schoolmasters. Hence in the ideal or perfect State, the Church, according to this theory, has nothing to do with education, the Church and the school being both alike subordinated to the State. As a matter of fact, the parochial or primary schools. in State Church countries have always remained under more or less of ecclesiastical supervision and influence, but the emancipation of all higher institutions, particularly the university, has been complete. As a rule, these higher institutions have not only enjoyed great corporational independence of the Church, but have also been responsible in their administration solely to the educational bureau of the government. Thus the Church, possessing no schools in her own right and under her own control, can of course do nothing toward educating young men to supply her prospective wants. As fast as vacancies occur she must supply them with such men as offer. These, of course, looking forward to such employment for a livelihood, prepare themselves just as they would for any other occupation. They study until they think they can pass the examination required before they can be admitted to orders, and then present themselves as candidates for the holy office. Up to the time of this presentation the Church has nothing to do with the business. The candidate calls himself, studies in institutions not under the control of the Church, selects his instructors, none of whom are, as such, amenable to the Church, keeps such company as he pleases, conducts himself as he likes. Four to six years in a preparatory school and three in the university complete his academic and professional training. In this system, in the place of cloistered seclusion we have indiscriminate association with all the world; in the place of rigid scholastic discipline, boundless personal license; in the place of spiritual watchcare, the completest ecclesiastical abandonment.

Both of these systems have their palpable excellences and defects. Each needs to be criticised in the light of the other, and a clear view of their respective deficiencies will the better qualify us to appreciate the excellences of the third, or Methodistic, system.

In the first place the Papal system excels, and the State Church system is defective, in the matter of attaching the student to the Church, identifying him with her interests, winning for her his love. Here is one of the grand secrets of Rome's

power. Some have sought it in the celibacy of her priesthood, and have said, because these men have neither wife nor children to absorb their affections, they live for the Church alone; because they have no social ties, they make the Church their home, their state, their fatherland. But the grand question is, Whence this celibacy? Whence this willingness to sacrifice the delights of a Christian home, the privileges of normal citizenship, the personal liberty of manhood? The measure is not enforced by lash or sword. Only in the rarest instances is it done by the spiritual terrorization of the superior. In more than nine cases out of ten the law is doubtless complied with from pure devotion to the Church, and from an implicit, childlike faith in her teachings. Could any Protestant State Church enforce a measure requiring equal self-sacrifice on the part of her clergy? The difference of power in the two cases finds its explanation in the different degrees of attachment felt by the clergy for their respective Churches. The attachment which a State Church clergyman feels toward his Church is like that felt by an agent toward a grand, all-monopolizing corporation which employs him; that felt by the Romish priest toward his Church is a compound of the devotion of a son with that of a lover, the whole leavened through and through with romantic poetico-religious enthusiasm. The foundation of this devotion was laid back there in the clerical seminary. There the Church was first a mother to him, then a bride. She gave him all he has, taught him all he knows, offers him all he hopes or wishes. Why should he not love her?

Now this success in winning for the Church the warm affections of the student is a feature which ought to be found in every system. It is right that the future servant of the Church should love the Church. It is desirable that he should appreciate and love the peculiarities of that branch with which he is to labor. He will be the more useful if this attachment be strong and his devotion ardent. Here, then, is the first excellency of the Catholic, and the first deficiency of the State Church Protestant, system of clerical education.

The second excellency of the Papal, and the second deficiency of the State Church Prostestant, system is found in the matter of control over the studies of the candidate. Under the State Church system, as we have seen, the Church has no con

trol whatever in this respect. The student can study what he pleases, where he pleases, when he pleases, and how he pleases. The theological professors at the university can teach him Socinianism, or Puseyism, or Rationalism, or Pantheism, and the Church has no power either to remove the instructor or withdraw the pupil. In some States these very professors are, ex officio, the examining committee, appointed by the authorities to examine the candidates for admission to orders, in which case the Church is deprived even of the meager privilege of rejecting here and there a candidate trained under the hands. of these ecclesiastically-irresponsible men. What a favorable contrast is presented us in the Roman system! Here every professor is amenable to the Church for the orthodoxy of his teachings. The Bishop stands at the head of the institution and supervises all the studies. The order of studies, the text-books to be used, the teachers to be employed-all these things can be duly looked after. The student is not abandoned to his own whims, but advised and directed. In fine, the authorities of the Church have, and exercise, a wise control over the whole plan of instruction, and see to it that neither professor nor student frustrate the great aim of the institution. This is as it should be.

