were it not for the comparatively rapid motion of its perihelion, "its equilibrium being maintained by the very act of perturbation. The mean disturbing influence of Uranus on the eccentricity of Jupiter's orbit is identically equal to nothing by reason of the relation which exists always between the perihelia of their orbits." The mean notion of Jupiter's node on the invariable plane is exactly equal to that of Saturn, and the mean longitude of these nodes differs by exactly 180 degrees. By reason of the rapid motion of these nodes the secular changes of the inclination of the orbit of Uranus pass through a complete cycle of values in the period of 56,300 years. The corresponding cycle of perturbations in the eccentricity of Saturn's orbit is 69,140 years. "It is the rapid motion of the orbit, with respect to the forces, in the one case, and the rapid motion of the forces, with respect to the orbit, in the other, that gives permanence of form and position to the orbits of Saturand Uranus."

The spheroidal form of the earth and planets which Laplace and others urge as one of the consequences of the nebular theory has an important bearing on the extent of variation of equator and ecliptic. The actual limits are 23 degrees, only slightly affecting the seasons, which depend on this angle. If the earth were not spheroidal, but spherical, the inclination of the ecliptic to the equinoxial would vary to the extent of 12 degrees. While the earth's orbit vibrates through several degrees, the attraction on the protuberant matter of the equator draws it down toward the plane of the orbit.

Mr. Stockwell, reflecting on the phenomena of the solar system, connected with its stability, makes the following observation: "A system of bodies moving in very eccentric orbits is one of manifest instability; and if it can also be shown that a system of bodies moving in circular orbits is one of unstable equilibrium, it would seem that between the two supposed conditions a system might exist which should possess a greater degree of stability than either. The idea is thus suggested of the existence of a system of bodies in which the masses of the different bodies are so adjusted to their mean distances as to insure to the system a greater degree of permanence than would be possible by any other distribution of masses."

The grand progressive scheme of life, as revealed by geology,

requiring vast ages for its development, clearly points to the perpetuity of the solar system as an indispensable requisite. This adjustment of the physical system-in view of the many perturbing influences which threaten its existence-to the system of life, incapable of enduring great vicissitudes, must be regarded as a striking proof of a Divine Intelligence in creation and preservation.

Laplace criticises Newton for indulging in speculations which connected the Almighty with the solar system, while he himself framed an hypothesis virtually excluding him from the realm of nature. The Christian philosopher will do well to imitate the devout spirit of Newton, the great discoverer of the law of gravitation, rather than the irreverent spirit of Laplace, its greatest expounder.

ART. VII. SYNOPSIS OF THE QUARTERLIES AND OTHERS OF THE HIGHER PERIODICALS.

American Quarterly Reviews.

BAPTIST QUARTERLY, October, 1876. (Philadelphia.)-1. The Literary Elements in Theology. 2. Horatio Balch Hackett. 3. The Future of Catholic Nations. 4. Education among the Baptists of this Country during the Last One Hundred Years. 5. Progress of a Century. 6. Modern Evolution Theories. BIBLIOTHECA SACRA, October, 1876. (Andover.)-The Madonna Di San Sisto. 2. The Synthetic or Cosmic Philosophy. 3. Recent Works Bearing on the Relation of Science to Religion. 4. The Immortality of the Human Soul. 5. An Exposition of the Original Text of Genesis i and ii. 6. The Idea of God in the Soul of Man. 7. Dale on the Atonement.

CHRISTIAN QUARTERLY, October, 1876. (Cincinnati.)—1. Baptism and Christian Union-the Real Question. 2. Animal Life. 3. Faith in the Unseen. 4. Materialism. 5. The Work Assigned to Faith. 6. Baptism for Remission of Sin is Justification by Faith. 7. Behold the Man. 8. Foreign Missions. NEW ENGLANDER, October, 1876. (New Haven.)-1. The Influence of the Crusades upon European Literature. 2. The Belfast Address in another Light. 3. The Last Century of Congregationalism; or, the Influence in Church aud State of the Faith and Polity of the Pilgrim Fathers. 4. The New Theology. 5. Mr. Lettsom's Version of the Middle German Epic. 6. Logos and Cosmos: Nature as Related to Language. 7. Necessary Truths and the Principle of Identity. 8. On some of the Relations between Islam and Christianity. 9. Muller's Rig Veda and Commentary.

