has been left out, in part to make room for another valuable essay of Dr. Döllinger. We are, however, indebted to Mr. Plummer's Introduction for many facts about Dr. Döllinger's life and writings. The paragraphs in brackets are by the English translator, excepting those signed with the initials of the American editor. The essay of Dr. Döllinger, translated for this American edition, is on The Prophetic Spirit and the Prophecies of the Christian Era.1 It was published last year in the new series of von Raumer's Historisches Taschenbuch. It is an attractive subject, treated with great learning and ability; and not the less interesting because of its silent bearing upon the questions and complications of the hour, especially the relation of the Italian Papacy to European Christendom. For now, as well as throughout mediæval times, it may be said, in a broad general view, that Latins and Germans, Guelph and Ghibelline, Ultramontanes and Cismontanes, the South and the North, the Papacy and the Empire, are arrayed against each other, and that the destiny of Continental Europe hangs, as it has for fifteen hundred 1 Der Weissagungsglaube und das Prophetenthum in der christlichen Zeit: In the Historisches Taschenbuch, begründet von Friedrich von Raumer, herausg. von W. H. Riehl. Fünfte Folga. Erster Jahrgang. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1871. years, upon the results of this conflict. Besides this, however, the topic itself, as here treated, is one of profound interest in its psychological, as well as in its historical and religious connections. Such a historic review shows that man must look before as well as after; he must remember the past and also strive to anticipate the future,-especially in the great joints and crises of events. Belief in Providence, as well as faith in Scripture, prompts men of deep thought and feeling to ascend some mount of vision, whence they may perchance descry the shadows of coming events. Nowhere has this profound theme been treated in so full and compressed a manner as in Dr. Döllinger's admirable summary. All of the dissertations of the present volume are important to a correct understanding of mediæval times, and, indirectly, to a just appreciation of those mediæval tendencies and institutions which still survive, and instinctively contend against reformation and progress. They are likewise valuable as indicating the process through which their distinguished author has passed in coming to his present position. History rather than dogma has brought him to oppose the decrees of the Vatican Council. He has examined and sifted the records, and found that the very tradition of the Church disproves the present pretentions |