also been proved in a new German work by Moritz Brosch on Pope Julius. But with regard to the former assertion, that Luther while in Rome saw the Pope, the editor of the Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, Dr. Brieger, remarks, in the last number of his quarterly, that the argumentation of Dr. Buddensieg does not appear to him as conclusive.

The controversy is likely to be continued in the German periodicals; for, as Dr. Köstlin, in his great biographical work on Luther, remarks: "Luther's journey to Rome projects over all other events between 1508 and 1512, on account of the great influence which it exerted upon Luther." On the other hand, all historians are agreed that in regard to no other section of Luther's life there still prevails so great uncertainty as in regard to his journey to Rome. Of late, much new light has been shed on the history of the Reformation by the opening of the Italian libraries, and the publication from them of valuable documents relative to the religious movement of the sixteenth century. It may be hoped that Luther's journey, like other events, may receive from this source new elucidation.

ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR WISSENSCHAFTLICHE THEOLOGIE. (Journal for Scientific Theology.) Edited by Hilgenfeld. 1879. Second Number.-1. HILGENFELD, The Martyrdom of Polycarp of Smyrna. 2. THOMA, The Old Testament in the Gospel

of John. 3. ROENSCH, Fragments of the Itala of the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians. 4. TOLLIN, Servetus' Doctrine of the World. 5. FRANK, A Glimpse at the Theology of the Nineteenth Century. The last article of the above number is an address delivered by Dr. G. Frank, Dean of the Faculty of Protestant Theology at Vienna, to the students of the faculty. It is a brief sketch (filling fifteen pages of the "Quarterly ") of the most prominent philosophers and theologians of Germany who have exerted a lasting influence upon the development of theological science in Germany during the present century. The author is an enthusiastic admirer and disciple of Schleiermacher, whom he calls a highly blessed man, a religious genius, and an original thinker. Schleiermacher, according to Frank, was the great reformer of the Protestant theology of the nineteenth century. Schleiermacher occupies, with regard to modern theology, the same position that Kant occupies with regard to modern philosophy. He examined the religious foundation in man, and brought to light again the covered-up source of religion. "He has overcome both rationalism and supernaturalism, and is,

therefore, attacked by Strauss no less than by Hengstenberg. Though he has not founded, in the strict sense of the word, a school of his own, there is no branch of theology which has not been influenced by him, no prominent theologian who has not learned from him." Dr. Frank closes his speech with a few remarks on the changed position of theology among the sciences. "Only one generation ago," he says, "theology was still the most respected science. To no other department of scholarship, not even of natural science, so many able and intelligent young men devoted themselves as to it. Times have greatly changed. But our courage does not fail us. The knot of history must not be cut in such a way that Christianity goes with ignorance and science with infidelity. Christianity has proved to be the great deed of God in the destinies of nations and individuals, and as the highest and surest truth it will, in all times to come, find its servants and witnesses, who, as enlightened teachers, will unlock its depths, and as characteristic prophets, will announce its glories."

French Reviews.

REVUE CHRETIENNE, (Christian Review.) December, 1878.-1. E. W., An English Essayist, (Roger Williams.) 2. G. MONOD, The Fine Arts at the Universal Exposition, 1867-1878. 3. SABABIER, On the Theological Spirit.

January, 1879.-1. BERSIER, Man's Place in the Universe. 2. G. MONOD, Foreign Painters at the Universal Exposition. 3. VINCAME, Dr. Wines and the Stockholm Congress for Prison Reform. In an introduction to the December number, the learned editor of the Revue, E. de Pressensé, informs us that this periodical closes with this number the twenty-fifth year of its existence, and he briefly reviews the work it has performed and the great interests of French Protestantism in which it has taken an active and leading part. It also points to the important questions of the present and the future, which await a solution, and to the discussion of which the Revue will devote a prominent attention. Pressensé reiterates his unshaken belief in a complete separation between Church and State. He regrets that at present the most trusted leaders of the republican party in France do not favor that principle, but intend to break the force of ultramontane tendencies by means

of State laws. But he is confident that they will be as unsuccessful as the authors of the so-called Kulturkampf in Germany and Switzerland, and that in less than twenty years the Republican party will accept the entire separation between Church and State as a necessity. Among the questions looming up the future, and inviting a special attention, Pressensé enumerates the remarkable movement among the educated classes of France and Belgium toward Protestantism. A new feature of the Revue, hereafter, will be, a Chronique anglaise, which will be given every other month, and will alternate with the Chronique allemande, which will be continued by Professor Lichtenberger.

ART. VIII.-FOREIGN RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE.

CHRISTIANITY IN AFRICA.

Ir is generally assumed that the Christian Church in Africa was planted during the Apostolic age. Alexandria, in Egypt, became early the seat of one of the great Ecumenical Patriarchates. The progress of Christianity was rapid, and at an early period nearly the whole of Northern Africa was Christian. The Exarchate of Africa proper contained fortytwo, the Patriarchate of Alexandria more than a hundred, dioceses. But in the seventh and eight centuries a terrible and fatal blow was struck to the Church in Africa by the Mohammedan Saracens. Mohammedanism became the ruling religion all along the coast, and has remained so until the present day. Only in Abyssinia a population estimated at about three millions has remained nominally Christian to the present day, but cut off from all communication with the remainder of the Christian world. The Church of Abyssinia has become a withered branch of Christianity. The same remark, though not to the same extent, may be applied to the native Christians of Egypt, the Copts, who are supposed to number from 200,000 to 300,000.

