and leaven, he considered the great business of his own life. On the following Monday, the 8th of July, he delivered his last lecture, in the midst of severe pains from an attack of something like cholera, so that his voice several times failed, and he was scarcely aule with the help of some of the students to come down the steps of the rostrum. But notwithstanding this, immediately after dinner which he hardly touched, he set himself again to dictating for the last volume of his Church History, which was to describe the close of the Middle Ages and the preparation for the Reformation, until nature violently kept down asserted in the end her rights, and fastened him to his bed. Then he had his last and severest trial to endure, in ceasing to work for the kingdom of God, which had always been his life and highest joy. Several times indeed he wanted to gather himself up again, and to put force on his sinking body, and became almost impatient when the physician refused to allow it. But his affectionate sister now reminded him of what he used to say to her in sickness, to engage her submission to medical judgment: "It comes from God-therefore must we suit ourselves to it cheerfully." Calmed at once, and as it were ashamed, he replied: "That is true, dear Hannah, it all comes from God, and we must thank him for it." So formerly the great bishop, Chrysostom, whose life and deeds Neander had delighted to portray, expired in banishment with the exclamation, "God be praised for all!" Still however only a few hours before his dissolation, on Saturday afternoon, the "father of modern church history" once more collected his strength, and taking up the thread of his unfinished work just where he had left off before, dictated a description of the differences among the so-called "Friends of God," those remarkable German Mystics of the 14th and 15th centuries, who with so many other revelations of that transition period, not unlike our own, prepared the way both negatively and positively for the Reformation and its Protestant results. After this worthy conclusion of his literary activity, about half past nine o'clock, he longed for rest, and in a sort of half dream, as at the end of a toilsome journey, addressed his sister with the significant words: “I am weary, let us go home!" When the bed had been put in order by a friendly hand for his last slumber, he threw the whole tenderness and affection of his nature once again into a scarcely audible" Good night;" slept then for four hours, breathing always more softly and slowly; and with the morning of the Lord's day, on what is styled in the church year the Sunday of Refreshing, awoke in the morning of eternity among the spirits of the just made perfect. There, in the midst of his favorite kindred minds, Melancthon, Bernard, Anselin, Chrysostom, Augustine, and St. John, he rests now from all labor, in blissful joy, on the breast of him whom not having seen he here loved, feasting his eyes with that glory of which all earthly beauty is but a dim shadow. But as for us, who remain bound to the earth and are called to work and wrestle still amid the tumultuating growing confusion of the church militant, we can only pray in humility that it may please the Lord soon to bring in that Johannean Age, of which the sainted Neander, the "Præceptor Germaniæ" so often prophetically spoke, the age of love, of peace, in which all the past contradictions of the Church shall be reduced to harmony and order, when every knee in heaven or on earth or under the earth shall bow to him, and all who love Christ shall join with one heart and mouth in praising the Triune God. It will be perceived that this very imperfect sketch rests upon something more than a mere literary interest in Neander. The writer did not belong indeed to the more intimate circle of his disciples and followers. When my acquaintance with him commenced, I had already nearly completed my theological studies, under wholly different influences in part, at Tübingen and Halle, and my attendance on his lectures was limited to the third part simply of his course in church history, reaching from the Reformation down to the present time. The relation besides in which I stood to speculative theology and church orthodoxy, was not exactly what he could approve. The first I then held, and still hold, to be highly necessary, for the full solution of certain great problems of the present time, particularly the christological question, or at least for bringing them nearer to their final solution; the second I regard not merely as a barrier to the destructive tendencies of unbelief, but as a wholesome counterpoise also to that onesided subjectivity, which is the fault of our inodern Protestantism generally. If the later evangelical theology then, among whose founders Schleiermacher must be allowed at least to hold a prominent place, is ever to accomplish its mission, it may never renounce connection with the faith of the fathers, and it must show itself also in the widest sense practical and churchly; that is it must lead to a new construction of the general life of the Church, in which shall be happily united and preserved the results of all earlier history, the bloom and fruit of the past both Protestant and Catholic. Nothwithstanding these