the ancient world regarded religion not as a bond of unity, but as an occasion of the separation and segregation of diverse nations. The heathen philosophers found one of the absurdest features of an absurd religion in the strange pretension of the Christian faith to universality, and they scorned the folly of supposing that the various nations known to them could ever be bound together by the ties of a common religion. But it soon appeared that the new faith was accomplishing this impossible task, and was laying the foundations of her empire beneath the nations which grew up on the ruins of imperial Rome. The characteristic feature of the Church was that it should not be Italian, French, English, German, or Greek; but human and universal. National Churches Döllinger looks upon as dechristianized, so far as they are made to bear the distinctive features of a particular people. Thus he regards the Papacy as grounded in the peculiar architectonics of the Church, as satisfying the Saviour's command that his disciples should all be one, and as maintaining and guiding the normal activity of the body of Christ. On page 25 he says:

That a Church for the nations could not maintain itself without a Primate, a supreme center of unity, is evident to every body, and history has proved it. Every living whole requires such a central point of unity, a supreme head which binds the parts together. It is grounded in the nature and structure of the Church that this central point must be a definite person, the chosen holder of an office corresponding to the thing or necessity of the Church. Whoever asserts: "I do not recognize the Pope, for the Church to which I belong will be independent; to us the Pope is a stranger, his Church is not ours," thereby declares, "We renounce the universal Church; we will be no members of that body."

The author proceeds to ask those who maintain that this Roman institution is unscriptural and opposed to the will of God, to show him any scriptural or other evidence that the dismembered and separate condition of Christianity is willed or desired by God. He argues the gain for the individual Christian or minister of the Church from connection with a universal organization. He rejects the invisible, spiritual Church just because it is invisible, as unfit for the service of pious souls or the world. From this argument he returns to ask once more:

What in the present is the proper function, the vocation, of the Papacy, and why is the entire stability of the Church now and hereafter so indissolubly connected with the existence and the free operation of the Papal authority?

Döllinger finds the answer to this inquiry in three particulars, and the first is best given in his own words:

The Catholic Church is the richest and most manifold organism. Its task is nothing less than to be the teacher and molder of the nations. Much as she may find herself hindered in this, limited as the sphere may be which is still left her in this or that State, her task still remains the same, and for this the Church needs and possesses a fullness of forces, a multitude of diversified arrangements yet all directed to the same purpose, and to which she is ever adding new ones. All these forces, institutions, spiritual corporations and combinations, require a superior guidance, exerted by a firm and strong hand, that they may work in harmony, may not degenerate, may not fail of their destination, nor suicidally turn their powers against each other, nor against the unity and welfare of the Church itself. Only the Primate of the Church can perform this task; only the Papacy is able to maintain each member in its sphere, and to relieve any existing disturbance.

The second peculiar office of the Pope's primacy in the present time Döllinger finds in the fact that he is to represent and defend the rights of particular Churches against princes or the civil authority; to see to it that the Church does not, through entanglement with the State, get essentially marred or spoiled, nor weakened in her vigor.

The third office of the Papal See is to do justice to the peculiarities and special claims of individual nations in the Church, to understand their necessities, to reduce their wishes to the measure of Catholicity and to the limits required by the unity of the Church.

These views of Döllinger are cited, not that they may be shown unscriptural or unreasonable, but that we may see how fully he was a papist after thirty-five years of study, instruction, and observation in the domain of theology and Church history. We can already see that in some directions Döllinger could hardly be tempted for a moment to opposition against Rome. In the direction of the Anglican Lutheran or Calvinistic Reformers he can never go; all his prejudices, tastes, associations, habits of thought and objects of hope would alike prevent his founding a new sect of Döllingerites. No possible fate could appear

more pitiable to him than to be forced out of communion with Rome, and into a greater or less sympathy with her Protestant

foes.

It is remarkable that among all the probable events of the Roman question, Döllinger did not mention the chance that the venerable Pio Nono might summon a new General Council to give advice as to the course to be followed out in the confused condition of the world, and that a serious attempt might be made to strengthen the Pope by collecting the administrative authority of the entire organization more fully into his hands, and also to exalt the head of the Church above the entire episcopate and above General Councils by declaring him infallible. So well informed a person could not have been ignorant of the meaning of the act by which the Pope, acting as the supreme Doctor of the Catholic body, defined the Immaculate Conception as an article of the Catholic creed. He had seen the Syllabus, and knew its significance. That the Pope was quite inclined to be declared infallible was notorious; and that the Ultramontanes were bent on carrying that point of their programme was every-where evident in Catholic journals and circles.