NEW ENGLAND HISTORICAL AND GENEALOGICAL REGISTER, October, 1876. (Boston.) -1. Memoir of Charles W. Moore, Esq. 2. The Field Family of New Jersey. 3. Notes on American History. Nos. IX-XII. 4. The Garrison Family of Massachusetts. 5. Gleanings. No. 69. Capt. John Ayres. No. 70. Farrars and Brewers of Essex County, Mass. 6. Deaths in Stratham, N. H., from 1741. 7. Extracts from the Diary of the late Hon. William D. Williamson. 8. Ab

stracts of the Earliest Wills in Suffolk County, Mass. 9. The Second Foot Company of Newbury, 1711. 10. Memoranda from the Rev. William Cooper's Interleaved Almanacs. 11. Record of the Boston Committee of Correspondence, Inspection, and Safety. 12. Samuel Allen of Windsor, Coun., and his Descendants. 13. Baptisms in Dover, N. H., 1717-66. 14. Abstracts of the Earliest Wills in Middlesex County, Mass. 15. Passengers and Vessels to America. 16. Ancestry of Admiral Porter.

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, October, 1876. (Boston.)-1. The Southern Question. 2. Whisky Ring. 3. Von Holt's History of the United States. 4. An Episode in Municipal Government. 5. The "Independents" in the Canvass. PRESBYTERIAN QUARTERLY AND PRINCETON REVIEW, October, 1876. (New York.) 1. American Methodism in 1876. 2. The Indian Question. 3. Our Indian Policy Further Considered. 4. Organization of the Fundamental Principles of Social Science. 5. The Organic Unity of the Church. 6. The Great Awakening of 1740. 7. The Revivals of the Century. 8. Recent German Works on Apologetics. 9. Philosophy and Science in Germany. 10. Current Notes. QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH,.October, 1876. (Gettysburg.)-1. Of Confession. 2. An Hour with the Fathers. 3. The Theological Seminary of the General Synod. 4. Protestantism and Catholicism in their Influence upon the Liberty and Welfare of Nations. 5. Our Home Mission Work in Cities. 6. Additional Remarks on the Ministerium. UNIVERSALIST QUARTERLY, October, 1876. (Boston.)-1. Beauty in Common Life. 2. Egyptian Book of the Dead. 3. The Avesta. 4. Immer's Hermeneutics of the New Testament. 5. Luther and Schleiermacher as Preachers. 6. Tyndall and Martineau; or, the Debatable Ground between Materialism and Religion. 7. The Polity of the Universalist Church.

AMERICAN CATHOLIC QUARTERLY REVIEW, October, 1876. (Philadelphia.)--1. The Church and the People. 2. What the Church and the People Have Done for the Science of Geography. 3. The Past and the Present Indissolubly United in Religion. 4. A Plan for the Proposod Catholic University. 5. The Nine Days' Queen. 6. Who is to Blame for the Little Big Horn Disaster? 7. How Shall we Meet the Scientific Heresies of the Day? We have received the first four numbers of this stately Quarterly, and looked over its pages with gratification. In our country, where the Protestant principle of the right of private judgment prevails, it is desirable to hear the highest and best utterances of those who deny that right. No little ability of thought and grace of style appear in its pages. Besides fine literary articles, there are able defenses of our common Christianity, skillful argumentations in behalf of Roman peculiarities, and, we may add, sharp aggression upon Protestant communions, among which Methodism comes in for a very explicit share.

The Roman communion, like its elder and more authentic sisters, the Syriac and the Greek Churches, erred not so much by the corruption of primitive doctrines as by spurious additions to them. The Reformation of the sixteenth century was an attempt, very honest and to a great degree successful, to fling off the later and spurious, and fall back upon the primi

tive and pure. It aimed to discard the modern and retain the ancient. Hence Protestantism is more ancient and primitive than Romanism. The primitive truth contained in Romanism, and in the written canon preserved by the Roman as well as by the other Churches, is essential Protestantism.

