even men who have no eyes for the solitude is most appalling, and nowhere beauty and no sense of the sublimity of on the earth does man feel his weakness the scene. They are sailing on a silver and insignificance so much as here, sea, in the wonderful Arctic sunlight, amidst the awful desolation. Once the which is unlike light in any other region, schooner's voyagers saw the rare snowin the still, intoxicating air which fills goose of Spitzbergen. They had astheir veins with life and thrills them with cended a ledge of rocks, 800 feet above a strange happiness; past iridescent the sea-level; slowly they made their caves rising out of the pure water, ascent to the steep brow of the crags, they can see far back into them, where and found themselves near the edge of a the upper edges are festooned with a deep blue lake, the surface of which was dazzling ornament like a network of lace as smooth as a mirror. On it were recomposed of fine gems, the fringe posing a number of large geese, pure gleams in the prismatic light with every white, resting undisturbed in the awful motion of the waves, and the fairy halls solitude. At sight of the intruders they are filled with awful sound. What mar-rose and flew towards them, making for vellous, constant beauty and life where the open sea. Very soon after this, the man is only a brief accident! Prowling schooner had to begin her homeward in the distance are two Polar bears, voyage; symptoms of the Arctic winter which the crew kill, and whose stomachs which proud man must not dare to brave, are found to be quite empty. A few which hunts him out of the ice kingdom days more and a herd of walrus is re- as mercilessly as he hunts its furred and ported; (some of the individuals feathered creatures, had set in. So the which compose it look, in the drawing of ship headed homewards, and one day them, like very fat elderly men lying on late in September she sailed up the their stomachs placidly and happily Humber, with a garland hanging from drunk): so, with terrible interludes of the masthead, in true whaler fashion. danger, when the schooner was driven helplessly into the floes, and with constant endurance of extreme fatigue, they came to Spitzbergen, and found magnificent reindeer, the noblest of the Arctic creatures. These are extremely difficult to stalk through the ice ravines and snow THE German Mercury prints a biovalleys, for though they have no knowl- graphical sketch of the Old Catholic edge of man and his murderous propen- Bishop Reinkens, who has just been consities, their keen scent warns them that secrated Bishop of Germany. He was something strange is near. And they born at Burtscheid, near Aachen, on the love each other, poor faithful beasts! first of March, 1821, so that he is now in with a love stronger than fear or the in- his fifty-third year. His father owned a disstinct of self-preservation. "Mr. Leigh tillery and some little property, which he Smith, sailing in Benlopen Straits in was unfortunate enough to lose. On that 1871, shot a large stag, but could not get account Reinkens, after his mother's near its companion; as they were a long death in 1836, had to work for the support way from the ship, he had the head and of his father at manual labour. But it horns removed, and brought along with was soon evident that he was qualified him to his schooner. They saw the sur- for a more dignified occupation. In the vivor go to the headless remains, and autumn of 1840 he entered the Quarta then follow the party to the ship. As it of the Gymnasium at Aachen, passed lingered on the shore, a man quietly through the "Tertia" and "Unterprima," landed from the boat and shot it." Over and in the summer of 1844 completed the the grand beauty of the still transparent course. He then went to Bonn, where water of King's Bay; the enormous he studied with so much zeal and success mountains, every foot of their frontage that in his first year he received the prize occupied by a sea-bird, until numbers fail to give any notion of their myriads; and the great glacier which occupies the upper part of the harbour, and fills the mind with awe - the marvellous Arctic light is shining, and glorifies all that it illuminates. But where the grandeur and the beauty are greatest, there the

From The Pall Mall Gazette.

THE GERMAN OLD CATHOLIC BISHOP.

from the philosophical faculty for an
essay on "The Idea and Definition of
Virtue among the Greeks." In the
autumn of 1847 he passed his theological
examinations at Cologne in the first class,
then entered the priests' seminary there,
was first among the candidates for exam-
'ination, and on the 3rd of September,

From The Saturday Review.

ROME AND ITS ADVERSARIES.

