The English Reformation appeals to an American student of Christian history largely, perhaps, because of his cultural heritage of language and customs, political philosophy and organizations, and religious views and institutions. There is in the study something of the pleasure of looking up one's family tree; the pride of discovering some noble ancestor, who worthily served his day, firmly established in its branches and the equally joyous, though perhaps guilty, thrill upon finding some other ancestor, not quite so worthy, hanging from one of the strong oak limbs of the ancient tree.

The early humanism in Italy from the second half of the fourteenth to the middle of the fifteenth century, characterized by the discovery and revival of classical antiquity, was at the same time the first expression of modern ideals and feelings. Although it was in several points closely connected with the preceding age, it produced a lively reaction against the medieval civilization and its form of philosophical and scientific thought, scholasticism. Petrarch, the father of humanism, began the polemics against scholasticism which have remained since then a commonplace in the writings of his followers: according to him the scholastics wasted their time in subtle and useless disputations without resolving the basic questions of human life; their unpolished Latin style was a consequence of their barbarous thought; they could not be compared with the great writers and thinkers of classical antiquity whom they were not able to read or imitate; and even their chief authority, Aristotle, in many respects must be considered inferior to his greater master, Plato.

With the conquest of Jerusalem on July 15, 1099, the preliminary objective of the First Crusade was attained. The victors who owed their astonishing success largely to negative factors—disunion and weakness of the Islamic forces—were thereupon confronted with the formidable task of consolidating their possessions and securing their power against Turkish counter-attacks.

Few figures in the story of the rise and establishment of Christianity have drawn so much attention as Julian the Apostate. The emperor who attempted to overthrow the church and reestablish the ancient pagan faith has from his own day to this been bitterly attacked by some, and as stoutly defended by others, until he has become almost a legendary character. Whether monster or tragic hero, his brief career has inevitably called forth an enormous literature in which every shade of the Christian and the pagan points of view is represented. Professional scholars and men of letters, attracted by a number of different aspects of the emperor's life, find rich material in the problem of his curiously mixed personality and in the spectacle of this last concerted; attempt to revive dying paganism. The manner in which the pagans responded to the attempt, and the way in which the church combatted this attack upon it, are alike subjects which will seem to every student to offer valuable lessons. Scholars realize both the difficulty and the importance of a just appreciation of these problems, and the effort to assay them properly has produced studies of the highest value.

Recent research on the rôle played by Calvinism in the political and economic development of modern Europe has some resemblance to the mythical fight against the Lernaean hydra. For decades historians have tried to cut off the heads of this theory, and have indeed proved that at many points in modern history Calvinist religion was practised without any of the political and economic consequences which are said to be closely connected with the Calvinist attitude towards life. Yet historians who have studied the growth of the modern world, have ascertained again and again that Calvinist countries or circles reacted in a way different from that of Catholics and Lutherans. Whenever one head of the theory had been cut, two other heads grew at once. What is the reason for this strange failure?

No man was less suited to a life of affairs in church and state than was John Knox. Yet, by a curious trick of fate, he was forced by the exigencies of his times to assume the role of official prophet and leader of a whole kingdom. For there was no one else.

Father Tyrrell is one of the foremost exponents of Roman Catholic Modernism, the attempt to reconcile Roman Catholicism and modern culture. Roman Catholic Modernism is not a system, a coherent whole proceeding from a philosophical foundation, not a body of doctrine, but rather an “orientation,” a “method.” It does not form a school, but rather consists “of a number of individual attempts to set forward a revision of traditional orthodoxy.” Such attempt is made by Laberthonnière, LeRoy, Loisy in France, by Murri, Fogazzaro in Italy, and von Hügel and Tyrrell in England.

It is certainly no compliment nowadays to call a man a “speculative theologian.” It was even less so in the early centuries of the Christian era. For “speculative theology” is that kind of religious thought which is relatively indifferent to the realm of history and human events and which proposes postulates and principles which are regarded as a priori, having no necessary connection with history. This viewpoint, reflected in Marcion and the Gnostics, was one of the primary issues which led to their condemnation by the early church. Yet it is by no means an exceptional view which regards Origen primarily as a “speculative theologian,” as one who scorned the simple faith of the Christians around him, and who mingled theology and philosophy together in such fashion that the truth and simplicity of the primitive Gospel were distorted and obscured. The redress of such an exaggeration would involve us deeply in the pivotal question of the relation, in Origen's thought, between theology and philosophy. Despite prolonged debate, this problem can hardly be regarded as settled. Nor does this paper propose to attempt such a settlement. Rather it will confine itself to a much less ambitious but nevertheless prior question: how do the doctrinal norms in Origen's thought compare or contrast with what we know of similar basic beliefs in the Christian thought of his own and immediately preceding periods? An answer to this ought to afford preliminary data for the determination of the broader issue noted above and might, in itself, throw some light on the sense, if any, in which Origen may justly be called a “speculative theologian.”

