Body of Christ is not only treated thus, but the spirit is true to itself, and sweeps off all that belongs to her. All her solemn functions-all her sacred means-all her administrators-these all feel the ruthless hand. Infidelity and unbelief sees nothing in the ministry more than in any lay-member. One has just as much right to attend to the functions of the minister as the other. To speak of the ministry, as an order of men, set apart by the laying on of hands, for holy purposes, sounds Popish. The tendency is to reduce all to one level, which is the spirit of unbelief and infidelity. This was not so among the early Christians, neither do we gather this idea from the New Testament. What we have now, and such low views are advocated by men in high places, is something foreign, a degeneration to something lower, a progress towards a cold and dreary unbelief, where rationalism and infidelity find a genial home. To say now that this is an advance on early Christianity, as some religious papers do, is pitiful nonsense. It is infidel-treason to the cause of Christ, and just now is a pow, erful sign of the revelation of Antichrist, denying all that is sacred and dear to the soul of the Christian.

Not only this, but the professions of the friends of the Christian Church, are signs which are alarming, and here a wide field opens up, which we have no mind nor heart to explore. Look, for instance, at the defection in doctrine. Take, as an example, the Church itself. What crude conceptions prevail; what an order, or rather priestly organization for the reaching of ends. It is practically no Church, but a society, such as the Odd-Fellows and Sons of Temperance. It is a kind of grab game played off here, the largest grasps the most; so it appears in the eyes of the world. Now whence these infidel conceptions? Are they not the development of a certain form of thinking, having principles, legitimately carried out, leading to this, the last end of which is unbelief and scepticism. So precisely here. It sees nothing in the Church as divine—nothing that claims faith. It is all brought down into the sphere of the natural, and, with the unbelieving Thomas, must see and handle. This was treason to Christianity in the age of the apostles. It is treason now; for the Church is the Body of

Christ, the fulness of him that filleth all in all—the very form in which salvation is made present to fallen humanity. To be out of this order was death; for then the formula was: Extra ecclesiam nulla salus, and "he that has not the Church for his Mother, cannot have God for his Father." This we know has been repudiated over and over again, and no wonder, when we are told from certain high places, that we are wiser than our forefathers-than the early Christians-wise sufficient to frame a Gospel for ourselves, to suit the horizon of our present unbelief and infidelity. Take as another example, the idea of the sacraments. In the present age, among one half of the professed Christians, the sacrament of holy Baptism is refused to infants,--in a majority of professors it is undervalued, so that now you hear a general lamentation among all denominations. The sacrament of the holy Supper has fallen far beneath the view of the early Christians, and that of the Reformers. Luther's view now is repudiated, generally, and is regarded by far too romanizing. There is scarcely a single confession to be found, which remained true to the idea as brought out in the sixteenth century, and the defection is so glaring that it cannot be concealed. Then, too, look at the idea of duty, as to the sacred office. Without doubt, the primary object of the ministry is to preach Christ and him crucified-Christ is the great theme. But how often is this forgotten. See the subjects of slavery, abolitionism paraded before the people, from the sacred desk, from one holy Sabbath to another, exciting and adding fuel to the flames already threatening. Besides, how eager the people to hear. Sooner would they feed upon such husks, than plain substantial Gospel food, such as you find near the cross of Christ. Very often political questions are discussed as freely in the pulpit as from the stump.

Now all this reveals a dangerous tendency, signs which cannot be mistaken, that our people, and by far too many ministers, are fast reaching the last results of a system of thinking, which, in France, ended in anarchy, revolution and blood-shed, and irreligion, in scepticism and open unbelief. Towards these results, we fear, we, as a people, are rapidly drifting, and who will say that America will not witness this sad catastrophe, if the principles now at work are legitimately carried out.

Witness, in additon, the signs of the times from the public press. Here the infidelity comes out without any reserve. Radicalism of the worst stamp-treason to our national liberties, and death to Christianity. We shall not attempt to characterize the press. Enough, that it itself speaks out at times and denounces itself as "Satanic." The religious press-the tendencies thereof, sicken the heart. Christianity represented by it? Alas! alas! for the cause in such hands. What dreadful stabs! What a malicious spirit! What revenge! and that under the holy garb of religion! What hatred! What dreadful opposition to each other, and all, all, we are told, for love's sake! What pitiful nonsense, to speak of love! Could any earnest mind learn the evidences of Christianity from the religious press? Any serious, sober, earnest mind would be driven, not to Jerusalem, but to dreary unbelief and scepticism. No other conclusion could be reached; for if the power of Christianity, which the religious press professes to represent, is hatred, revenge, dishonesty, any serious mind will turn from it in disgust, with no desire to claim it.

