matics and ethics. His influence did not go much beyond the University. He is the representative in Denmark of the German speculative theology, which exerted itself to harmonize faith and science, the subjective and objective, the absolute and relative. Upon the people at large it had no direct influence. Denmark is especially rich in sacred poetry and hymns. The three bishops, Kingo, Brorson, and Grundtvig, have written collections of hymns that for religious fervor, depth, and beauty can hardly be surpassed and which will live as long as the Danish tongue is spoken on earth. The Danish church has missions among the Bengals and the Santals in India. In the Santal mission the church in Norway takes part. The fathers of this mission are Skrefsurd, a Norwegian, and Borresens, a Dane, and the "mother in Israel" amongst them is Borresens' noble wife. They are in a fair way of Christianizing the whole Santalistan. Skrefsurd is at present engaged in giving the people the Bible in their own language. He has already given them their dictionary and grammar.

SWEDEN.

During the first part of the present century a movement similar to that in Denmark and Norway took place in Sweden also. The most prominent promoters of this revival were not laymen, but zealous and devoted pastors. Sweden is the home of oratory and song, and some of the most powerful pulpit orators belong to this period. Jacob Otto Hoof and Laes Linderoth were thunderers in the pulpit, and made their large audiences tremble under their denunciation of sin, their terrible proclamation of hell and damnation for the ungodly, and their loud trumpetcalls to repentance. It is claimed that the law was more prominent in their testimony than the gospel, and that the character and effect of their work partook more of fear than of faith and love, producing a dark, ascetic, and harsh Christianity. A reaction An Englishman by the name of Scott, who had come to Sweden, a Methodist, found a young, pious theologian, C. O. Rosenius, and the two worked together for some time. Rosenius was born in 1816, and commenced working with Scott in 1840. The two parted, and Rosenius, who never left the Lutheran Church or its doctrine, commenced the publication of a religious periodical called Pietisten―The Pietist. Rosenius was not an

came.

orator, and was therefore not much given to preaching; he worked mostly through his paper and his books. He has had a remarkable influence upon the church in Sweden. The material principle of the Lutheran reformation, justification through faith alone (faith alone emphasized), has never had a better and more devoted exponent. The love of God in Christ Jesus, the free grace of God, shone through all his testimony with a light and a warmth that melted hearts of sione, made lambs of lions, and called the lost back by the way of the cross to a loving and waiting father's arms; and the man himself was a living illustration of his works. In his writings a disciple of the apostle Paul, in all his life and character an image of the apostle John. He was truly a witness of Christ to his people. His papers and his writings were spread over the whole country; they were read in huts and in palaces, on land and sea, and their power of love and grace was almost irresistible. There was the true "balm of Gilead" in them. His "Secrets in the Law and the Gospel," his explanation of the epistle to the Romans, reveal a mind wholly given to an unceasing contemplation of Christ's love to sinners. A mighty revival of true evangelical Christianity swept from one end of Sweden to the other. It swept across the border over into Norway in the seventies, and brought with it more of childlike faith and gladness than the earlier revival. After the death of Rosenius the evangelical movement was divided into two streams. P. P. Waldenstrom became the suc cessor of Rosenius as editor of Pietisten and as the recognized leader of the great cause. He holds peculiar views in regard to the atonement. While believing in the divinity of Christ, he does not hold to the commonly-accepted doctrine of the vicarious sacrifice of Christ. Christ died to prove to the world how God loved sinners, but his death is not the meritorious cause of God's reconciliation with sinners. The followers of Rosenius had not formed distinct groups. His testimony leavened the whole church, and his influence in it is predominant to-day. It is felt in the preaching in the pulpits, in the religious press, and in the whole life of the Swedish Lutheran church. When Waldenstrom took the leadership, his friends formed distinct groups though without leaving the established church. This semi-sepation manifested itself first in the so-called communion societies, "Wadoer foreninger," where Waldenstrom's adherents, also

called "Mission Friends," would receive the Lord's Supper, not in the churches, where the ungodly mixed with the godly, but in private houses, without the services of a regular minister. revival in Sweden has not had any distinct influence on the political life of the nation. Swedish character seems to be liberal in religion and conservative in politics. The movement has, however, had a very noticeable influence in the direction of temperance. Very much less liquor is drunk in Sweden now than before the revival.