The maritime discoveries which began in the fifteenth century led to the establishment of Portuguese and Spanish sovereignty over large tracts of land. The mass of the population of these territories was prevailed upon or forced to connect itself, nominally at least, with the Church of Rome. The population of the islands on the northwestern coast of Africa have since become strongly attached to the Roman Church. On the coast of the Continent, on the other hand, in Angola, Congo, and Mozambique, little can now be discovered of Roman Catholicism, even by the most devoted writers of the Church, except the retention of some usages and ceremonies. As large numbers of natives continue, however, to consider themselves as Catholics, they still figure in the statistical accounts of the Church,

and inspire the hope that a better and larger class of bishops and priests than the Portuguese have provided for their colonies during the last two hundred years, will be able to rekindle new life in this dead part of the Church. In modern times the conquest of Algeria by the French has opened to the Church of Rome another large missionary field, in which a considerable population of European descent, with a smail number of native converts, promises for the future an important addition to the dominion of the Roman Church. The Roman Catholics under British rule live chiefly in the island of Mauritius, which formerly belonged to France, and still is predominantly Roman Catholic. In all the other English possessions the Roman Catholics are in a considerable minority. The Roman Catholic population of Egypt, Tunis, Tripolis, consists chiefly of natives of southern Europe and their descendants; that of Egypt embraces, also, a few thousand Copts, who have entered into a union with Rome. From Madagascar the missionaries send very favorable accounts. A very large number of devoted missionaries have penetrated beyond the boundaries of the European dependencies and the coast countries into the interior; but the numerical results are thus far not commensurate with the zealous efforts of the missionaries.

The English possessions in Africa are rapidly expanding, and though still somewhat inferior to the French possessions in point of population, and to the Portuguese in point of extent, they bid fair ere long to exceed in both respects the aggregate possessions of all other European countries combined. The Church of England has not only occupied all the colonies of the British crown, but missionary bishops have crossed the boundaries, and opened the way for the advance of civilization. The British Government ruled, in 1878, over a territory of 389,000 square miles, containing a population of 2,742,000 persons. The negro Republic, Liberia, has a fully-civilized population of about 20,000 persons, and a native population of about 700,000, among whom a number of mission churches and schools have been built, and who, it may be hoped, will gradually yield to the influence which Christianity and civilization bring to bear upon them. The descendants of Dutch boers constituted until recently two independent States-the Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic. The latter was, in 1877, annexed to the British possessions, of which it now forms a part; the Orange Free State retains for the time being its independence, and embraces about 45,000 white and 20,000 native inhabitants, the former of whom belong mostly to the Dutch Reformed Church. The same Church, also, predominates in the annexed Transvaal, and even in the Cape Colony there was, according to the official census of 1875, a population of 171,000 connected with the Dutch Reformed Church, while the Church of England had a population of 40,000, the Wesleyans of 32,000, the Congregationalists of 24,000, the Roman Catholics of 10,000, the Presbyterians of 8,000, the Lutherans of 17,000, and the Baptists of 2,000. In the large island of Madagascar, which is credited with a population of 2,500,000 persons, Paganism appears to be on the road to an early and total extinction. The population actually connected with the Christian

Churches, exclusive of the Church of Rome, was estimated in 1878 at about 300,000, and it is rapidly increasing.

In the absence of official accounts it is difficult to give a statistical estimate of the number of Roman Catholics in Africa. A Roman Catholic statistician gives the aggregate population of the Portuguese dioceses as 1,204,000. In the Spanish dominions the entire population, which amounts to 320,000, may be set down as Roman Catholic. In Algeria the Roman Catholic population amounted, according to an official census, to 233,000; the population of Reunion is also mostly Catholic, and it is safe to say that the entire population of French possessions in connection with the Church of Rome will not be far from 370,000. In the British possessions we estimate the Roman Catholic population at 182,000, in Madagascar at 20.000, in Egypt at 28,000, in Tripolis at 3,000, in Tunis at 15,000, in Abyssinia and the missionary diocese among the Gallas at 10,000. Summing up these figures, we should obtain an aggregate population, nominally connected with the Church of Rome, of about 2,152,000.

The total number of the Christian population in the Cape Colony, exclusive of Roman Catholics, is officially stated at 365,000. Adding to these the Christians in the other British possessions, which include among others the Basouto land, Griqua land, Caffraria, Transvaal, the Gold Coast, and Mauritius, the Christian population of the British possessions, exclusive of Roman Catholics, will not fall much short of 700,000. If we assume the Christian population (exclusive of Roman Catholics) of Madagascar at 300,000, of Liberia at 30,000, of Orange Free State at 45,000, of the French possessions at 10,000, of Egypt at 2,000, the Christian population of Africa, exclusive of Abyssinians, Copts, Roman Catholics, will amount to about 1,087,090.

The aggregate population of all denominations of Christians will be at present in the neighborhood of 6,489,000, a small figure in a total population of 205,000,000. It may be safely assumed, however, that the number of Christians will not only steadily, but rapidly, increase. The colonial territories of the Christian powers are largely expanding, their superior power and civilization comes to be more and more recognized, the strength of Mohammedanism, the only rival of Christianity, is waning, and the discoveries of successful explorers are opening to devoted missionaries the way into the remotest parts of the interior.

GREEK CHURCH.

The termination of the Eastern war by the Congress of Berlin has greatly added to the power and prestige of the Greek Church. Two States professing the Greek religion, which were hitherto dependencies of Turkey, Roumania and Servia, have been added to the list of entirely independent States of Europe, and both have received an increase of territory and population. The population of another State, in which the same religion prevails, Montenegro, has nearly been doubled. A new State, Bulgaria, has been formed, in which the Government and the ma