lation. At the same time the grammatical works of Barhebraeus have been published at Paris by Abbé Martin, (Œuvres gramm. de Barhe braeus. 2 vols. Paris, 1872.)

One of the most prominent men of the Reformed Church of France, Eu-. gene Bersier, has published a history of the General Synod of his Church which was held last year to take up again, after an interruption of two hundred and twelve years, the work of the former Synods of the Church, (Histoire du Synode Générale de l'Eglise Reformée de France. Paris, 1872.) The book contains a historical introduction which acquaints the reader with the past history of the Reformed Church, and with the causes which have produced the present situation of French Protestantism; the public proceedings of the Synod, with all the speeches made; an appendix, containing a collection of important documents relative to the history of the Church, such as the Confession of Faith of La Rochelle, the Discipline of the Reformed Church, the important Laws of 1802 and 1852, and the circulars of the Government explaining them; a brief summary of the history and the decisions of former Synods, the statistics of the Protestant population of France, a statistical account of the limits into which the Church is divided, the draft of the new Organical Law which has been adopted by the Synod, and much other important and interesting matter.

ITALY.

The papal almanac, which formerly was entitled Annuano Pontificio, has been published for 1872 under the title La Gerarchia cattolica e la famiglia pontificia. This almanac was formerly regarded as a kind of official publication of the Pope, and Catholic periodicals did, therefore; not dare to find fault with it. This year the compiler, Monsignor Ciccolini, appears to indicate in his preface that the almanac is not to be considered as official; and even the Catholic papers do, therefore, admit that the almanac leaves much to be desired, both in point of completeness and in point of accuracy. The almanac, in fact, contains nothing but a list of the cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, and other high dignitaries of the Catholic Church and of the papal court. It contains no statistical information on the present number of Roman Catholics.

.

The public addresses which Pope Pius IX. has made since September 20, 1870, (the downfall of the temporal power,) have been published under the name Discorsi del Sommo Pontefice Pio IX., ("Discourses of the Supreme Pontiff, Pius IX., Pronounced in the Vatican to the Faithful of Rome and of the Earth, from the Beginning of his Imprisonment until the Present Day. Collected for the first time, and published by P. Don Pasquale de Franciscis." Rome, 1872.) A collection like this has a certain interest for the Church history of our age, for it is a faithful mirror of the sentiments animating the papal court at one of the greatest crises in the history of the Roman Catholic Church.

Professor M. Haug, of Munich, the best authority on all subjects relating to the religion of the Parsees, has published an essay on the “Ahuna-vairya Formula, the Holiest Prayer of the Zoroastrians," (Die Ahuna-vairya-Formel. Munich, 1872.) This prayer, which consists of hardly twenty words, is described as the eternal word of Ahuramazda, which existed before all creation, by which the world was created, and which is the substance of all good powers, terrestrial and spiritual. As to the meaning of the formula, the writers on the Zend language are not fully agreed. The translation which is given by Professor Haug (who for many years lived in India in literary intercourse with the Parsees) materially differs from one recently given by Professor R. Roth in the Zeitschrift der deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, vol. xxv, pp. 1421. According to Haug, the chief aim of the formula is to inculcate to every Zoroastrian the necessity of spiritual assistance and spiritual direction. The formula very frequently occurs in the sacred writings of the Parsees, and in the entire religious literature of the Zoroastrians. As the most powerful prayer, as the most effective magic formula, it is used in all occurrences of life, even in many of the most common occupations, but chiefly in religious ceremonies and performances. Thus it is used one hundred and twenty-one times in the libation of the consecrated wine and the consecrated fruit.

Among the great number of books and pamphlets which have recently been published on the present relation of the Roman Catholic Church to the State Government, one by Gerlach on "Pope and Emperor" (Kaiser und Papst. Berlin, 1872) attracts considerable attention because the aged author has long been one of the leaders of the High Church con'servatism of Prussia. He is one of the very few Protestant writers who assert that the proclamation of the infallibility and absolute power of the Popes by the Vatican Council should neither affect the friendly relations between the State Government and the Papal Court, nor the alliance between High Church Protestants and Romanists against the liberal tendencies of the age.