1848, was ordained a priest. He resumed his studies at Bonn, having, on account of distinguished theological attain- FAR above all small questions of curments," obtained a State stipendium (or rent politics, changes of Ministries, subscholarship) for two years, and prepared stitution of Republics for Monarchies, or his doctor's dissertation. He went to Monarchies for Republics, stand the two Munich in 1849, and was made "Doctor great questions of the times in which we theologiæ " with the " nota eminentiæ. livethe question as to what will be In March, 1850, he went to Breslau, the issue of the contest between the lawhere he lectured on Church history as bouring classes and their employers, and a Privatdocent. The following year his the question as to what will be the issue work on Clement of Alexandria was pub- of the contest between the Church of Rome lished, and in the spring of 1853 he be- and its adversaries. The two questions came extraordinary, and four years after- are even beginning to interlace on the Conwards ordinary, Professor of Church tinent, and those who dread the workinghistory. Until 1865 he had been thrice man denounce him as the enemy of Dean of the Catholic theological faculty, religion as well as the enemy of propand from 1865 to 1866 he was Rector of erty and comfort. In England the distrust the University of Breslau. From 1851 to of the labourer and the weariness and 1861 the claims of his office prevented disgust produced in the minds of quiet any great literary activity. Since Jan- people by perpetual strikes show themuary 20, 1853, he had been first cathedral selves in the comparatively mild form of preacher, in which capacity he delivered an alienation of wavering Liberals from the Sunday sermons in the cathedral their party, and an inclination to see church at Breslau till Easter, 1858. He whether a Conservative Government canthen resigned the office in order to have not impart a more healthy tone to soleisure for literary pursuits. For the ciety. But on the Continent, and essame reason he resigned his canonry in pecially in France, there is a very large 1857, and in 1858 the provostship of St. and active party which proclaims as Hedwig in Berlin. His literary labours loudly and persistently as it can that the bore rich fruits. In the year 1861 ap- only way to get the labourer into a right peared his history of the Leopold Uni- frame of mind again as regards his work versity until its union with that of Frank- and wages is to submit him once more to fort; in 1864 his monographs on "Hilary the old authority of a despotic religion. of Poitiers" and "The Hermit of St. The pre-eminent thought in minds of this Hieronymus ; " in 1865 "Martin of type is that half measures, half religions, Tours;" and in 1866 "The History of and half governments have failed. They the Philosophy of St. Augustine.' A have encouraged an amount of liber y prolonged residence in Rome (1867 to 1868) gave him a profound view of the unwholesome condition of the Roman Church, and nerved him to continue his study of the ancients. As the fruit of this resolution in May, 1870, was published his "Aristotle upon Art," which induced the philosophical faculty of Leipzig to appoint him in 1871 "Doctor philosophiæ honoris causâ." His experiences in Rome also stimulated him to investigate closely the historical causes of the decline of the Roman Church. Through the proceedings at the Council the duty of continuing such studies was more than ever impressed on Reinkens. With all the energy of his character he devoted himself to study, and entered upon the struggle with Rome which his inquiries more and more convinced him was inevitable.

with which they have not been able to cope after it has attained its full force. They have made men discontented, disorderly, and unhappy, and if mankind is ever to be happy again, it must return to the paths it has deserted. There is nothing new in this, as there have always been in every age crowds of people who have thought that the only reason why governments ever failed was that they did not govern enough, and that religious authorities should seize hold of every man from his cradle to his grave, and, with the aid of the civil authorities working submissively under them, should take care that he did not come to harm, or bring others to harm in this world or the next. What is new, at least in this generation, is the determined and thorough manner in which this view of human life is now asserted in the face of the violent opposition it excites. In every direction the Absolutist party takes the ground of rejecting every compromise, and of carry

ing out its theories without heeding any | not belong to those Catholic associations of the limits which common sense or the which are pronounced to be dangerous, strength of counter-theories might im- or they will forthwith be dismissed. The pose. In politics it is engaged in a fierce Archbishop of Posen has been sentenced combat, beating down Republicans, sneer- to a heavy fine for contravention of the new ing at Constitutionalists, spreading the laws, and the State authorities have given peace of silence wherever it can reach. notice in a town where an incumbent was In religion it is loth to trouble itself with appointed by an Archbishop in a manner evidences, modest misgivings, limited not permitted by the law, that the State adoration. It is determined to have mir-will not recognise any of the acts peracles and visions, and it has them. It formed by this ecclesiastic, and, more delights in every form of mysticism and especially, that marriages celebrated by pietistic rapture. It sees in every event him will be considered invalid, and that of life a judgment or a blessing according children baptized by him will need to be to its prepossessions. And then all this rebaptized. The Courts have also interfervour and this distaste for half measures vened to help the Government. They constantly find force and support in the have decided that the Old Catholics are dogma of infallibility which has so largely not Dissenters, and that they are a relichanged the attitude of the Church to gious body recognized by the law, so that the Civil Power. One mouth now pro-attacks on their worship by their Ultranounces absolutely and unquestionably montane enemies may be punished as what is right; and all bargains with the libellous. The Government, adopting Civil Power-concordats, vetoes on this view, and carrying it out to its natbishops, and other devices by which the ural conclusion, has not only refused to State kept the Church somewhat in the interfere with the Old Catholics, but has background now seem out of date. appointed an Old Catholic to be an inThe Pope alone is to speak, and kings, spector of schools in a district where a and emperors, and presidents have but to large portion of the schools he will have listen. to inspect belong to Catholics. The Ultramontanes pay as little attention as they possibly can to the decrees of the State, will not come when they are sent for, or do as they are bid, and keep doing what they are forbidden to do by law. That they will be in some degree strengthened by the severe measures taken to coerce them, that their ardour will grow more intense, that their secret associations will become more powerful, and that they will gain in coherence and organization, is tolerably certain. But whether the State may not in the long run and on the whole beat them, and make the mass of Germans hold aloof from them, is still uncertain. The Government has on its side the idea of the State and of its authority which is now so deeply planted in the German mind. It has also the national spirit, which sees in German Ultramontanes the friends of France and the enemies of the Fatherland. But perhaps what will tell for the Government more than anything is that it daily becomes clearer from the experi ence of other countries that a nation must, since the promulgation of the dogma of infallibility, either quarrel with Ultramontanism or bow to it. Germans might get tired of a purely German contest, but when they look beyond Germany they will see that what is happening to them is happening to a great many other