Among these Roman novelties, most pre-eminent in spuriousness and pregnant with danger, is the ascription to the Bishop of a single city of a supremacy over all other Bishops, culminating in a final ascription to the same prelate of the attribute of "infallibility"! The city selected as the theocratic city was the old Pagan Rome! This strange anomaly really arising from the fact that Rome was the politically imperial city, was theologically based upon the late and fanciful myth that St. Peter was once a Bishop there; and under pretense that the attributes of Peter descend along the whole descending line of Roman Bishops, we honest American Christians are called upon to abdicate our own reason and conscience, and accept the pronouncements of the present Roman Bishop in their stead. This is a decidedly tall demand. It calls for a very tall pile of resistless reasons authenticating itself. But the reasons are not impressive. Most well read and thoughtful Protestants recognize upon their very face ample warrant for prompt rejection, excusing us from wasting time in any extended examination.

Old Hugh Broughton remarks that Rome is not a favorite locality in biblical estimation. In the Apocalypse it is uniformly Babylon, an antitheocratic city, doomed to destruction. The great red dragon of Paganism has his native home in Rome. And Gibbon somewhere gives us a splendid passage picturing the fact that the stupendous pagan political empire of Rome was succeeded by a spiritual empire of deeper despotism, longer duration, and wider extent. And on the very surface of the Apocalypse we have the same fact pictured to the most transient eye. The great red Roman dragon of seven heads and ten horns is succeeded by the Roman beast with seven heads and ten horns. How far the scrutiny of details would verify the first impressions we will not now inquire. We only say that the first impressions are profoundly suggestive.

But the greatest practical Roman error, that which opens the deepest and broadest chasm between her and Catholic Christendom, is her claim to punish doctrinal dissent with physical

inflictions. Roman Catholicism is thus a standing vocal menace against the religious freedom of the world. We quoted a few years ago, from the "Catholic World," the assertion of the right of the Church to punish physically those who were "criminal in the order of ideas;" in other words, to kill us if we refuse to be Romanists. And lately, a leading French Catholic said to the Protestants, "You are bound by your principles to tolerate us, we are not bound by our principles to tolerate you." What is the proper reply to such a statement? Our reply would be, We are bound to tolerate you as Romanists in the exercise of your own religion, but we are not obliged to tolerate you as menacers of our rights to the exercise of our religion. In the last character you are secular enemies, to be guarded against, defeated, and punished. If they reply, But this claim to not tolerate you is part of our religion; then we must answer, So much the worse, for then no Protestant principle requires us to tolerate even a religion that menaces our religious freedom. Prudentially, the tolerance should be maintained so far as safety allows; but in dealing with a religious communion bound by irrepealable pledges never to tolerate where there is power to inflict, we can never forget what the law of self-preservation requires.

Roman Catholicism, so far as it is Catholic, is doubtless Christian so far as it is Roman, it is deeply pagan.

SOUTHERN REVIEW, October, 1876. (Baltimore.)-1. Christian Theology. 2. Mind and Matter. 3. Caroline Herschel. 4. The Theistic Conception of the World. 5. Robert Emmet. 6. Capital Punishment. 7. Louisa, Queen of Prussia. 8. Tho Heart of the Continent. 9. The Teachings of our Lord in Regard to a Future Life.

Dr. Bledsoe accepts the work of the Joint Commission at Cape May in the following frank and whole-souled style :

In our humble opinion the Joint Commission which recently met at Cape May to adjust the difficulties between the two Methodist Episcopal Churches of this country have done a great and good work. Indeed, we have always been in favor of "an era of good feeling" between the two Churches, provided it were, at the same time, an era of just principles; and such an era we now have reason to believe has been inaugurated by the action of said Commission. As to the books by Myers and Fuller, which we intended to dissect and discuss in this number of our Review, they may now fight out their own battle in their own way. We have buried the hatchet. We are more than satisfied with the work of the