Have not these laws been long enough disregarded? Have not the divisive tendencies of hierarchal unity, so called, been sufficiently developed? Is it not time to ask: Is there not a real, a higher unity, of which God is the direct and constant author, and which needs no hierarchy for its full development; nay, which repudiates all hierarchies as at war with its very first principles?

Nor is it for man's sake merely that these questions should be asked. True, there is a joy and a strength of universal Christian unity, after the ideal of Christ, of which there has been as yet but little practical knowledge-a joy unspeakable and full of glory. And no words can state the worth or the power of that joy.

But high above this should we place the wishes and purposes and joys of God. There is a unity contemplated by Christ in that intercessory prayer with which he closed his earthly labors. A unity that is to affect the world. Has that unity yet been realized? There is a unity involved in the gift to the bride, the Lamb's wife, to put on fine linen, clean and white, and to prepare herself for the marriage supper of the Lamb. Has this unity yet been realized? And as there are laws by which the wonders of the material system have come to pass; so there are laws by which the wonders of the spiritual system are to be developed. Is it not time to study those laws and to obey them, even more for God's sake than for our own?

The full force and real import of the scriptural phrase the kingdom of God ought to be more profoundly studied, and more sympathetically realized. It has receded from the current thought of most Christian denominations. Its unity, its universality, its power and glory, are dimly seen and faintly felt, if at all. And yet, in an eminent sense, it is true that the kingdom of God is at hand. He is to reign through emancipated and regenerated free people. No part of De Tocqueville's great work on Democracy is more sublime than his Introduction, in which he unfolds the great democratic movement of God's providence for ages, powerful

alike, whether men oppose or aid. It filled him, he says, with religious awe in the contemplation. If we succeed in our war for liberty and union, new power will be added, even our enemies being judges, to the great democratic movement of the ages.

Is it not time for us to look upon this great movement in its ultimate relations to the kingdom of God, and more clearly to conceive what the coming of that kingdom implies?

It is God who is to reign. God is to be king over all the earth. The theory of a divine reign through hierarchies, leaving the people ignorant and passive, has had its full trial. The reign of God through free, intelligent, regenerated people, is to have its day. Is it not time thoroughly to understand the conditions of this great problem?

BY CHARLES M. MEAD, M.A., BERLIN, PRUSSIA.

THE first half of the seventeenth century was a period fruitful of abiding influence on the succeeding condition of Germany. The treaty of 1555, which conceded to the several states the management of their own ecclesiastical affairs - a concession of which the Protestants did, but the Roman Catholics did not, avail themselves - secured, indeed,

1 The materials of this Article are taken from "George Calixtus und seine Zeit," by Professor Henke, of Marburg, Hessen-Cassel. In this work, consisting of two octavo volumes, the subject is presented with a master's hand, a view being given not only of Calixtus's life and labors, but also, as fully as the nature of the work admits, of the general political and ecclesiastical condition of Germany, particularly of Brunswick, during the period treated of. Without attempting any further analysis or criticism of Henke's work, we avail ourselves of it in composing the following sketch.

a temporary quiet; but the storm was only postponed, not averted. The immediate danger of a violent struggle between the two sections of the church passed away; but Germany lost in unity what the Protestants gained in immunity. The process of dissolution was further promoted by the incessant bickerings and conflicting claims of rival princes, more bitterly prosecuted now than ever before, because difference of religious belief was often added to the lust for power, and the decisions of the emperors themselves, not seldom determined by religious considerations more than by regard for inherent right, irritated more than they soothed. Above all, these tendencies to dissolution were busily and cunningly fostered by the other European powers. And finally, to all other causes at work was added the bitterness of opposition between the Lutheran and Reformed churches. Encouraged by the check which these intestine quarrels had put to the progress of the Reformation, itself awakened into a new life and freed from many of its worst failings, the papal church, acting more or less in concert with the German emperors, aspired to reconquer the lost ground. At the diet of 1608 the archduke Ferdinand, a Hannibal among the Jesuits, violating the wishes of the more pacific emperor Rudolph II., whom he there represented, secured the enactment of measures which impelled the Protestants to leave the diet and form a Union, headed by the Palatinate, while the Catholics formed the League, under the lead of the duke of Bavaria, a prince devoted to the emperor, but still more to Catholicism, and most of all to himself. The more remote result of the breach was the Thirty Years' War, whose movements seemed to be dictated by no plan and to promise no result except to subject Germany to the devastations of the armies of Wallenstein, Pappenheim, Tilly, and Gustavus Adolphus; the various changes depending on the varying policy of the discordant princes, each too weak to rely on himself, and hence leaning on the emperor, the king of Sweden, or the king of France, according as caprice, the chances of war, the prospects of per