The consequences of this new attitude of the Absolutist or Ultramontane party are rapidly making themselves felt all over the world. It was because the Irish bishops would have all or nothing that the very liberal offer made on the part of the State by Mr. Gladstone to the Irish Catholics was rejected, and the problem of Irish Education was deferred to a remote future. In Germany the collision between Church and State grows every day more intense. There the State is a great power, and its means of annoying a religious body which defies it are very considerable. On neither side is there any flinching. The Government has armed itself with new laws, and is resolutely putting them in force, and it has taken under its protection that small body of Catholics which openly stands aloof from the bulk of the community to which it lately belonged, and rejects the dogma of infallibility. The legislation of the summer has enabled the Prussian authorities to inspect and decide on the merits of every clerical institution, and Commissioners are at work who do their duty without any hesitation, and insist on the secrets of every institution being revealed to them. If they report against an institution and their report is approved of, the institution is at once closed. Schoolmasters are warned that they must

people also, and that they must in some shape or other take their share in a struggle that is almost universal.

From Saint Pauls.

A FOG ON THE THAMES.

rel between France and Germany. The Swiss Government has been among the foremost to withstand the new ecclesiasIf there was one place more than an- tical onslaught, and it is said that the other where it might have been supposed Ultramontane party in Switzerland has rethat Ultramontanism would find none of cently applied for aid to the new French that moderate resistance which consists Government; while the Italian Governnot in breaking away from religion, but ment has given a public intimation of its in attempting to set bounds to ecclesias- conviction that the new-born fervour of tical power, it was South America. But French officials for pilgrimages and exeven there the quarrel which is di tract- piatory churches and clerical intrusion ing Germany has begun to rage. The into the army constitute a menace to State in Brazil finds itself defied by the Italy which it would be folly to disregard. Church, and the State in Brazil is tolera- But with regard to Brazil, there is no bly strong and respects itself, and does political question of the kind. If there not feel disposed to do exactly what it is is to be a war of revenge, Brazil can told to do by ecclesiastics of the modern help neither party, and it is therefore in type. The Bishops in Brazil have ven- the highest degree instructive to find tured on two measures which have that there too the new dogma is producplaced them in antagonism with the Gov- ing a crisis essentially the same as that ernment. They have introduced, with- through which Germany and Switzerland out the permission of the Govenment, and Italy are passing. which is legally necessary for the purpose, Papal decrees, and put them in force, and they have taken upon themselves to excommunicate Freemasons, and to refuse them the rites of the Church. It may be added that very recently a new set of bishops, foreigners and violent JUST now a growing fog has gathered Ultramontanes, have been imposed on on the river; not thick enough at any the country by Rome, while the local rate, as yet to stop the traffic, but givclergy has still some feelings of indepen- ing so weird a look to everything which dence remaining. Thus exactly the same it invests as to be worth a note or two. questions which have arisen in Germany It is a June, not a November, fog. The are arising in Brazil. The three main subtropical plants in Battersea Park offences of the Prussian bishops in the seem quite at home in the sultry haze; eyes of the Government were that they but the lilacs and the laburnum and the set up the law as promulgated by the hawthorns and the chesnuts, white and Pope above the law of the State, that red, and the ribbon flower-borders look they abused the power of excommunica- strangely dim, while again the rich, moist tion, and that they were parties to a sys- grass, seen close at hand, shines as if tem by which Catholic Germany was giving off its own light. A stray parkflooded with importations of foreign eccle- keeper with dimmed gilt bands and butsiastics. To make the bishops and their tons, one or two solitaries dreaming on inferiors obey the State laws, to keep the clammy garden-seats, a stray gardener their power of excommunication within who looks up from his work and silently the narrowest possible limits, and to gazes at a passer-by with cowlike eyes, a drive foreign ecclesiastics out of the lounging waiter yawning in the midst of country, were the aims which those a jumble of empty benches and tables, who framed the new Prussian ecclesias- and two or three little children dodging tical legislation had constantly in view. in and out between them like mice, are Whether the State, if pushed to extremi- the only people one meets in the whole. ties in Brazil, will adopt measures of of the damp, gauze-muffled park. Leaden equal vigour, it is as yet too early to say; and smooth and indistinct, with blurredbut at present the Emperor and his ad- green reflections, spreads the ornamental visers appear determined not to shrink, water, like a lagoon in which yellow fever and they are said to be effectually sup- and a Cuban slaver might be hiding. A ported by popular opinion. In Europe water-fowl rises with a scurry of wings to the contest is perpetually assuming a alight unseen with a dully audible splash. political form which in some degree con- Two black swans glide about noiselessly, ceals the true character. It has a ten- or talking to each other in the voice dency to merge itself in the general quar-' which is said to be excellent in woman,