tabernacle of Moses and might have served as a model for that of Solomon's temple. Mr. Petrie describes the inscription found on a stelé, as "in an unknown tongue." But a French orientalist, M. Bruston, believes it to be written in the ancient Phoenician. He finds one character to be the Hebrew word for holocausts, so common in the Old Testament, and interprets the whole inscription to mean that this stelé "was placed in this court for the holocausts of Hathor." Mr. Petrie dates the inscription in the fifteenth century B. C. We have then an inscription in Hebrew, dating 200 years before Moses' day, found graven in stone on Sinai.

The

In the just published Anti-Darwinians. third volume of "The Idea of God in the Contemporary Sciences," a book to which we hope to refer later, the French physician, Dr. Murat, devotes twelve pages to quotation from modern scientific writers, declaring their abandonment of that type of evolutionism which we identify with the names of Darwin and Haeckel. There are anti-Darwinists in Germany who go so far as to describe the feverish enthusiasm for imported Darwinian ideas, which marked Continental opinion a quarter of a century ago, as a scientific "English sickness" (the term English sickness, Englische Krankheit, is the common German name for rickets or rachitis). We have, for example, the Heidelberg biologist, Dr. Hans Driesch, saying in different places:

"For enlightened people Darwinism has long been dead." "The complete bankruptcy of the Darwinian theory of descendence is without a doubt." "Darwinism belongs to history as that other curiosity of our century, the Hegelian philosophy. These two systems are variations on the same theme-how to lead about a whole generation by its nose. They are not precisely of a nature to elevate our time in the eyes of posterity." Prof. Giulio Fano, professor of Physiology in the University of Florence: "Not much remains of the mechanism brought forward by transformist theories." Professor Boveri, rector of the University of Würzburg: "Darwinism was the omnipotent magic formula by which all adaptations were to be explained. This solution, like the egg of Columbus, seemed so simple that everyone was astonished that he had not arrived himself at the same brilliant discovery. However,

from the moment one attempted to test the Darwinian theory in a particular organic arrangement, its insufficiency could not long be concealed." The leader of French atheism, Prof. Le Dantec, says: "It is a great grief for me to see transformist mechanism doubted at a moment when I believed that it had conquered the world." Prof. R. Perrier of the Sorbonne : "Certain authors deny to natural selection any importance at all as factor in modification, and consider it rather as tending to fix the species by eliminating useless individuals and excessive variations, thus maintaining the species in a condition of equilibrium." Dr. L. Stein, professor in the University of Berne and vice president of the International Institute of Biology, adds: "Haeckel's 'World Riddle' can hardly conceal the decline of materialist philosophy, to say nothing of hindering it. . . . . We are at this moment witness to a revival of vitalism, a new blossoming of the idea of teleological methods in the place of the theory of a mechanical causality till now accented. The opposition, at first timid, which was developed ten years ago among neo-vitalists and antiDarwinians, has become a powerful movement, which will probably eventuate with the triumph of teleology" (i.e., creative evolution according to predestined plan).

A New Center The fortieth anniverfor the sary of the McAll MisMcAll Mission sion in Paris was celein Paris. brated by the dedication of a fine building on the Rue Pierre Levée, just off the Avenue de la République, the great thoroughfare of Eastern Paris, which has been provided by American contributors at an expense of $100,000. In the building are two lecture halls, one seating 500 and the other 200, room for boys' and girls' guilds, classrooms, roofgarden, gymnasium, evangelist's apartments.

etc.

The president of the meeting, M. Bach, remarked that, in giving this building, America had done far more for Paris than in presenting the statues of Washington, Lafayette and Franklin. These re called a glorious past. The new building will contribute to a better future. Senator Réveillaud, in his speech, dwelt strongly on the fact that the reign of materialis is coming to an end in France, as is ev denced by the tone of the leading philos phers and literary men of the day, b that it is not possible that the French peo ple should bow down again before the papacy from which most of them hav emancipated themselves. Consequently,

is the duty of evangelical Christians not to tire in presenting to the people the Saviour in Whom alone they can find strength and peace. He mentioned as symptomatic of the change of opinion in the minds of the people, the selling by the hundred thousand on the Paris boulevards of the French translation of the hymn "Nearer, My God, to Thee" after the Titanic disaster; the impression made by the courageous testimony rendered to Protestant Christianity by the Queen of Holland a few days ago before the statue of Admiral Coligny, and lastly, the celebration that very morning at the Panthéon of the bicentenary of Rousseau, the citizen of Geneva who, notwithstanding his mistakes and shortcomings, protested against the atheistic materialism of the philosophers of his day.

The Death M. Sébastien Faure, the Inof the gersoll of present-day France, Righteous. was speaking recently in a university town on "Twelve Proofs of God's Inexistence." At the close some one arose and remarked:

"There is one thing, sir, which you cannot deny. At their death many freethinkers are obliged to acknowledge that God is, and even implore Him for mercy, though they have denied Him in life. Who knows but, at your last moment on earth, you may be one of these?"

