Of late the Alogi (so-called) have been the subject of renewed discussion in Germany. The topic is handled by Dr. A. Harnack in his able and elaborate article on “Monarchianism” in Herzogand Plitt's Encyclopædia (vol. x.), and in his “Dogmengeschichte” (second edition, 1888). It is considered at length in the first half of the first volume of Zahn's “History of the New Testament Canon” (1888). This last publication has called out a polemical review from Harnack, in which the Alogi forms one of the prominent themes. In Zahn's brief pamphlet in reply to Harnack, however, this particular topic is not taken up. The subject, as all are aware, is interesting as a branch of the history of Christology in the second century. It is especially important now for its connection with the debate respecting the authorship of the Fourth Gospel.

The movement known as the War of the Camisards is an episode of the history of Protestantism in France which, though rarely studied in detail and perhaps but partially understood, was not devoid of significance.

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 Divina Commedia, that “sacred poem”—

“To which both heaven and earth have set their hand,”

has an equal attraction for the poet, the historian, the philosopher, and the theologian. It is a mirror of mediaeval Christianity and civilization, and resembles a Gothic cathedral which lays all sciences and arts under contribution and fills the mind with wonder and awe. It has justly been called “the mediaeval miracle of song.” No poem can be compared with it for general and abiding interest except the Book of Job, and Goethe's Faust.

Genuine “Higher Criticism” ought to be applied yet more to the first two centuries of Christian history, to unearth new material, and carefully analyze and classify that which we have. This should be done without polemic intent, and free from the perverting influences of controversy relating to Apostolic Succession, Dogmatic Theology, or Denominational History.

There are among the archives of Maryland preserved at Annapolis (the colonial records are perhaps the best in the country) some curious documentary proofs of the existence of a large number of Puritans in the colony. Indeed, these State papers contain almost all the account that we have of their presence there at an early date, as all their purely ecclesiastical documents have perished. They were there, however, from a very early period, and in such large numbers, that Maryland cannot be called a Roman Catholic colony in the sense that Massachusetts can be called a Puritan colony, or Virginia a colony of the Cavaliers. The Protestants were in the majority from the very beginning, as the reports of the Jesuit fathers clearly show. The celebrated Act of Toleration was evidently a compromise between the Lord Proprietor and his Protestant subjects, a piece of legislation which reflects great credit upon the common-sense of Lord Baltimore, even if we may suspect that on this occasion he made a virtue of necessity. Of these Protestants so large a number were Puritans in their sympathies, that they ruled the colony during the Commonwealth, passing a law, which is little to their credit, which deprived both Papists and prelatists of any part in the government. For a long time the colony continued Puritan in its tone. So late as 1676 Lord Baltimore objected to the proposed action of the Privy Council of England looking toward the establishment of the Church of the mother country as the established church of Maryland, on the ground that the large majority of the inhabitants of the province were either Presbyterians, Independents, or Quakers. He represents those of his own faith as being but a small minority. The Episcopalians, also, did not form a majority until some time after the establishment of the Church of England, at the beginning of the next century.