sonal aggrandizement, or the influence of religious convictions held sway. To the people, if not to the rulers, it was a religious war; but not only were Catholics opposed to Protestants, but each of these parties was afflicted with intestine dissensions, while among the Protestants not only were the Lutherans and the Reformed church at variance. with each other, but even in each of these divisions, especially among the Lutherans, there was no concert, some siding with the emperor, others with the Swedes.

The duchy Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel suffered its full share of the devastations of the war. Duke Frederick Ulrich (1613-34), a weak and irresolute prince, at first took part with the Palatinate and the Hessians, but afterwards at tempted to maintain a neutral position, which not being able to do, he was forced to throw himself successively into the arms of the king of Denmark, of the emperor, and of Gustavus Adolphus, and was thus compelled to see his land ravaged, in turn, by Swedes and Germans, by friends and foes alike, himself impotent to avert the disaster. After his death, a new division among its various dukes led to new complications, not only in the relations of Brunswick to the war in general, but in those of the rival dukes to each other. Duke August, who inherited the most of Frederick Ulrich's territory, was inclined to side with the emperor; but, irritated by breach of faith on the side of the latter, he allied himself with the Swedes, yet afterwards renewed his old allegiance, receiving as a reward, what his predecessors had long sought in vain, full possession of the city of Brunswick, which now became his capital instead of Wolfenbüt tel. The treaty of Westphalia soon followed (1648), and the duchy began to resume its former prosperity.

It was during this period, and in this duchy, that George Calixtus flourished.

He was born in Medelbye, near Flensburg in Schleswig, Dec. 14, 1586. His father, in his student-years a pupil and always a warm admirer of Melanchthon, served fifty years as pastor. George, studying partly at home,

partly at the gymnasium in Flensburg, finished his preparatory course in 1602, and in the spring of 1603 entered the University of Helmstädt, was made master of arts two years afterwards, and permitted to read private lectures. He did not devote himself specially to theology until 1607. Then, after making a short visit home, where he was somewhat inclined to remain as his father's colleague, he returned, in 1609, and resumed his lectures. Not seeing any prospect of a speedy appointment to a professorship, he undertook, in the same year, a journey for the purpose of enlarging his acquaintance with the men and the movements of the time. He visited Jena, Giessen, Frankfurt, Tübingen, Augsburg, and other cities, forming a personal acquaintance with many prominent theologians, and returned in May, 1610. He now resumed his lectures as Privat-docent, studying at the same time mathematics, medicine, and physics. A year later, he undertook another still greater journey, this time spending some months in Cologne among the Roman Catholics, passing somewhat hastily through Holland, visiting in England the distinguished Protestant Casaubon, and, on his return, the equally distinguished, though far from bigoted, Catholic de Thou, in Paris. After the death of duke Henry Julius he made another short stay in Schleswig, and then once more resumed his lectures in Helmstädt. Soon after, by a disputation at Hämelschenberg with the Jesuit Turrianus, undertaken for the sake of winning back from an inclination to popery the young knight Ludolph von Klencke, although unsuccessful in this object, he so increased his previous reputation for ability and scholarship, that, in spite of resolute opposition from many who distrusted his orthodoxy, or were jealous of his talents, he was installed as Professor Ordinarius of Theology, Jan. 18, 1615. In this position he remained until his death, March 19, 1656.

The University of Helmstädt in Brunswick, extinct since the beginning of the present century, was founded by duke Julius, in 1576, and named, after him, the Julius University. The auspices under which it was opened were good, and