When God has a great work to do in his kingdom on earth he trains and associates congenial agents of different .gifts, but of one spirit and aim, to carry out his purposes. They supplement and encourage one another and accomplish much more in unison than they could in isolation. Moses and Aaron, David and Jonathan, in the history of Israel; Paul and Barnabas, Peter and Mark, in apostolic times; Pamphilius and Eusebius, Basil and Gregory Nazianzen, among the fathers; Luther and Melanchthon, Zwingli, Occolampadius and Bullinger, Calvin, Farel, Viret, and Beza, Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley, among the Reformers; the two Wesleys and Whitefield in the Methodist revival; Pusey, Newman and Keble in the Anglo-Catholic movement of our days, will readily occur to the memory as illustrious examples of co-operative friendship for the advancement of God's kingdom.

The present interest in the question of the reunion of the Churches, as evidenced by the Stockholm and Lausanne Conferences, by the work of the Federal Council, by the community church movement, by the overtures for union between particular denominations, such as the Universalists and Congregationalists, and the Congregationalists and Christians, the formation of the United Church of Canada, and many other signs and tokens, suggests an inquiry into the relations existing among the various bodies of Christians at the period in our national history which was perhaps marked by more cooperation and less animosity than any other prior to our own time.

A firm grasp of the principles of evidence is essential to the success of the historian. When an alleged miracle is to be verified the questions at once arise, “Are miracles differently proved from other facts?” “Do they demand the same amount of testimony?” or “Are more witnesses required than for an ordinary event?” In 1883, the Jesuit De Smedt wrote in his Critique Historique as follows: “The possibility of a miracle never troubles seriously the judgment of Catholic critics …, they know that they must demand a superabundance of proofs, which they do not ask for when the facts are entirely in accord with physical laws.” For an illustration of the application of this rule, he refers his readers to the process of canonization as practised by “the tribunal, the most respectable in the eyes of Catholics.” Of course he refers to the Congregation of Rites and Ceremonies.

The Bellarmine-Jefferson legend dates from the article of Mr. Gaillard Hunt, entitled “Cardinal Bellarmine and the Virginia Bill of Rights,” which appeared in the Catholic Historical Review, October, 1917, pp. 276–289. The article sets forth that Jefferson was indebted to Cardinal Bellarmine for the principles of democratic government embodied in the Declaration of Independence, and also embodied in the Virginia Bill of Rights. The alleged discovery seems now to be accepted in Roman Catholic periodicals as a fixed fact. Mr. Hunt's article, which was also issued in separate form, demands attention from the position which Mr. Hunt occupied as chief of the Division of Manuscripts in the Congressional Library at Washington and for his Life of Madison and other works. He was a convert to the Roman Church. He died in 1924. All subsequent treatments of the Bellarmine-Jefferson theory start with Mr. Hunt's assertions.

The question has been often asked whether there were any religious motives dominant in the mind of Columbus and his royal patrons when the expedition toward the unknown West was undertaken. Those who would fain canonize the discoverer of a new world appear unable to see any other guiding motive, and they also earnestly desire to impress their belief upon all the world. Others, differently inclined, seem to have difficulty in finding anything other than a base and ignoble love of gold and an overweening desire for power and fame in the proposals or the subsequent career of the adventurer. The question is then, first as to the very existence of such motives at all, and secondarily, if they are found to exist, as to the position which they occupied in the minds of the parties concerned, and the extent to which later occurrences stamped them as genuine or spurious; formative in their influence, or merely put forward as a pretext and makeweight in argument.

What were Luther's views on religious toleration? These are set forth for the first timein his little book, Von weltlicher Obrigkeit, wie weit man ihr Gehorsam schuldig sei (1523). I give here a brief abstract of this epoch-making treatise.

Church councils have played a great rô1e in ecclesiasti-cal history. Whether their actual influence has been as great upon the development of the Church is a question open to discussion. Nevertheless Nicæa, Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon will always stand as landmarks in the development of theology and the constitution of the Church. Apart from these great gatherings, held only on special occasions and at irregular and long intervals, there were other church councils which formed, in design at least, a permanent and important part of ecclesiastical governmental machinery. These were the provincial and diocesan synods or councils, held respectively by the archbishop for his province and the bishop for his diocese. In them much of the orderly administration of a well-governed diocese took place.

An Edict or Act of Toleration is a grant of the civil government, which authorizes religious societies dissenting from the State religion to worship according to the dictates of conscience without liability to persecution. Such an Edict always presupposes a religion established by law and supported by the State, and the right of the State to control public worship. Toleration may proceed from necessity, or from prudence, or from indifference, or from liberality and an enlarged view of truth and right. It may be extended or withdrawn by the government; but it is usually the entering wedge for religious liberty and legal equality.

The Protestant colonists who first came to this continent possessed strong literary tastes. The Dutch were at first controlled largely by the purely commercial spirit, but in a short time a literary tendency developed itself decidedly among them, which was strengthened by a close communication with such literary centres in Holland as Leyden and other seats of learning. No portion of our colonists placed stronger emphasis on the requirements for a learned clergy than the Dutch. The Swedes, for the short time that they held a secure footing on the banks of the Delaware, gave most valuable literary treatment to their colonial home. Luther's Catechism was translated into the Virginian-Indian language, printed in Stockholm in 1696, and sent out under the patronage of King Carl XL, to do missionary work among the savages. Svedberg wrote “America Illuminata,” for the purpose of acquainting his countrymen in Sweden with the New World. Campanius and Acrelius wrote large and full descriptive works, which, for minute treatment, were not surpassed by any writers in the entire colonial period.