ART. IX.-QUARTERLY BOOK TABLE.

Religion, Theology, and Biblical Literature.

A Theodicy; or, Vindication of the Divine Glory, as Manifested in the Constitution and Government of the Moral World. By ALBERT TAYLOR BLEDSOE, LL.D. New York: Nelson & Phillips. Cincinnati: Hitchcock & Walden.

This "Theodicy" was written when the author was in the strength and ambition of his earlier manhood. His moral nature had not been put to the strain by advocating an institution the reverse of freedom, nor his feelings embittered by overwhelming disaster in his advocacy. The work is, therefore, manly and courteous in its spirit; pure, clear, and stately in its diction; richly freighted with

an immense amount of reading of the grand old masters of moral thought; and penetrative, demonstrative, and, in a great degree, original in the structure of its great argument. It will long stand, we trust, as a stronghold of a true theology; it never will be or can be fairly answered. To the large, but we fear not increasing, number of our ministry and laity who possess an interest in mastering the philosophy of our theology we cheerfully recommend the thorough study of our New Edition of this work.

To sustain its title for originality it is not necessary to claim that its fundamental positions are original. In a modest passage of his Introduction he says: "We do not wish to be understood as laying claim to the discovery of any great truth, or any new principle. Yet we do trust that we have attained to a clear and precise statement of old truths. And these truths, thus clearly defined, we trust that we have seized with a firm grasp, and carried as lights through the dark places of theology, so as to expel thence the errors and delusions by which its glory has been obscured. Moreover, if we have not succeeded, nor even attempted to succeed, in solving any mysteries, properly so called, yet may we have removed certain apparent contradictions, which have been usually deemed insuperable to the human mind." All this, and more, may be rightly accorded to the author. Yet on the other hand, in answering the objection (which no Methodist would bring) that he has presented a "new theology" he somehow admits and justifies. His truer and more conclusive reply would have been that as a structural "theology" there is nothing "new" about it. And so when he claims (p. 244) that Arminians are ignorant of the key-principle of his Argument, he claims what no well-read Arminian will ever concede to his work. It is simply a restatement of the old Chrysostomian-Arminian theodicy, embraced within the theology of the entire Eastern Church, of a large majority of the Western Church, and, in fact, of the entire Christian Church of the first three centuries. There is not a leading idea in this work by the side of which we might not place its duplicate in some preceding author, and, probably, many authors.*

* In noticing our refutation of Dr. Bledsoe's three charges against us individually of having plagiarized his Theodicy, the editor of the "Canada Christian Guardian" conceded the validity of our replies; yet he was pleased to add (we quote from memory, but, we think, correctly) that, in his opinion, we had not done sufficient justice to Dr. Bledsoe; that his own opinion of the Theodicy was higher than ours, and that he had himself received great benefit from its perusal. How the respected editor should know that our opinion of the work was lower than his he would be nonplussed to tell, as we have heretofore published no opinion of it

The work is divided into two parts. Part First seeks to reconcile the Existence of Sin, and Part Second the Existence of Suffering, with the Holiness of God. For the entire series of solutions through both parts, one great leading principle, firmly grasped and persistently applied, serves as the key. That key-principle is the impossibility of a necessitated holiness. In the very nature of things, holiness is the attribute of a free-agent. The nonexistence of the freedom is the non-existence of the holiness. The production of a system of purely holy agents without the attribute of a non-necessitated free-agency is as impossible, even to Omnipotence, as a system of circles without the equality of the radii. This single key-principle unlocks a whole series of iron doors of the stern stronghold of Necessity. It enables us to emerge into the sphere of a genuine free-agency, in which the universe, though abounding in sin and suffering, is still seen as the best possible system, and as ruled by a perfectly wise and holy God.