To the astonishment of all, M. Faure replied: "It is not at all impossible."

Which illustrates what is really at the bottom of all hearts! We have never heard of a triumphant death except of a Christian believer. This is no unimportant fact in the Christian defense. The late Francis de Saint Vidal, born of an old noble family (in whose castle dungeons many a Huguenot languished in the old days) and educated in Jesuit schools, gave himself in his early life to evil courses. Especially did gambling have a hold upon him which he seemed powerless to shake off. One evening, out of sport, he entered the Salvation Army hall in the Rue Auber, Paris. A young man was speaking on "The Wages of Sin is Death." "He knows my story and is speaking to me," said Saint Vidal to himself. The next evening in the same place he gave himself to God.

For many years he labored in the Salvation Army in Paris, in the mission field in Madagascar and North Africa and in McAll work. In his last hour he said: "Though still suffering there is, perhaps, no happier man on earth than I." Pasteur Babut reports the scene.

"As we were waiting every moment for the last breath he suddenly woke at the very gates of the City. I said to him, 'It seems as if you saw the Lord Jesus.' 'I am with Him,' he replied in a firm voice."

In Russian Prisons.

Adam Podin, who visits and comforts the unfortunates in Siberian prisons, preached in his last journey to over 11,000 men. In one small jail far out in the country, fiftysix men were confined in chains and not allowed to do any work. They were summoned and placed in a row before the visitor.

"What a sad picture! Men that were once free and industrious, some from fine families-spending their days in waiting for death to relieve them from chains and sufferings. It was a most blessed meeting. They listened with tears rolling down their gray beards. I told them that the Lord cared for them and was seeking them as the shepherd his lost sheep. I read the verses in Luke xv. 5, 6, saying, 'Listen carefully to what I say, "When he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Let us punish it, let us beat it." A man, in tears and sobbing, burst out: 'Sir, I think you are reading incorrectly.' Then I read again: 'Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.' It was a meeting over which I believe angels were rejoicing."

A Historic Church with a New Mission.

The Oratoire, in the Rue de Rivoli in Paris, was formerly a Catholic church, the one indeed in which Bossuet used to preach. After the Revolution it was handed over to Protestants and has ever since been a famous center of modern French Protestant lifeBersier, Pressensé and other leaders having been associated with it.

This historic church has opened an institutional branch in a poor quarter which will bear the name of "La Clairière" (ie., "the glade" or "the clearing"-where light enters into the heart of a jungle). Wil

fred Monod, speaking at the dedication, said:

"What is the Oratoire to-day to the pale and overworked population which drifts about the Halles Centrales? An old monument of gray stone. And what will it stand for to-morrow to the people in the sad streets, Grenata, Dussoubs, Marie-Stuart, St. Saveur? A pleasant home, sheltering our children's work, our Sunday gatherings for parents, our anti-alcohol consultations, our cooking courses, library, religious meetings. It will be something better still. It will stand for the silent presence, in the quarter, of men and women animated by the holy compassion of Christ, who climb sordid stairways, visit the sick, the old, the lonely, bringing the comfort of a word of faith, of pity, even of indignation-for wrath against injustice is a form of love. It will be the Spirit of God incarnating itself in consecrated personalities, for the Word is made flesh' in Paris as well as in Galilee. This Spirit will inspire virile effort, not only to show our burning sympathy for the victims of misery, of materialism and of sin, but to dissipate the misunderstandings which separate from the saving Gospel so many of our compatriots, generous but misled, of whom Calvin once wrote to the king of France: 'Above all I have sought to serve our people, of whom many hunger and thirst for Christ, but few have a right understanding of Him.'

"Yes, it is in the name of the Messiah that we are doing this, of the Saviour Whom we here exalt. And to mark the spiritual bond which unites La Clarière to the Oratoire we shall organize a free table for the disinherited each time that the Holy Supper is spread in our own church.

"We wish one thing only: To project the light of Christ into the darkness, to witness to Him Who not only lived in the past but Who lives and shall reign; Who not only came to earth but Who is to come again with a whip of cords, Who will purge Europe as the Temple at Jerusalem when He overturned the tables of the money changers. Before the breath of His lips evil institutions will shiver, trembling, as faded leaves at the approach of the tempest. For our Christ is no manikin, no mummy, no corpse, not even a crucified one! He is the Future, God on the march! "Let us then take our light out from under the bushel. Let us hold it in the darkness as high as our arms can reach. We cannot build a lighthouse, but even a child can save a bark from the reefs by setting a lantern out on the shore."

Brief In 1911 there were 424 European special pilgrimage trains to Notes. Lourdes as against 240 in 1906. If it had not been for cholera there would have been 30 trains

more.

Immersions of sick men in the piscina numbered 43,941; of sick women 79,183. Nearly 138,000 bottles of Lourdes water were sent to the sick in all parts of the world.

