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church colleges under synodical supervision. This is not only right but necessary, for the obvious reasons,-first, that the church, in raising funds for a specific object, becomes responsible for their proper application; secondly, because the very ground of church intervention in the matter is, that state schools and colleges do not furnish security for that kind of education which the conscience of the church demands. It would be easy to refer to a state college long under the control of one of the most notorious infidels in the land; to another where many of the professors were avowed sceptics; and to others where religious instruction is entirely excluded, and where the Sabbath is disregarded, the students being allowed to spend that day as they please. It is not right or reasonable to expect either the church or Christian men to contribute for the support of institutions controlled by trustees appointed by state legislatures.

It may be said, however, that self-perpetuating corporations furnish all reasonable security. On this it may be remarked, that where such boards of trustees already exist, and have an established character, they ought to be confided in, and nothing should be done in any way to weaken their hands. But when the church is called upon to aid in the founding a college, it is right she should herself retain the control. If it be known and agreed upon that the trustees of a college in Wisconsin or Iowa are to be appointed by a Presbyterian Synod, there is a ground of confidence for the present and the future that no list of names of a self-perpetuating corporation could inspire. If any man doubts this, let him make the experiment. Let him try to raise funds for a college in the far west, under a self-perpetuating board, and see if he will find it as easy as to secure aid for one under the care of a synod. Such colleges as Princeton, Jefferson, Washington, Hampden-Sidney, have the full confidence of the church, and are entitled to it. But when the question is, how shall new colleges, especially in the thinly-settled parts of the country, be organised, in order to give due security for their religious influence?-the case is very different. Under such circumstances neither state control nor self-perpetuating trustees can furnish any such security, either for liberal education or sound religious influence, as ecclesiastical supervision.

It has, however, been said, "The working of systems of secular education, the virtual, if not formal appointment and removal of teachers, the determination of courses and methods of secular teaching, and, in effect, the last appeal in questions of discipline," do not "fall properly within the divinely appointed jurisdiction of the spiritual courts of Christ's house, or constitute the proper themes of promoting the spirituality

VOL. III.-NO. XI.

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and peace of the church." Do these subjects belong more legitimately to a state legislature? Suppose the course of instruction for our youth, the selection of teachers, and final administration of discipline, must belong directly to a political legislature, Whig or Democrat, or to a Presbyterian Synod— no good man, we answer for it, would prefer the former. The objection, however, has no foundation. There is no necessity for any of these distracting details being brought before the synod. They do not come before the legislature. The legislature retains the appointment of trustees, and thus has entire control over the state institutions; but it has nothing to do with these details of management. So the Synod of Kentucky appoints the trustees of Centre College, and leaves to them its management. We are not aware that the spiritual interests of that synod are injuriously affected by its relation to the college; nor would any other synod have much to fear from that

source.

If the church then, as an organization, is called, by its duty to the country and to its divine Master, to aid in securing the establishment of schools, academies, and colleges under her own control, wherever such institutions of a proper character do not exist or cannot be secured, it is hardly open to question that the Board of Education is right in the course which it has hitherto pursued in relation to this subject. That board is the organ of the church for educational purposes, and whatever the church does in that department is done through that board. The question whether the field of labour has not so increased as to call for a separate organization is one of expediency, and not of principle. It is analogous to the question whether the work of church extension should continue to be a branch of the work of missions, or be erected into a separate department. It is obvious that no new organization ought to be adopted, so long as the work to be done is adequately accomplished by those who now exist.

It is, indeed, said that "the work of inaugurating a scheme so vast and so complex, and requiring gifts, knowledge, and experience in its founders, of so varied and comprehensive a character," cannot properly be coupled with the other objects of that board. This supposes that the Board of Education is to stand in the place and perform the duties of trustees to all the schools, academies, and colleges which it may be called upon to aid. The board, however, have no more to do with the management of these schools and colleges, than it has with the direction of the theological seminaries in which its candidates study. They are the mere agents of the church for the collection and distribution of money, and for stimulating the efforts of its members. If a pastor informs the board that he needs aid for the establishment of a parochial school,

or if a synod call upon them for assistance in sustaining a college, such help may be afforded without any very extraordinary "gifts, knowledge, or experience," on the part of the officers of the Board.

We look back on the recent discussions on this whole subject with great satisfaction. It has no doubt done good. It has, on the one hand, led to a clearer view of the duty of the state in reference to the work of education, and to a deeper sense of the importance of Christians exerting themselves to give a truly religious character to the public schools; and, upon the other hand, it has served to produce a stronger conviction. of the high part the church is called to act in this matter, and of the importance of the Board of Education continuing and extending their efforts to establish schools, academies, and colleges, on a definite religious basis, and under the church's own care."

66

ART. II.-Gallery of the Chief Living Theologians of the
Universities of Germany.

(Concluded from p. 398.)