Again, the Roman Catholic system excels, and the State Church system fails, in the provision made for molding the character of the future man. As regards the State Church system, we can hardly say that it makes any provision at all for this necessity. Where the system exists in its pure and unmitigated form, there is absolutely none. The young man is completely abandoned to himself and to surrounding influences. He is often a gambler, a wine-bibber, a duelist. The authorities of the Church have no more to do with him than if he were studying optics or the art of mining. As a matter of fact, the theological students at many universities have enjoyed the unenviable reputation of being the wildest, most dissipated, and licentious class attending the institution. Leaving the matter of personal piety altogether out of sight, the State Church system makes no provision to secure from the students. a decent morality. Here, again, we see the superior wisdom of the Papal system. Once grant the correctness of the Catholic view of piety, and one can but admire the adaptation of the

Catholic training to develop it in their prospective priests. The authorities have a very distinct idea of the precise character desirable in their priests, and it cannot be denied that the influences of the seminarium clericorum are eminently successful in producing just such characters. Evangelical Churches have, of course, a very different conception of what is wanted in a Christian minister; but in adjusting their system of ministerial preparation they should endeavor to bring to bear upon the young candidate influences which will as effectually mold his character after the desired model as those of the Romish system do the young priests after their model. In this respect, therefore, the State Church Protestant system is utterly deficient.

Finally, the same unfortunate discrepancy is discoverable between the two systems in respect to the PRACTICAL qualification of the candidate for his profession. What little preparation the State-Church system gives the student is purely theoretical. It leaves him as utterly destitute of practical acquaintance with the duties of his calling as when he first commenced. He may have become a marvelous Hebraist, a profound theologian, a skillful polemic-he may have ranged through the whole field of sacred and ecclesiastical history, may have copied down whole books full of lectures on homilectics and pastoral theology-but after all he has never made an exhortation, never preached a sermon, never taken part in any public religious service whatever. Very likely he has never made a prayer in the hearing of others in all his life. As regards the practical part of his education he is as a childhe knows nothing about such things. In the Roman Catholic

system it is not so. As soon as the prospective priest is big enough to ring the mass-bell, or swing a censer, or support the robe of an officiating father, he participates in the celebration of divine service. Before he enters his teens he knows all the vestments, all the genuflections, all the crossings and bowings, all the responses, all the taper-lightings and taper-extinguishings-in a word, all that pertains to Catholic worship. From that early date onward he is continually, one may say daily, connected with the celebration of divine worship. He learns to feel as much at home before the altar as in his dormitory. What wonder if, after his thirteen years of practical experience,

he knows what his business is, knows it theoretically and practically?

The excellences of the Romish system, then, are these: It secures (1) the hearty devotion of the student to the Church; (2) a legitimate control over the theological instruction imparted to the student; (3) opportunity to mold the student's moral and religious character; and (4) the practical qualification of the student for his work. In each of these four particulars the State Church Protestant system is as defective as the Papal system is effective. Good men in the Protestant State Churches have always seen and lamented these deficiencies. Many are the efforts that have been made from time to time to remedy them, particularly in Germany. To remedy the lawlessness of the young theologues, and to win them to a sincere attachment to the Church, halls have been erected in connection with some universities. In these strict discipline was expected to mold the characters, and free board and pocketmoney win the hearts, of the wayward candidates, but their success has not been great. To remedy the deficiency in point of practical training two measures have been more or less widely adopted: apprenticeship under an experienced pastor a year or more before becoming eligible to a cure, or a supplementary practical course of training in a so-called "seminary devoted to this express work. These seminaries are of two kinds, some being entirely independent institutions, supplementary to the triennial theological course at the university, as for instance those at Willenberg, Loccum, Hanover, Herborn, etc.; others are connected with the universities and manned by university professors, as, for instance, the Theologische Praktisches Institut at Greifswald, and the Prediger Seminar at Heidelberg. All these institutions, however, fail to remedy the defect, inasmuch as but a very small proportion of the theological students of Germany ever see them. In England diocesan schools have also been erected in some places for the same purpose, as, for example, the Lampeter, St. Aidan, and St. Bees, but they constitute a scarcely appreciable element in the educational machinery of the country. As a rule, the clergy of all the Protestant State Churches are educated under the system described. As a system it is burdened with all the defects enumerated.