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Christianity of the time owed its preservation. Karl Martel and Pepin dashed back the fierce onslaught of the Saracens and the Northern Pagans. But their greater successor directed all his policy to the uniting of Europe into a Christian empire, whose strength should subdue, and whose enlightenment should instruct, the wild tribes of the forest. His tireless activity in the field and the council, his self-reliance, strong sense, and courageous acceptance of his post as the barrier against aggressive paganism, must command the deepest respect. Though his faith was tinged with the superstition of his age, it was vital and sincere; and he loved virtue for its own sake, not merely because it was politic or seemly. What a manly and earnest protest he uttered against the image worship of the Church!

His steady, munificent patronage of the literature and the arts, his establishment of academies and parochial schools, his persistent efforts to promote good morals and to improve the common life of his subjects, testify to his high intelligence and designs. "It is better to act well than to know," he said, "but knowledge precedes action." The vigor of his balanced and powerful genius was felt in every corner of his domains; even the centrifugal force of rising nationalities was controlled while he lived, to break loose at his death and shatter the great system he had constructed into irreconcilable fragments. The close of his life seemed like the setting of a sun, leaving civilization and learning to grope in an uncertain twilight fast resolving itself into the night of the middle age:

Profoundly saddened by the inroads of death in his family, and feeling more and more the advances of age, and not unapprehensive of the fate of his empire, Karl resolved to associate his son in the administration of the government. To a great assembly of his lords and bishops, held in the church of Aix-la-Chapelle, he communicated his intention and desire. They approved his scheme with loud shouts. Invested with the imperial robes, and wearing the imperial crown, Karl took the hand of Ludwig, and advanced with him toward the altar, on which another crown was laid. They knelt and prayed devoutly together, and then rising, Karl addressed his son in words full of solemnity and tender solicitude: "The rank, my son," he said, "to which Ålmighty God hath this day raised you, compels you more than ever to revere the Sovereign Majesty, to love his excellencies, and to observe faithfully all his ordinances and commandments. In becoming an emperor, you

become the father and protector of his Church. On you chiefly will depend the good order and purity of his ministers and people. Though you be their master, consider them as your brethren; treat them as your friends, even as the members of your family; make yourself happy in advancing and securing their happiness. Fear not to employ justice and the authority with which you are clothed to humble and restrain the wicked. Be the refuge and the consolation of the poor. Make choice of governors and judges who fear God, and whose spirit is above partiality and corruption; and beware of ever suspecting easily the integrity and good behavior of those whom you have once honored with offices of dignity and trust. Study to live and reign unblamably before God and man, remembering the account you must finally give to the Sovereign Ruler and Judge of all." Out of his own heart and life Karl spake thus, amid the plaudits of all who heard him, when he directed Ludwig to lift the crown from the altar and put it on his head, in token that he received and held it from God alone. After partaking of the sacrament together, Karl tottered on the arms of his son in the procession which moved toward the palace.

The last years of his life, though he did not withdraw entirely from the cares of government, Karl spent in hunting, an amusement of which he was passionately fond, in religious devotions, and in correcting the Greek texts of the Gospels. In the month of January (814,) as he came from the bath, he was seized with a violent fever, and took to his bed. Steadily refusing nourishment, as was his wont when ill in order to triumph over the disease, he declined from day to day. The anxiety of his people caused them to discern in the common accidents of the time the fatal presages of his death. The sun and moon were eclipsed, the palace shaken by an earthquake, the great bridge of Mentz burned, and the portico of the church crumbled, in monition of his departure. On the 28th of the month, seven days after he was seized, having partaken of the holy communion, crossed his arms on his breast, and exclaimed, "Now, Lord, into thy hands I commit my spirit," he died. His body, solemnly washed and embalmed, was entombed on the same day in the basilica he had himself founded at Aachen. He was placed on a chair, in a sitting posture, with a golden sword on one side, a golden Gospel in his hand, and a diadem of gold, in which the wood of the cross was inserted, on his head. Over the imperial robes hung the pilgrim's scrip, which he used to wear on his visits to Rome, and before him lay the shield which Pope Leo had blessed. They wrote on his tomb: "Here reposes the body of Karl, the great and orthodox emperor, who gloriously enlarged the kingdom of the Franks, and governed it happily for forty-seven years.' "No one can tell," says a monk, "the mourning and sorrow that his death occasioned everywhere, so that even the pagans wept him as the father of the world." Well might the world have wept, for the bravest and noblest soul that it then knew was gone from it forever.-Pp. 474, 475.