V. GÖTTINGEN.

GÖTTINGEN, the seat of the university of the kingdom of Hanover-founded in 1734-has always had, since the middle of last century, distinguished professors, among whom the names of Mosheim, Walch, and Planck, in Church History; Spittler and Heeren, in Profane History; Michaelis, Eichhorn, and Ewald, in Oriental Philology and Old Testament Exegesis; Heyne and Ottfried Müller (brother of the theologian Julius Müller), in Classical Antiquities; and the two Grimms, now residing in Berlin, in German Antiquities,-have acquired a world-wide celebrity. The university sustained a severe blow in the removal of the seven liberal professors (which took place in consequence of the overthrow of the constitution in 1837), among whom the two Grimms, Dahlmann, O. Müller, who died in Greece, and Ewald, who was called to Tübingen, but has again returned to Göttingen, were the most celebrated. But the institution appears to have recently pretty well recovered from the effects of that disaster. Its library is one of the richest and most valuable in Germany.

The theological faculty of Göttingen consists at present of the ordinary professors, Lücke, Gieseler, Reiche (known by an extended Commentary upon the Epistle to the Romans), Redepenning (the biographer of Origen), and Ehrenfeuchter; to whom are to be added the three extraordinary professors,

Duncker (a pupil of Neander, and author of an excellent monograph on Irenæus), Matthäi, and Lünemann. Wieseler, the most learned among the latter, has recently been called as a professor ordinarius to Kiel.

We shall confine ourselves here to the characteristics of the two first named, viz., Lücke and Gieseler, who in their respective departments,-the one in exegesis, the other in church history, are among the greatest ornaments of German theological science.

Dr Lücke.

Frederick Lücke, one of the truest scholars and warmest admirers of Schleiermacher, and personally an exceedingly amiable, warm-hearted, and highly cultivated man, has acquired for himself a well-earned and enduring reputation, chiefly by his Commentary, in four volumes, on the writings of St John,-the Gospel, the three Epistles, and the Revelations. Their first appearance, thirty years ago (1820 and 1824), deserves to be designated as a new epoch, inasmuch as it was in these works that the newlyawakened spirit of the believing German theology first made itself manifest in the field of exegesis. The youthful enthusiasm which sparkled in them, and which indeed had not always a perfectly clear view of its subject, and often indulged in poetical declamations, has in the later editions been very much cooled down and reduced to due proportions by the calmness and sobriety of strict and scientific inquiry. Still, all the productions of this scholar are now as much as ever distinguished by a delightful freshness, and by a tasteful elegance of style, which oftentimes indeed borders upon hyper-elegance, and cannot be said to be altogether free of a certain smack of aristocratic pretentiousness. Everybody knows that it is no easy task, and one very seldom indeed performed, to write a commentary which shall be interesting in the proper sense of that term. Many of the most solid German works are in this respect really repulsive; and it costs more than ordinary patience to labour through their prolix and entangled investigations. Take for example the Latin commentaries of Fritzsche on Matthew, Mark, and the Romans, and that of Harless on the Ephesians, works which in other respects, for their philological depth and critical acumen, belong, without question, to ahe most distinguished productions of recent times. But if tny man understands how to write a commentary at once learned and interesting, it is Lücke. He is quite an artist in exegesis, in the best sense of the word. He is at home in the art of fusing down the heavy masses of learning, of shaping the rudis indigestaque moles into an organised and attractive form, of quickening the driest investigations of criticism and philo

logy with the spirit's fresh breath, and of observing a just measure and proportion in the quoting and estimating of other men's thoughts and in the communication of his own. When expounding difficult passages, he knows how to group together comprehensively the different views which have been held, and to pronounce upon them with clearness and acumen, and how to penetrate the whole work with such an enthusiastic love for his subject, as to make the reader follow him without weariness into all the details of his investigation; and while receiving rich and ample instruction, to keep him at the same time in a state of agreeable intellectual excitement. Add to this the more substantial advantages of a profound philological erudition, a refined and conscientious criticism, theological depth in the development of the ideas of his author, and lively sympathy with his spirit and peculiarities. And when to all this is still farther added the completeness of his well-digested exegetical materials, the palm must still be assigned to Lücke's works, especially to his commentary on the Gospel of John, although, since its first appearance, many other commentaries upon the same book have been published by Tholuck, Olshausen, Meyer, De Wette, and Baumgarten-Crusius, which, in other respects, have each their own peculiar excellencies. Lücke had a special vocation to undertake the interpretation of the writings of St John. It is well known that the Schleiermacher school, like Origen and Chrysostom among the fathers, Luther and Melancthon among the Reformers, Hamann, Claudius, and Herder among the moderns, has a decided preference for the fourth gospel,-" the unique, the true, the tender, the crowning gospel," as Luther calls it. The spirituality and ideality, the speculative profundity and the mystical depth of this wonderful book, and the irresistible charm of the portraiture of Christ, which the disciple who lay on the Saviour's breast, and felt there the heart-pulses of eternal love, holds up for the enjoyment of believing souls, had a high degree of attraction for the peculiar genius of Schleiermacher, although, with his Sabellian theory of the Trinity (to which Lücke also has a leaning), he could not possibly estimate aright the doctrine of the pre-existence of the Logos as a personality distinct from the Father and yet like in substance, which is one of the weightiest doctrines of John, and which he in vain endeavoured to refine away, by his entirely mistaken exegesis of the Christological passage, Colossians i. 15. But in the school of Schleiermacher this preference for the fourth gospel often became an injustice to the other three,-an extreme against which a reaction set in at a later period through the reckless criticism of the notorious Strauss. Now, from this procedure Lücke himself is not altogether free. In dealing with the points of difference be

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