Probably Döllinger regarded such an event as impossible, and refused to ask himself what course would be open to him should all his hopes be cheated? It will be necessary to devote careful study to other works of this writer before we shall be able to see how completely he had turned his face on every thing distinctively Protestant, and enchained himself to that Roman See which was one day to forget all his splendid services, fulminate against him her decree of excommunication, and rob him of all signs of her tenderness. This act was for him the saddest tragedy possible on earth save personal guilt; he, too, must be content to say, like dying Savonarola to his papal persecutor, "Over the Church triumphant thou hast no power."

ART. II.-OUR COLLEGES.

ARE our colleges fulfilling the intentions and expectations of their founders as a moral and spiritual force? Are they degenerating in this respect? Are they meeting the legitimate demands of the age as positive auxiliaries of Christianity? Is the college primarily or solely an intellectual gymnasium? Is there any incompatibility between learning and piety? If not, do not intellectual expansion and the acquisition of knowledge rightfully call for proportionally higher types of piety and greater spiritual power? Is not the ideal college primarily and chiefly a spiritual force, whose first qualification is to possess in its officers of instruction men who unite with professional ability the highest types of faith and religious attainment, and whose proper work is to carry on all mental training with immediate reference to religious culture, and in all its operations and principles of action to show itself the uncompromising and foremost force of aggressive Christianity?

It is not our purpose to answer these questions in detail, but to discuss in a general way the main idea which they suggest. In so doing, we take the American college under those peculiar characteristics which render it an organization and a community by itself; as having a life of its own more isolated and self-dependent for its internal character than any other organization that has sprung from the bosom of society; and withal ruling society beyond any other element of the body politic.

It is undeniable that the general drift of influence on the part of our colleges preponderates in favor of religion. Here and there may be found, possibly, an institution whose moral force may be reckoned at zero, or even on the minus side of the equation. But the large majority of colleges would stand plus in the reckoning. Their general moral tone, the religious auspices under which they are supposed to exist, the general results of mental culture and discipline which are considered favorable to the acceptance and defense of all truth, the moral element that finds a place in nearly all courses of study, the religious exercises that accompany college work, the Christian character of many college professors, the number of Christian students, many of whom graduate into the pulpit, are so many

religious elements whose sum, varying in different colleges, would probably entitle them to claim a balance of influence in favor of Christianity. But whether this balance of influence is not diminishing through the lessening of some or all of these items is a serious question. It is probably true that the colleges of this country are not as decidedly Christian, as thoroughly religious, now as in former days. The religious atmosphere is less healthful and positive, and the purer oxygen of the college life of that time has been carbonized by the liberal culture of this age. The institutions that have sprung up more recently take their stamp from the spirit of the times. State and private institutions are in some degree taking the place of those that were founded under denominational or Church auspices. The possibility of such a thing is a step backward, and a measurable release from religious control. Moreover, whether mental culture and discipline are intrinsically adapted to encourage religious truth or practical piety may well be questioned in view of the skeptical tendencies of the student mind in its first beginnings of study and thought, and in the irreligion, not to say infidelity, of many literary and scientific men. It is doubtless true that the formative period of college life is the time when there is greatest need of strong general and personal influence and teaching to counteract the youthful love of independence and of speculative doubt. The influence of any purely ethical, or even biblical, study which may enter into the curriculum will depend largely on how it is taught— whether on a scientific basis, or with practical applications. The fact that the frequency of religious exercises in connection with the work of the college is less than formerly in many institutions, and that they are made optional or abolished in others, shows a tendency toward secularization. The fact, furthermore, that eminent scholarship and ability in a given department is about the only consideration in the selection of college instructors indicates the popular estimate and demand.

There is one other point of no slight importance in estimating the religious power of the college to-day. It is a notorious fact that many of the influences of college life are adverse to piety. Certain phases of college morality ignore the laws of God and man. Certain customs and traditions are held ex