Yet, as we have frankly said in our work on The Will, the terms in which this key-formula is expressed appear to us in an important point inaccurate. In the list of noble authors quoted in the work no Wesleyan-Arminian writer appears. This is deeply to be regretted. Theodicy, as included in theology, was really the field of that notable controversy which called forth those memorable expositions by Wesley, Fletcher, and others, to which the central part of Watson's Institutes was a grand addition. Theodicy in its connection with the other parts of theology was never so clearly, evangelically, practically, and conclusively developed as by these great Wesleyan masters. The author of this Theodicy would have whatever. The work has never been before us for characterization; not in our Quarterly, for it has never before presented itself to us for notice; not in our "Will," for no author whatever, excepting Edwards in the Preface, is characterized in that work any more than in Dr. Bledsoe's own book. If the editor has derived benefit from its perusal, that rendered it his duty to do it justice, not ours, who owed it no obligations. And that we owed it no obligations is conclusively conceded by the editor when he admits that Dr. Bledsoe has picked his three test passages to prove our indebtedness, and has failed. How, then, are we called upon to do justice when we have incurred no obligation? We have ever in private intercourse recommended the work; and at the time the courteous editor of "The Guardian was writing, our own copy was lent to a young minister to whom we had strongly advised its study. We may add that while Dr. Bledsoe was preparing his broadsides upon us personally we were doing our best to urge the issue of this New Edition. The idea that we should undertake to plagiarize a standard work, published at our Book Room, preposterously imputes to us an attempt to steal a man's property not only before his own eyes in open day, but also before the eyes of the public. Next to the stupidity of committing such an act is the stupid

ity of imputing it.

perhaps been saved from some mistakes, even if he had lost some of both his toil and his consciousness of origination. At least he would have escaped the sad mistake of claiming that any point in our theology was his own invention, and charging any one who had occasion to state that point with "stealing my thunder." Wesleyan-Arminian theology does claim that there may be a necessary innocence, rectitude, and holiness, as well as a necessary wickedness and depravity. The holiness received by Adam from his Creator was necessarily received. The depravity of the born infant is to him a necessary depravity. It requires a "gracious ability," derived from a system of supernatural grace, to enable man to emerge from its necessitating power. The formula of this Theodicy, though indicating the true key-principle, does not accurately express it in accordance with Wesleyan Arminianism. What the true formula is we have stated and illustrated on pages 375-396 of our volume on The Will. The true statement is, that there can be no necessitated guilt, or desert, and so no just reward or penalty, or proper divine government. That the true formula is correctly stated four or five times in fifty in the Theodicy does not mend the matter. To state it once falsely-as it is stated an immense number of times-is to state a falsity. To state both ways, and rightly by accident, simply demonstrates an unconsciousness of the exact nature of the formula required. With this due correction, the power of the argument, and the ability with which it is persistently put through by Dr. Bledsoe, remain the same. The whole is well worthy the attentive study and complete acquirement of the young theologian.

The able author also advances the doctrine that freedom to evil is necessary to freedom to the good, (p. 195.) Now Methodist theology holds that a man may be free to an immense variety of alternatives within the field of good alone. Without the ability derived through the atonement, man is free also to boundless varieties of volition within the domain of evil alone. Dr. Bledsoe's view plainly contradicts our Eighth Article of Faith, which declares that by the Fall man is free to evil only. Dr. Fisk in his very able "Calvinistic Controversy " uses the proposition that man may be free to one alone of the two as a key-principle to refute a whole series of fallacies in New England Calvinism. The true proposition-and it is one which Dr. B. would doubtless indorseis, that power both ways, to good and to evil, is necessary (unless willfully forfeited) to responsibility, guilt, merit, reward, or punishment, and, so, is the condition of a just moral government. The