But enough. Sufficient has now been said to awaken fear and anxiety for the future. There is no need to deny facts. Let us honestly acknowledge them, and manfully resist them. Let us look at consequences-let us fear results, and prepare for the contest-assured that the warfare is real and fearful, that we have all a call to engage and to act our part. May the Lord be with his Church. May he bring her friends to see her unity, and to engage as one in the struggle with irreligion and infidelity, these fearful Antichrists, and save her,--not only her, but our country, from the awful doom of forsaking God, and make us a God-fearing people. This may God in his wise Providence grant us.

Cavetown, Md.

J. W. S.

ART. V.-DR. CASPAR OLEVIANUS. 1535-1587.*

"CERTISSIMUS."

Olevianus, when he was asked upon his death bed, whether he was sure of his salvation.

THE Elector Frederick III, appears, in the picture we have just drawn of him, as a decidedly true and pious man, who for a long time endured much care and labor on account of the Church and his beloved Fatherland. He knew no better way of fulfilling his duty and meeting his responsibility, than by the preparation and introduction of his Heidelberg, or Palatinate Catechism, and such a new and fundamental "emendation" of the Church and its then existing worship as should be consistent with its spirit.

To accomplish this important and difficult work, he secured the assistance of two men, at the time only from twenty six to twenty eight years of age. These, though distinguished by diversity, were, nevertheless, in every respect exceedingly well adapted to perform this work unitedly; and accordingly, the peculiar gifts of each one contributed to the formation of the Catechism, and the consequent consolidation of the Reformed Church in the Palatinate.

These two men were Caspar Olevianus and Zacharias Ursinus; the one a decided and strict disciple of Calvin: the other a thorough, scientific, mild scholar of Melancthon, and hence, were mutually the complement of each other. To the Elector, however, his court preacher, Olevianus, stood in decidely more intimate relationship than the learned professor Ursinus. Olevianus, was not only a countryman of Frederick, but besides this, when he was a youth of only twenty years, he greatly endangered his own life in an attempt to save the life of the Elector's son, who was drowned in the Eure at Bourges; and in return, by his powerful influence, the Elector also had de

* Translated from the German of Max Goebel.

livered Olevianus from the prison in Trier, and immediately taken the exiled fugitive to himself. Both these pious persons were, therefore, wonderfully united to each other by the ties of mutual gratitude as well as a common living faith; on which account the immediate influence of Olevianus upon the Elector was naturally stronger than that of Ursinus. On this account we must present our picture of him first, although he was born, and died, several years after Ursinus. He also is the real founder and regulator of the Palatinate Reformed Church, while the learned Ursinus was the principle author of its book of instruction. As an instance, we may mention that Olevianus labored for and accomplished the introduction of the Calvinistic presbyterial form of government and discipline in the Palatinate, and in our Church in the Highlands, and has thus exercised a most important influence upon the history of our Christian life.

Caspar, of Olewig, a village near Trier, from which his father is descended, called Olevianus, was born August the 10th, 1536, in Trier, where his father was baker, mayor, and senator. His parents were prosperous burghers, who possessed sufficient means to educate two sons, the one in the science of medicine, and the other, Caspar, in the science of law. His affectionate mother seems to have been a peculiarly apt and enlightened women, who, in her Christian convictions, was fully one with her son, and lived with him up to the time of his death. For his education he is indebted chiefly to her father, a prominent butcher.

In Trier the Reformation had already since 1541 and 1549 thus since the Reformation of Cologne and the Palatinatesome decided, but still only secret adherents which on every occasion in which it showed a disposition publicly to advance, withstood the united spiritual and civil power of the Archbishop. Olevianus appears also, when only thirteen years of age, already to have had some deeper Christian knowledge and insight, especially in regard to God's covenant of grace in the Old and New Testament, which he received from the Lentsermons of an old pious father. Later, about 1550, in order that he might advance in his studes, he was sent to neighbor