The Press. — London, England, 1854-06-17 00:00:00

570 the former was supported by John XXII., the legitimate Pope,who had transferred the seat of the Papacy from the banks of the Tiber to the Rhone; the latter, who was the cham pion of reform in the Church, was upheld by a majority of the princes of the empire. The death of Frederick left his competitor without a temporal opponent, but the Pope, with ponti ficial tenacity of purpose and ecclesiastical vengeance, pursued him to the grave. The dominions of Louis were laid under an in terdict: his subjects had to choose between al legiance to their Sovereign and the Supreme Pontiff. Adherence to the latter was punished by the sword of the magistrate—fidelity to the former deprived them of the comforts of reli gion. Discord and disorder thus working in fearful activity, the foundations of society were loosened, and the fabric, shaken to its centre, was rapidly resolving itself into the elements whence it arose. And, as has so often singu larly occurred at similar epochs, external na ture seemed to manifest sympathy with the affairs of earth in portentous aberrations from its ordinary course : Lamentings heard i'the air; strange screams of death; And prophesying, with accents lei rible, • some say, the earth Was feverous, and did shake ; and, heralded by earthquake, hurricane, and famine, the Black Death, clothed in all its mysterious terror, burst on Europe, carrying desolation into its fairest regions. In these events men saw the judgments of God. They saw the heavens, as troubled with man's sot, Threaten his bloody stage. As expiatory sacrifices some scourged them selves and prayed ; others burnt Jews ; while a third, " remembering an old pro phecy," more rationally, because inno cently, " looked with hope for the re " turn of the great Emperor Frederick 11. " to restore justice and peace in the world." But neither through the simple faith in a sim ple tradition, nor the stripes self-inflicted and endured, nor the death in torments of thou sands of Jews, did the deliverer come. Then many grew desperate, authority wholly lost its power, each judged for himself, and inflamed and excited minds rushed, according to their natural bias, into extremes of good or evil. The good became saintlike, whilst the bad rather resembled devils than men. Blas phemers, we learn from Ruysbroch of Brus sels, born and baptised in misery, abounded five hundred years ago. They lived in mortal sin, not troubling themselves about God or his grace, but thinking virtue sheer nonsense, and the spiritual life hypocrisy or delusion ; and hearing with disgust all mention of God or virtue, for they are persuaded that there is no such thing as God, or Heaven, or Hell ; for they ac knowledge nothing but what is palpable to the senses. But others, instead of succumbing to despair, turned, amid the storm of conflict, from the surging tide of human passion, and sought elsewhere for that peace which the world can not give : They took refuge in God, and finding that to them he had proved " a present help in time of trouble," " as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land," they tried to bring their fellow-men to believe and partake in a life raised above the troubles of this world. They associated themselves together, but the association they founded was kept secret, lest, through misconception of their principle, they might fall under suspicion of heresy, and the Inquisition should put a stop to their labours ; but they desired to keep themselves aloof from everything that savoured of heresy or disorder. And these were the friends of God : Their distinguishing doctrines were self-renunciation, —the complete giving up of self-will to the will of God ; the continuous activity of the spirit of God in all believers, and the intimate union possible between God and man ; the worthlessness of all religion based upon fear or the hope of reward ;—and the essential equality of the laity and clergy, though, for the sake of order and discipline, the organisation of the Church was necessary. In the course of a few years they spread down the rich valley of the Rhine from Basle to Cologne, and extended eastwards into Suabia, Bavaria, and Franconia. The associa tion numbered amongst its members persons of eminence, including the widow of King Andrew of Hungary, and many of knightly rank. Foremost amongst their leaders was Tauler, a Dominican monk of Strasbourg. who spent his life in preaching along the Rhine, and whose sermons are extant and widely studied at this day. Tauler attributed much THE PRESS. of his religious light to the instruction of a lay friend. Of the latter little is known, except that his name was Nicholas, and that he was a citizen of the Free town of Basle and a secret Waldensiun. Another was Rulman Merswin, a member of a noble family of Strasbourg, in which city he founded a house for tho Knights of St. John. It was about this period, 1350, that the " Theologia Germanica." was probably written. Until lately Luther was the sole authority for, the text of the work, but in 1850 a MS. copy, bearing the date of 1497, was found at Wurtzburg by Professor Reuss, the librarian of the University. The differences between this version and that previously known are slight, but, as it contains a few passages not found in former editions, it has been selected as the groundwork of the present translation. The foregoing particulars, selected and condensed from the translator's introduc- tion, show how in the darkest hour the light of divine truth is preserved, still burning, if unseen. There cannot be a doubt that the Friends of God, spreading their doctrines in secret, largely prepared the way for that pro test against Rome which at a later era found a stern voice in Luther and a sharp sword in Maurice of Saxony. The doctrines they held are embodied in the treatise before us, but its subject matter is obviously unfitted for minute exposition in the columns of a newspaper. It is divided into fifty-four short chapters, and the argument is thus stated by the Chevalier Bunsen : Sin is selfishness. Godliness is unselfishness. A godly life is the steadfast working out of inward free- ness from self. To become thus godlike is the bringing back of man' a first nature. The chevalier, in his letter, further says : This small but golden treatise has been now for almost forty years an unspeakable comfort to me and to many Christian friends ( most of whom have already departed in peace ), to whom I had the happiness of introducing it. May it in your admirably faithful and lucid translation