differences however, which touch not indeed the substance of chris tian faith, Neander always treated me, as a student, and in the exercises connected with the taking of my degree, and afterwards as privatdocent, with the greatest friendship and with a love I may say which was truly paternal. He was ever ready to direct and assist me in my studies. It was my privilege to spend many precious hours, partly alone with him in his study and partly at his dinner table, to which his particular friends were so often invited; and I count it a special favor of the Lord, that he permitted me to come so closely to such a theologian, in whom learning and piety were so harmoniously blended, and from whose frail body the life of Jesus Christ was reflected with such unearthly beauty, and to impress upon my memory his beloved image, as a powerful monition to simplicity, to gentleness, to humility, to love, and to a heavenly mind. When accordingly in the year 1843, partly by Neander's recommendation, I was called altogether unexpectedly to Mercersburg, he gave me at parting his warm shake of the hand, his hearty benediction, which I cannot call to mind without grateful emotion. And although my situation since has of necessity brought me into relation negatively and positively with the Anglo-American theology and religion, and I have accustomed myself to look at the history both of the world and of the church, so to speak, from the American or more correctly from the Anglo-German stand point; I have still continued in almost daily connection with Neander's works, and have learned from them, particularly as regards the patristic period, more than from any other historian.When I made up my mind accordingly a year and a half since to publish my own Church History, I held it a simple duty of gratitude to dedicate the first volume to my venerated teacher and fatherly friend, and applied to him before hand for permission to use his name in this way. In reply, though then already, nearly blind, with his own trembling hand and in almost illegi ble characters, he wrote me a letter, which I subjoin here in conclusion, as being one of the last probably that flowed from his pen, and because besides it contains a remarkable judgment on the events of the year 1848, the crisis of the existing European culture, and in this respect also may not be without interest for his numerous friends and pupils. Mercersburg, Pa. "MY DEAR FRIEND: P. S. "I can only return you my hearty thanks for the testimony you publicly offer me of your affectionate remembrance, and for the honor you propose to show me, whilst I desire for you in your work all illumination and strength from on high. "As regards your Journal, I believe something of it through your kindness has reached me, for which you have my hearty thanks. It is well, that you have reminded me of it. I may now easily forget anything, and let it lie unused, as I can read only through other people's eyes, having suffered for two years past from the consequences of a paralysis settled in my own. "I had intended to send you along with this letter something new of my publications; but it is now omitted, as it just so hap pens that all my copies have already been given away. If the good Lord had not visited me with weakness in my eyes, I would have had the pleasure long since of being able to send you a new volume of the Church History as far as to the Reformation, and perhaps by this time even the history of the Reformation. itself. "What men called freedom in our poor fatherland, during the mournful year 1818, is something very different from what is sought and meant by the spirit which has been born from the best English piety in your America. It was a conflict here between atheism and Christianity, between vandalism and true civilization. Even many years ago I predicted, that the philosophy of onesided logic, intellectual fanaticism and self deification, must lead to this proper consequence of its fictions, as by their popularization has now come to pass. Not as though this philosophy alone were in fault; but it was the most strictly consequent scientific expression of the reigning spirit of the age and its tendency. Nor will I deny that there are true wants also at hand in the spirit of the age, and that nothing short of their satisfaction, which the gospel alone has power to secure, can bring any lasting relief." We stand on the brink of an abyss, the downfall of the old European culture, or else on the confines of a new moral creation, to be ushered in through manifold storms, another grand act in the world-transforming process of Christianity. In the mercy of a long-suffering God we will hope for the last. "Praying that God's richest blessing may rest on your family, on your work and all that pertains to you, I remain Affectionately yours, Berlin, 28th Oct., 1849." A. NEANDER." SONNETS. "TWIXT leafy boughs of oaks, which bending threw Lifts gently its fair head, and see below The mirrored form where smooth the waters flow. Pity it were if she would die a nun. II. From this high hill as sinks the sun behind In such a temple olden prophets bowed Nor sprites, nor eyes of fire, nor echoing tune. Of woodland chirpers.-In a holy place The troops of evil durst not show their face. Mercersburg, Pa. T. C. P. |