In speaking of the religious life of Scandinavia we must not forget that a goodly portion of Scandinavia and its religious life is now here in the United States. Here as in Europe Scandinavians have selected the northern latitudes. There is a belt of land across the United States from Lake Superior to the Pacific Ocean which is being rapidly settled by them and their children. The States of Wisconsin, Minnesota, the two Dakotas, the northern parts of Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas, the new states of Montana, Oregon, and Washington, are the American home of the Scandinavian race-a sturdy, industrious race, a home-building, church-building, school-building race. It was the Swedes who in Europe formed the bulwark against the progress of Romanism when it tried to retake by the sword what it had lost through the preaching of the gospel. It is claimed that the Roman church is exerting itself to regain in America what she is losing in Europe and get the controlling power in the United States. If so, you will find the Scandinavian race arrayed in a solid phalanx against any unlawful and unamerican encroachment. upon the rights of Protestantism and the liberty of conscience. And who knows but that in such case it may come to pass that the Scandinavian race shall win the day of battle for Protestantism in America as it did in Europe?

THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF SWITZERLAND.

BY PROF. EDOUARD NAVILLE OF GENEVA.

It is not easy to give a summary of the religious condition of a country like Switzerland. Things in religion are somewhat like those in nature. Every traveller who passes through our beautiful land is struck at once with the infinitely varied aspect of the regions through which he passes. A few hours of travel suffice to show the cold and monotonous valleys of the Jura, the fertile and well-cultivated fields of the Swiss plateau, the picturesque borders of the Lake of the Four Cantons, the bleak and majestic solitudes of the Alps, and their laughing slopes which look down upon Italy. In this rapid transit he will hear at least three different tongues. Everywhere he will be able to observe particular customs, traditions which tend, it is true, to become effaced, but which are the heritage of a different past, the result of belief the opposition to which has more than once plunged the Confederation into a civil war. Here are the Valois, an industrial and commercial race, who send beyond the seas the product of their labors, and who have made for themselves a place among heathen nations by their powerful Society of Missions. Further, one sees the agricultural Bernese, the traditional Protestant, the hereditary enemy of Catholicism, and by his side the shepherd of Lucerne or of Uri, whose son may to-day be clothed in a uniform of the middle ages and mount guard at the foot of the staircase of the Vatican.

And without leaving Protestant cantons it is impossible not to be struck with differences as to point of view, differences bearing upon facts of great importance and that may be traced back to the times of the reformers. Without doubt since their epoch ideas have made a great advance, and if Zwingle and Calvin should return to life they would scarcely recognize their own work. It is not less true that there are certain divergencies the

origin of which it is necessary to seek among men who have borne the light of the gospel to the bosom of the darkness of Rome. The impress which Calvin had made upon the church of Geneva is to-day much weakened; but however feeble it now is, it is not that which Zwingle had given to the church of Zurich, or Decolampade to that of Bâsle. Add to this that the language is not the same, that each one of the Protestant cantons has a history entirely different from that of his immediate neighbor, and it will be easily seen that even in religious things the variety may be so great that, to make it clear, it is not one report alone, but eight or ten that I should here present. And I beg my readers to remember one circumstance which renders my task much more difficult. The one who writes these pages is a layman and not a theologian. There may be, therefore, here and there a judgment which may surprise my brethren who work in the career of the evangelical ministry and who have a closer view of things.

In a country where national churches exist it is difficult to speak of the religious condition of things without saying a word. as to the political situation. In this respect, however well one may think and speak of our institutions in a secular view, our judgment would be very different from a religious platform. It is certain that democratic institutions, as they are established in our country, bear a marked character of opposition to religion. Radicalism, which rules all these institutions, is very hostile to them. Each step that it has made forward has contributed to efface from our institutions everything that might give them a religious coloring, and each of its triumphs has diminished the place assigned to religion in the external life of the nation. It is true that many noble minds have hailed with joy the complete separation between the religious and the civil domain. But is there not exaggeration in a principle which in itself may be very just? Let us render to Cæsar the things which be Cæsar's, and to God the things that belong to God. Such is the law that should rule the life of nations as well as of individuals, and we do not dream of contesting its sovereign wisdom. But let not Cæsar forget that he himself should obey the law of God. Let him not proclaim aloud, and let him not teach our children, that there is no God. If one enters one of the socialistic reunions which multiply in our country, he will see that one of the essential articles of social