The Coming of Luther.—The events of the sixteenth century have been too often regarded as constituting a break in history. But to the eye of thought reviewing the course of history, the continuity remains unbroken. Luther was but the child of the ages preceding; the Protestant revolution was the natural and orderly sequence of a long course of preparation. It was indispensable indeed for a time that men should regard the Reformation as breaking with the past, in order that they might estimate more deeply the meaning of the truth which had been revealed to them, and secure its firmer establishment. In the turmoil of an age of transition it is not always given to the leaders to discern the route by which they have been led. Luther entered upon the inheritance of Wycliffe and of Huss, and still further was he indebted to the spirit of German mysticism. But his greatness was also peculiarly his own. He was not so much a theologian as a man who afforded in his own rich nature, unveiled so completely before his age, the materials for theology. His life was a type of humanity for his own and succeeding ages. He lived through the religious experience of the Mediæval dispensation before he came to his knowledge of a higher birthright. Viewed from the standpoint of a formal theology, he is full of inconsistencies and contradictions, and even dangerous errors. But regarded simply as a man, with his rich endowment of human instincts and yearnings, to which he gave the freest, most unguarded expression, he was in himself a revelation of the human consciousness in its freshness and simplicity, with which a complete theology must come to terms. It is because the explosive utterances of his vigorous, tumultuous nature have been weighed as if they were carefully formed, dogmatic statements, that Luther has been so often misunderstood by Protestant as well as by Roman Catholic writers.—From Allen’s “Continuity of Christian Thought.”[AL]
Natural Resources of Ireland.—Ireland is a much richer country by nature than is generally supposed. In fact, she has not yet been properly explored. There is copper ore in Wicklow, Waterford, and Cork. The Leitrim iron ores are famous for their riches; and there is good ironstone in Kilkenny, as well as in Ulster. The Connaught ores are mixed with coal beds. Kaolin, porcelain clay, and coarser clay abound; but it is only at Belluk that it has been employed in the pottery manufacture. But the sea about Ireland is still less explored than the land. All around the Atlantic’s seaboard of the Irish coast are shoals of herring and mackerel, which might be food for man, but at present are only consumed by the multitudes of sea birds which follow them.—From Smiles’s “Men of Invention and Industry.”
FOOTNOTES
[AK] The Pedagogical Library. Edited by G. Stanley Hall. Vol I. Methods of Teaching History. Second Edition. Boston: Ginn, Heath & Co. 1885.
[AL] The Continuity of Christian Thought. By Alexander V. G. Allen. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1884. Price $2.00.
SPECIAL NOTES.
We have been asked the meaning of the term the “geography of the heavens.” Professor Hiram Matteson, in his excellent little treatise entitled “The geography of the heavens,” makes in his preface the following explanatory remarks: “I have endeavored to teach the geography of the heavens in nearly the same manner as we teach the geography of the earth. What that does in regard to the history, situation, extent, population, and principal cities of the several kingdoms of the earth, I have done in regard to the constellations; and I am persuaded that a knowledge of the one may be as easily obtained as of the other. The systems are similar. It is only necessary to change the terms in one to render them applicable to the other. For this reason I have yielded to the preference of the publisher in calling this work ‘Geography of the Heavens,’ instead of Uranography, or some other name more etymologically apposite.”