become a real "book for the million " in England, a privi lege which it already shares in Germany with Tauler's matchless sermons. It is not without awe and reverence we rise from the book ; we echo the hope ; and even those who do not usually peruse works of this nature might well, if from mere cu riosity, be induced to become acquainted with the thoughts of the nameless Knight of St. John which for more than three centuries have widely influenced the world, and which are thus spoken of by a man dis tinguished for his piety and learning 500 years after their author has mingled with the dust—most probably—of that " stately Frank " fort city which lies by silver Mayne." Siluria. By Sir Roderick Murchison. London : Murray. FIFTEEN years ago Sir Roderick Murchison presented the world with his first regular attempt to classify the important series of rocks known ever since by the name which he then gave them—the silurian system. The work—in two handsome quartos, and of much pretension —was, by its price, beyond the reach, and, by its minute and manifold details, be yond the comprehension, of ordinary readers. But geologists had long been aware of the singularly-imperfect way in which the rocks in question had heretofore been arranged, and hailed any attempt to set them in order. The rocks had, certainly, been singularly unlucky. At a time when other geological divisions were fairly, and some completely, classified, these were known by the preposterous title of the " transition " strata, it being supposed that, during their formation, nature was in a course of transition from a state without animal life to one with animal life; just as if such a thing was possible —as if there could be a period when existence partly was and partly was not—when created beings were only half alive. From this preposterous no menclature, the future silurian rocks only escaped to be huddled together, without order or distinction, under the barbarous German mining term " granwacke." Yet in these rocks were the first vestiges of animal life—a dis tinction of itself enough to invest them with supreme interest. They were widely diffused over the globe, and possessed many important mineralogical features. It was of the highest SATURDAY, importance that they should be arranged, and it was fortunate that the task fell to a geo logist so well qualified as Sir R. Murchison. Sir Roderick now offers us an abridged yet much more complete description of the silu rian system, and has finished with the care and attention it deserves the work by which he must be contented to be known to poste rity as a geologist. In fact, though he has been for full thirty years distinguished as a leader of science, it would be difficult to find any other discovery on which to found so ex tensive a reputation, and certainly none by which he could expect to be remembered by the next generation. For the elucidation of such a subject as the silurian strata he was well qualified in every way. With a keen eye, a quick perception, and a strong love of travel, he could readily discern the features of extensive strata, whose rugged forms, sharp outlines, and characteristic arrangement in low mountain ranges often enable them to be traced simply by an experienced eye, throughout a long range of scenery. With a rather moderate amount of severe examination, his position enabled him to command the ser vices of more close and industrious observers, especially those connected with the geological survey. With no knowledge whatever of natu ral history, he had Sowerby, Lonsdale, Agas sez, always at his command. Thus issuing forth—half observer, half MecEenas—he was enabled to provide more accurate information on the many points of his subject than closer investigators who trusted more to themselves. In addition, whatever he has discovered ho has had the readiest means of giving to the world In his smaller disquisitions, an entire evening at the Geological Society has always been at his disposal; in his greater, he has the advantage of Mr. Murray for a publisher. The earlier and larger work confined its ob servations almost exclusively to the British islands. In consequence there was much un interesting, though then perhaps not unneces sary, matter. The present book has seized the larger features, not of England only, but of the rest of the world where the system has been explored ; and the author has combined with his own observations those of a multi tude of observers with great talent and dex terity. To the common reader there is great interest in the description of the natural phe nomena of those rent, shattered, and twisted strata to which much of the romantic scenery of Wales, Shropshire, and the south-west of England, of the Tweed, Teviotdale, and the Galway hills, the Ural and Swedish moun tains, and the Cordilleras of Australia, owes its picturesque beauty. To the naturalist, learned and unlearned, nothing in the whole range of his studies can exceed in importance the first development of life upon the globe, in the strange crustacea, or the wild, ungainly forms of fishes, which Nature produced in her first attempts. The shells, numerous and in teresting, present none of those wonderful aberrations of form which is found in the other two divisions ; neither do the corals, many of which are of extreme beauty. The first reptile has lately been discovered in a series of rocks immediately above the silurian, which Sir Roderick inserts, in full detail, in his work. In fact, like his great patron, the Czar, our geologist is apt to carry his invading forces into other countries; and, were this the place, we might well object to his "occupation" of many of the overlying rocks, which will be, we believe, as temporary as his prototype's. The concluding chapter will interest very many. It is, as is well known, from the debris of these strata that much of the Australian and Ural gold has been obtained ; and Sir Rode rick, as a theorist, has the merit of suspecting its existence in Australia before its actual dis covery. He makes some very sensible observa tions which may serve to quiet those who expect us to be overwhelmed with gold. The Spaniards, when they discovered America, found the natives abounding in gold. They expected, with their superior knowledge, to find infinitely more. They were Arievously mistaken. The natives had already picked the greater part of the gold from the gravel. Here superior science availed little. The mines of Peru, intended for gold, ended by being rich indeed, but in silver. Gold becomes rarer and more difficult of discovery as you