claimed to be the Son of God. If he shall continue to cling to his national creed and prejudices he will bring all his immense wealth, his