The existence of wounds resembling those of the crucified Christ upon the body of St. Francisof Assisi is now generally admitted to be probable. It has been demonstrated that such phenomena can and do occur through psychopathic causes. Only by rejecting cogent evidence can the stigmata be eliminated as thorough fraud. Whether the wounds were self-inflicted or inflicted by others post mortem is still an open question.

In his Narrative of Surprizing Conversions, Edwards wrote: “About this time began the great noise that was in this part of the country, about Arminianism.” The context shows that the time in mind was about 1734. On the basis of this and similar allusions and because of Sereno Dwight's comments and Whitefield's invectives, it has been believed that before the Great Awakening the Congregational churches and ministers had to some degree adopted Arminian views. An investigation of this matter may contribute to the spiritual history of New England.

The intellectual, social, and religious upheaval of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries of which the Renaissance and the Protestant Revolution were phases, along with the decidedly skeptical tendency of the Scotist philosophy which undermined the arguments by which the great mysteries of the Christian faith had commonly been supported while accepting unconditionally the dogmas of the Church—together with the influence of Neoplatonizing mysticism which aimed and claimed to raise its subjects into such direct and complete union and communion with the Infinite as to make any kind of objective authority superfluous:—all these influences conspired to lead many of the most conscientious and profoundly religious thinkers of the sixteenth century to reject simultaneously the baptism of infants and the traditional doctrine of the Trinity. Infant baptism they regarded as being without scriptural warrant, subversive of an ordinance of Christ, and inconsistent with regenerate church membership. Likewise the doctrine of the tripersonality of God, as set forth in the so-called Nicene and Athanasian creeds, involving the co-eternity, co-equality and consubstantiality of the Son with the Father and the personality of the Holy Spirit, they subjected to searching and fundamental criticism.

A study of early missionary work among the North American Indians—unless over-long for such an occasion as this—must be of limited scope. One may not, even in the most hurried way, notice the labors of the heroic Jesuit Fathers in Canada or New York, whose self-sacrificing devotion deserved a larger success; nor may the study safely extend beyond the close of the seventeenth century.

I was moved to investigate the subject of this study by an admiration of long standing for John Wyclif, and by the feeling that James Gairdner, the latest historian of Lollardy, had done scant justice to the religious movement that began with Wyclif, and that survived through a century and a half to lend powerful aid to Henry VIII, when the hour struck for the rejection of the Roman jurisdiction. When the work was finished, I found myself at a goal not far removed from that of Dr. Gairdner, although I had reached it with less reluctant feet. Dr. Gairdner had the spirit of the true archivist.1 He had no aversion to dust; he could endure even dirt; but disorder, never. And Lollardy, in English society in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, was a source of disorder. I do not revolt at disorder when great changes are necessary. Unlike Dr. Gairdner, I can find great uses for the man who “refused to recant or bow to the opinion of trained judges,” even though they “presumably understood such questions better than himself.” I cannot view the literature of Lollardy, admittedly crude, as “poisonous.” And I respectfully dissent from the view that an admission of the right of sects to exist is “fatal to the essence of Christianity itself.” But I have found ever increasing reason to concur in the conclusion to which Dr. Gairdner's unrivalled knowledge led him, viz., that Lollardy survived through the troubled days of the fifteenth century to “help Henry VIII put down the Pope,” that Henry's reformation of the Church was “precisely on Lollard lines,” and that “Lollardy affected the Church more and more after his death.”

There are two facts to be borne in mind in regard to Luther's whole attitude to social and economic questions. The first is that ordinarily this was a territory to be confined to experts, in which ministers should not meddle. He believed that a special knowledge was necessary to deal with some of these matters, and that they had better be left to those to whom Providence had assigned them, whether the jurists, those clever in worldly knowledge, or the authorities. The other fact is that the Church after all has social duties, and that Church and clergy must fight flagrant abuses and try to bring in the Kingdom of God on earth. The Church must use the Word of God against sin and sinners, and so by spiritual ministries help the needs of the time. The authorities on their part shall proceed by strict justice against evil doers. But there is another fact here which it is necessary to mention to get Luther's whole attitude, viz., that the State's function is not simply to administer justice, but to secure the general weal. They shall do the very best they can for their subjects, says Luther. “The authorities shall serve their subjects and use their office not petulantly [nicht zu Mutwillen] but for the advancement of the common good, and especially for the poor.” The princes shall give laws which shall limit as far as possible social misery and national dangers. They should listen to the proposals of the Church to this end, and on the ground of wise counsels of churchmen, do away with old laws and make new ones.

New methods of historical study are securing important results. The demand now is not only that those who write history shall go back to the sources, but that by a thorough examination of the materials which the sources furnish, and by the employment of sound canons of criticism, the facts, so far as possible, shall be obtained. Because of this demand not a little of what has hitherto been regarded as veritable history has been discovered to be untenable and misleading. In no field of historic research are these results more conspicuous than in that which has been traversed in recent years by those who have directed their attention to the history of the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century.