The picture on the opposite page is from the famous painting of Nils Forsberg in the Gothenburg Gallery, "Gustavus Adolphus at the Battle of Lützen."

The papal legate Alexander wrote to Rome when the Reformation broke out, "We will create a slaughter-table on which the German people, raving in their own bowels, shall stifle in their blood." The programme was all but carried out for, at the close of the Thirty Years War, three fourths of the people had perished. That the nation finally survived is due to a great extent to Gustavus Adolphus, the heroic Swedish king who intervened in behalf of the endangered Protestant cause at the severest crisis. He was killed on the fifth of November at the battle of Lützen. On the evening of that day large gatherings of Swedish singers meet each year near his tomb in the Ridderholm Church in Stockholm to sing the psalm which the Reformation king wrote and sang with his followers just before the battle broke out, Forfäras ej, du lilla hop (Fear not, thou little flock).

In Forsberg's picture Gustavus appears in the midst of his Yellow Brigade. Leuenberg and Leubelfing, two favorite officers, stand back of him.

The report of the Berlin City Mission affirms that the 78,400 visits made by its missionaries among the masses of Berlin represent an immense deal of Christian heroism. These visitors know, indeed, what Christ meant when he said, "Behold, I send you as sheep among wolves." They have often to meet the most hateful abuse of all that is High and Holy, and at times are even exposed to personal violence.

The state appropriations for church purposes in Spain are 50,000,000 pesetas, which exceeds the entire amount appropriated for education by 8,000,000. But the entire income of the Spanish Catholic Church is estimated to be about 300,000,000. There are 32,000 priests and 60,000 monks and nuns in the black standing army. The Vatican is one of the

richest proprietors in Spain and is frequently favored with legacies. Further than this Spain, which is the poorest of the larger European states, provides the Holy See with a full third of its income.

It is perhaps worth noting that the Olympic games in Stockholm last summer were opened with prayer and the singing of "A Mighty Fortress is Our God."

The Salvation Army Headquarters in London receives, on an average, 1000 letters a day. Salvationists have distributed 10,000 leaflets in the prostitute quarters of Japanese cities, explaining that the Army homes are open to those wishing to leave their present life. The owners of the places are described as frantically buying up the circulars. The Salvationist Report announces that 105 fishing boats were saved in the North Sea in 1911 by the Army lifeboat, "Catherine Booth."

The Centre, which is practically an organized Catholic political party in Germany, shows signs of development out of its ultramontane and anti-national phase. For this reason some of the extreme Catholic members, representatives of the so-called "Berlin tendency," among them Roeren and Count Oppersdorf have abandoned it. The prominence in the party of Dr. Martin Spahn, a Strassburg Catholic professor of history, who has dared to write appreciatively of Luther as a great German, has given much offense to the more determined Catholic wing of the party.

A professor in the Faculty of Sciences. in Paris, F. Le Dastre, strikes, in the Grande Revue, a new note. He says:

"After 2000 years of vain efforts would it not be an honest thing to confess that man is not able to live up to the law of Christ and to seek another moral law, to which he might adhere without perpetually being a hypocrite?"

This, at least, is a confession of the superhuman perfection of Christ's teaching and of the insufficiency of the human heart. One thing more is needed, the knowledge of the power of the living

Christ to enable the weak will to keep the perfect law.

Christian Endeavorers on the Continent are called Activists and, according to Pastor Regaliza of Valencia, the Spanish young people deserve the name.

"The most striking note in our work is the zeal and enthusiasm of our young members. The sense of responsibility is felt by all. At Salamanca, Monistrol, Valencia, Madrid-in fact in all the Spanish congregations, we see the same spirit manifested, and we believe this largely a result of Christian Endeavor training."

Mr. Sherwood Eddy has been speaking to Russian students at Kieff, St. Petersburg, and Moscow, on such subjects as, A Rational Basis for Religion, The Meaning of Life, The Greatest Question in the World, What Think Ye of Christ? etc. The halls that could be secured were small but they have been crowded with students (and with representatives of police and church sent to supervise the meetings). The meetings were followed by more intimate talks which were also well attended.

There are now somewhat less than 100,000 Nestorians, survivors of the ancient missionary church, dwelling chiefly in Persia and the contiguous portions of Asiatic Turkey. They have been called the Waldensians of the East, have been subjected to Moslem oppression for a thousand years, yet have kept their church life from flickering out all these centuries. Their organization is episcopal and worship liturgical. The clergy live by hand labor as the people-largely as shepherds-and have had little or no training for the pastorate. The Nestorian liturgy is evangelical in tone but, as that of Rome, Russia, Egypt, Armenia and Bulgaria, is read in a dead language and therefore without devotional power for the people generally. The Nestorians are opposed to images but have preserved the MSS. of their Church with reverent devotion. Their present patriarch is an excellent young man with traits of leadership, who lives in the village of Kudshanis.