The name of John Hus is the symbol of the Czech Reformation. Through him the reform movement in Bohemia and Moravia was linked both with the activities of John Wyclif and with the coming of Martin Luther. The close connection between Wyclif and Hus is sufficiently known. In the polemics against an English adversary of Wyclif, John Stokes, Hus stated that he was greatly attracted by Wyclif's endeavor to bring all men back to God's law, and especially the clergy, so that they would renounce all ostentation and secular power in the world to live the Christlike life like the apostles. Martin Luther knew some Latin writings of John Hus, especially his treatise De Ecclesia, and approved of his views. In his disputation with Dr. Eck in 1519, he defended Wyclif and Hus against the attacks of his opponent, to the great satisfaction of some Czech students who were present in Leipzig and spread throughout Bohemia the news of his zeal. There is a miniature in a Czech manuscript of 1572, where one can see Wyclif striking fire, Hus lighting a candle from the spark, and Luther waving a flaming torch; it shows that the Czech Hussites were well aware of the affinity between the doctrines of Wyclif and Hus and of the influence of Hus on the first German reformer.

Church archives in the United States have been a long time in receiving any serious consideration. The reason for the delay in giving attention to this subject is due largely to the fact that until recent years church archival materials were considered of slight importance on the part of the recognized historian. There have been, from the beginning of our history as a separate people, an abundance of materials bearing upon the development of organized religion. But any systematic attempt to gather church archival materials as such for the purpose of making them available for the historian and research worker was practically unheard of until more or less recent years. Among the influences which have been responsible for creating a live interest in church archives has been the fact that within the last twenty-five years the universities throughout the country have been turning out an ever increasing number of master's and doctor's theses on American church history subjects.

When the great German immigration to America began, flooding across Pennsylvania, down the Ohio River, up into Ohio and Indiana, and out into the states west and north, it was impossible for the small American Lutheran Church to supply sufficient pastors for the care of these immigrants. Among others in Germany who were concerned about the need was Pastor Johannes Evangelista Gossner of Berlin. The men he sent to America have written an interesting, if not major, chapter in American church history.

In his Preface to the study entitled, Puritan Pronaos, Samuel Eliot Morison writes: “I have trod warily for fear of the Indians that are always lying in wait to scalp that unpopular wayfarer, the New England historian.” The Indians have no quarrel with Professor Morison, and presumably are not interested in securing his scalp, but were the ancient Puritan divines of New England alive today, they would at least desire to question some of his conclusions.

Gerald Massey, once hailed by Landor as comparable to Keats, to “a chastened Hafiz,” to Shakespeare when at his best in his sonnets, has earned the reward of forgotten prophets. This poet, who espoused the cause of chartism in the England of his day, who worked for the common people, who helped shape democracy, was eclipsed by Tennyson, his contemporary and rival. Massey, who came to the defence of F. D. Maurice with these lines:

God bless you, Brave One, in our dearth,

Your life shall leave a trailing glory;

And round the poor man's homely hearth

We proudly tell your suffering's story,

brought to America the seed of the social gospel. It was this same Massey whom George Eliot met and admired in London and later portrayed in Felix Holt, the Radical.

Philanthropy and religious idealism loomed high in the inception of Georgia. Doctor Thomas Bray, once Commissary of the Lord Bishop of London in Maryland, the motivating factor in the founding of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, the patron of parochial lending libraries for the colonies, and the ardent advocate of the education of the negro slave, had in his latter years associated himself with General James Edward Oglethorpe. The two had found a common interest in the need of prison reform; there is much reason to believe that Oglethorpe's concern over the hardships of the debtor prisoners was the result of his conferences with Doctor Bray. At any rate, when Doctor Bray received a legacy for the education of the Negroes in the colonies, Oglethorpe was one of the group later incorporated as the “Associates of Doctor Bray.” There were several prominent Anglican clergymen among the trustees, as well as laymen of wealth and position. The original Associates did not constitute a colonising society; their objects were the founding of parochial libraries in England and the plantations and the Christian education of the Negro. When the colonisation of Georgia was undertaken, the enlarged group of Associates of Doctor Bray formed the nucleus of the Georgia Board of Trustees. The Associates included some eight individuals who never served as trustees of the new colony; but no one of the Board as first named was chosen from outside that composite charitable society. “At the head of its membership were three of the original group of Associates. There were fourteen members of Parliament, all of whom but Digby (and possibly Lowther) had served on at least the revised committee on the gaols, though three of the least active were omitted from the trust.

There are many varieties of pacifism in the world today. And the history of the peace movement shows that most of them, if not all, have had a long existence. Each type of pacifism is usually based on some corresponding variety of theology, religion, ethics, or political or social philosophy.

The Reformation in Scotland, as Professor John T. McNeill has shown, was never a purely nationalistic movement. John Knox, as well as Sir David Lyndsay, viewed the Scottish church as a part of the universal “kirk,” and directed their efforts toward securing a closer uniformity with the English church and with the Reformed churches on the Continent. But it must be admitted that, until 1638, the principal drive for unity between the English and Scottish churches came from the southern kingdom. In 1638, however, with the restoration of Presbyterianism in Scotland, the process was reversed and the Scots became vigorous in their effort to presbyterianize the Church of England.