Mr. Godwin's book seems to us worthy of hearty praise. He is the first English writer who has undertaken the weighty task of describing from the original sources, so copious in French literature, and with the light of modern researches, the origin and career of this wonderful nation. We do not affect that narrow criticism which passes unnoticed an author's conscientious labor, careful estimates of historical evidence, and perspicuous arrangement and narration, to nose about after a slip in some trifling reference, or an inadvertence in syntax. A purist might observe in the work before us an occasional roughness or careless expression; the use of "got" as an auxiliary; an occasional betrayal in the text of the style and idiom of the authorities, as if portions of the matter had not had time to distill through the alembic of the author's own mind. But these are trivial things which revision would remove, and which critics usually mention in proof of their own acuteness. Mr. Godwin's general style is clear and dignified, and is constructed with the composite richness of modern times. His descriptive powers are vitalized by a strong regulated imagination. His analysis of character seems careful and independent; there is a fearless morality and sense of justice in his judgments which inspires us with confidence that wrong, however bedizened with robes or furred gowns, will find in him no winking apologist. Whether he will be able to make the personages of history live for us will be more severely tested in succeeding volumes. As he approaches the later periods, the qualities which distinguish the great historian from the chronicler, the biographer, the essayist, or even the brilliant story-teller, will be more and more required. We have reason to believe that, with the priceless discipline of experience, and the copious resources which lie along his way, Mr. Godwin will not disappoint the high expectations which his opening volume justifies.

ART. VIII.-FOREIGN RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE.

GREAT BRITAIN.

THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES. The British Branch of the Evangelical Alliance held its fourteenth annual conference at Nottingham toward the close of October, and was warmly welcomed by evangelical Christians of all denominations. The report which the president, Sir Eardley Culling, gave of the operations of the past year, clearly showed that the Alliance in Great Britain does not fail to fulfill its great mission. It increases in large classes of the population the interest in the progress of religion in all parts of the world, it strengthens the bonds of union between evangelical Christians of all denominations and persuasions, and it is specially useful in enlisting the attention and the co-operation of the British Christians in behalf of those countries and Churches which stand in need of aid from abroad. It was the general impression that this year's meeting was on the whole one of the most interesting that the British branch has yet held. Another meeting to which the evangelical Churches had looked forward with a great deal of interest, was the Tercentenary of the Scottish Reformation, which took place at Edinburgh from the 14th to the 17th of August. A number of interesting papers were read, but on the whole the festivity did not come up to the general expectation. The presence of Mr. Chiniquy, who has since been making the tour of the principal towns in Scotland, soliciting subscriptions for the establishment of a library and theological seminary, was the event of deep interest, and the establishment of a Protestant institute for more effectually carrying on the missions among Roman Catholics, will prove one of its most important resolutions. The Revival of Religion continues to be very marked, especially in Scotland and in some parts of Ireland. Deeply interesting papers on the history and present aspects of the revival movements in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales were read at the late meeting of the Evangelical Alliance at Nottingham. considerable degree of interest among large numbers of the working class population was excited by the preaching

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of a Staffordshire miner, Richard Weaver. The gentlemen who associated themselves with Mr. Weaver in his labors were so thoroughly satisfied that spiritual good is being done by his means, that they have prevailed upon him to promise to devote himself to similar endeavors for several months to come, if his health and strength do not fail him.

The establishment of a closer Union between the Church of England and other Episcopalian Denominations, which hold the doctrine of apostolical succession, in particular the Eastern Churches, has always been a favorite scheme of the English High Churchmen. It seems that, of late, a greater advance than ever before has been made toward reaching this end. The Rev. G. Williams, Senior Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, has proceeded to Armenia for the purpose of assisting the Oriental Churches in establishing hostels at Cambridge, for the education of youths from the East, the Patriarch of Armenia having expressed a great desire for a nearer communion with the English Church. The Russian government has determined upon laying the foundation of a Russian hostel in Cambridge, and a hope is expressed that the Catholics of Etchmiazin will follow the example by sending a bishop of the Armenian Church, with a number of the Armenian youth, to England, to be educated in the University. Dr. Wolff, the eccentric High-Church clergyman who some years ago attracted great attention by his journey to Bokhara, has presented the nucleus of a library for the use of the students in the Russian hostel, and, to promote this plan of union still more effectually, will undertake a mission of an entirely novel character. "I shall," he says, "assume the garment of a monk of the Eastern Church, with a Bible in my hand, and the cross figured on my gown, which gown shall consist of black cloth. Wherever I find a bishop of the Christian Church, (let him be either of the Russian, or Greek, or Syrian Church,) I shall act under his advice and direction." Singular enough, the promoters of this scheme meet, even in the Roman Catholic Church, with more sympathy and co-operation than they probably expected. The Union Chréti

