entific and rigorous is the criticism of the New Testament books,
the more heterodox are the conclusions reached. Even Scotland has been
invaded by this German influence, and it now affords us the laughable
spectacle of a number of grave ministers pursuing as a damnable heretic
a man like Dr. Robertson Smith, whose only crime is having stated about
the Bible nothing new, but what every scholar in Europe knows to be
admitted and indisputable. These solemn ministers of the old creed are
determined to keep the deluge of what they call "German infidelity" from
flooding the valleys and mounting the hillsides of Scotland; but their
heresy-hunts are just as efficacious against what they so piously dread
as Mrs. Partington's mop against the mighty onrush of Atlantic rollers.

With the revolutionary movement of '48 came a fresh impulse from France.
The great evangel of '89 had not perished; it was only in abeyance; and
again it burst upon Europe with its words of fire. We all know how the
Republic which was then established was soon suppressed in blood by the
gang of adventurers presided over by Napoleon the Little. But the day of
retribution came, and the empire went the way of all tyrannies. On its
ruins the Republic has been established anew, and now it reckons in
its service and among its champions the best intellects and the noblest
characters in France; while the masses of the people, taught by the
bitter lessons of adversity, are also content to enjoy the benefits of
ordered liberty and peaceful progress under its benign sway.

Now French progress has always been a question of ideas no less than of
material advantage. The great democratic leaders in France have nearly
all been avowed Freethinkers. They have separated themselves alike
from "the blood on the hands of the king and the lie at the lips of the
priest," being perfectly assured that outward freedom in politics is
in the long run impossible without inward freedom of thought. The
chief statesman in France, M. Gambetta, has publicly declared himself a
disciple of Voltaire, and neither at the marriages nor at the funerals
of his friends does he ever enter the doors of a church. He stays
outside and quietly allows those who desire it to go in and listen to
the mumbling of the priest.

My purpose, however, being literary and not political, I must recur
to my remark that a fresh impulse came to us from France after the
revolution of '48. Lamartine at first exercised co