enne, a French religious paper, edited by Abbé Guettée, a distinguished scholar, who has been suspended by the Archbishop of Paris for his advanced Gallican opinions, takes openly the same ground. It regards the English High Churchmen as the true representatives of the Church of England, acknowledges the English Church, together with those of the East, as branches of the Catholic Church, and endeavors to call forth in the Church of Rome an anti-papal, episcopalian movement. In connection with this scheme of a great union between the Episcopalian Churches, the efforts of the Church of England to build up a strong hierarchy in all British colonies, and even to extend it beyond the dominions of Great Britain, have a particular significance. Arrangements have been recently made for the erection of a new bishopric in Australia, the seat of which will be in all probability at Goulburn, and a missionary bishop has been appointed for the islands of the Pacific, who will exercise episcopal supervision over seventy or eighty islands of the Pacific not under the British crown.

The Baptists report that their membership throughout Great Britain has considerably increased during the past year. They suffer, however, from internal dissensions. Mr. Spurgeon repregland, sents the leading Baptist paper of EnThe Freeman," as recreant to orthodoxy, and he himself is

Calvinistic

sembly at Ulm, in Wurtemberg, on August 28 and the two following days, reported again, as it has been able to do for several years, a considerable increase in its receipts, which amounted this year to one hundred and sixty-one thousand thalers. Since its origin the society has now expended more than one million two hundred and fifty thousand thalers for the support of about one thousand poor Protestant congregations in Roman Catholic countries. Besides the regular contributions of its members, the society begins to receive many liberal donations; thus the proceedings of this year's meetings were opened with the announcement that an inhabitant of Saxony had made to the society a donation of ten thousand thalers. As the fame of the extensive operations of the society becomes better known from year to year, the number of applications steadily increases. From all parts of Europe, from Asia, from Algeria, from North and South America, feeble Protestant congregations address the society for aid.

A pleasing incident in the history of the society, during the past year, was the reception of larger contributions

from Austria, as the Protestant Church

es of that country had received for the first time from their government the

permission to take up collections for the purposes of the association. The Evangelical Church Diet, which met at Barmen, a flourishing commercial city in

with transgressing in many points the charged by many of his co-religionists the charming Wupperthal, a region of denominational landmarks.

A revival

Germany celebrated for the piety of its inhabitants, entered this year upon a new era in its history; as the HighChurch party, which hitherto had sustained the Diets in union with the Evangelical party for a common combat against Rationalism and unbelief, had this year declared, through their

preacher of some celebrity, Mr. Guinness, has joined the Plymouth Brethren, or, as they call themselves, the Christian brethren, hitherto but little known, but who a small denomination, are reported to have received of late large accessions, and to have widely leaders, Dr. Stahl and Dr. Hengstenberg, extended their influence.

GERMANY, AUSTRIA, PRUSSIA. THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES. The Two Great Religious Assemblies of Protestant Germany, the meeting of the Gustavus Adolphus Association and the Church Diet, were never more important and interesting than this year. Both have again confirmed their claim to be

ranked

among the most influential re

ligious gatherings of Protestant Christendom. The Gustavus Adolphus Society, which held its seventeenth General As

their withdrawal. Dr. Stahl, as vicepresident of the Diet, had insisted on bringing up for discussion the question of civil marriage and of the political rights of Dissenters, and when the cen

tral committee opposed this as productive of disagreement, he, and with him his party, declined taking further part for the present. Nevertheless the attendance was large, and the meeting, which as usual discussed profound questions on scientific theology, and schemes for practical usefulness, was characterized, in consequence of the absence of

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