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by aphorisms, by parables, by narratives, by showing the workings of these principles and the effects of their violations in individuals and in nations. It also foretells the vicissitudes which await these principles in their conflicts with human depravity, their struggles, their successes, their temporary defeats, their final and complete triumph. (Compare Rom. 8:19-23.) This is most generally the subject of prophecy. There are some prophecies strictly and minutely historical, such as those concerning the Jewish captivity, the destruction of Babylon, the ruin of Jerusalem, etc. But these are few in comparison with the whole number. It is not generally the object of prophecy to anticipate history, to give names and dates'; and the attempts to interpret the great mass of the prophecies as if they were written with that object, have been most miserable failures. It is an attempt to treat the Holy Spirit as the oriental story-tellers treat their genii when they shut them up in little bottles. The triumph of principles over all opposition; the nature and power and varying phases of the oppositions: these form the great staple of prophecy and such questions as, "Lord! what shall this man do?" generally remain unanswered. True, certain sayings often "go abroad among the brethren," as interpretations of divine prophecy, but they are not authorized by anything which Jesus has said.

2. The psalm teaches us the hopelessness of all opposition, however formidable it may appear, to the progress of the gospel.

The opposition to Christ, in this world, often appears very formidable. The kings of the earth stand up, and the rulers take counsel together, against Jehovah and against his Messiah—and there is the still more chilling hostility of indifference and neglect. But the most powerful and active enmity at that, He who sitteth in the heavens shall laugh – the most immovable and stolid indifference, even that shall be aroused when God shall speak in his wrath. As Martin Luther somewhere says: "He that would blow out God's fires, does but blow the coals and the ashes in his own face."

3. This psalm illustrates the quietness and confidence with which the true Christian, even in the darkest times, should await the developments of God's providence.

Perfect love casteth out fear, and where there is faith with love, there can be no ground for agitation or alarm or long anxiety. God is never agitated or excited; he is never hurried or impatient, though this world has so long been lying in wickedness before his eyes; and those who have learned of God and can sympathize with him, should remember that the Scripture says directly: Fret not thyself because of evil doers.

In nothing do some professedly religious movements

more distinctly betray their unheavenly origin, than in the impatience, the fretfulness, the want of calmness and self-possession, manifested in them. Activity without restlessness, power without noise, earnestness without impatience, vigor without harshness, steadfast, unmovable, always abounding, with a quiet assurance of ultimate and complete success - these are the characteristics of a soul imbued with the spirit of the 2d Psalm, which is the Spirit of God.

ARTICLE VII.

THE GERMAN UNIVERSITIES.

By Dr. Hermann Wimmer, late Professor in the Blochmann College, Dresden, Saxony.

AN American university and a German "universität," differ very much from each other. The fact is, that the name is here applied to colleges for general education, preparatory to professional studies (gymnasia or gelehrtenschulen), whereas it means in Germany an institution for theological, juridical, medical, and philosophical learning. Consequently, the latter can be only compared with the divinity, law, medical and scientific schools of Cambridge or Yale college. There exists, however, a good deal of difference; and to give, beforehand, some idea of the peculiar organization of the German universities, we may be allowed to anticipate the following remarks. Each State or province has one university, where the graduates of all gymnasia (eleven in Saxony) meet together; whereas in Cambridge, the students of the four professional schools are mostly graduates of the one chief college. The university consists of four faculties, but is one complete institution, and the difference of the faculties does not exist for the student. He can attend theological and physical or philosophical lectures, according to his liking. There are no classes. The instruction is given by lectures, not by recitations. Several professors lecture generally on the same subject, or on similar subjects of the same branch. The student chooses the lectures which he will attend. The professor knows not his audience. Some professors have ninety hearers; others, nine. The "philosophical" faculty comprises all the philological, mathematical, physical and philosophical branches, and is destined as well for the students of the three professions as for those who prepare themselves for professorships in the same branches. Only practical exercises,

as chemical in the laboratory, chirurgical in the hospital, theological or philological in societies, etc., bring the professor into immediate relation to a smaller number of students. After a study time of three years or more, the student is, on his own application, examined; and if found sufficiently instructed, dismissed as a candidate. The students of medicine remain generally longer than others, and have, after the examination, to defend a printed dissertation in a public disputation, for their degree.

The oldest university of the German empire is that in Prague. It was founded in 1348, by the emperor Charles IV, in his favorite residence; and began soon to flourish, like her sisters in Paris, Oxford, and Bologna. At the end of the century, it is said to have numbered more than twenty thousand students (10,000 in Bologna, in A.D.1260). They were divided into four "nations," Bohemians (with Moravians and Hungarians), Saxons (with Danes and Swedes), Bavarians (with Austrians, Suabians, Franks, and Rhinelanders), and Polish. But this splendor lasted only a short time; for, in 1409, after some quarrel with the Bohemians, the Saxons, together with the Bavarians and Poles, quitted Prague and founded the high school (hohe schule, hochschule) or university in Leipzig.

In 1365, the Latin school of Vienna, founded 1237 by the emperor Frederick II. of Hohenstaufen, in which also philosophy and the fine arts were taught, was changed into a university by the foundation of some professorships for law and medicine, and afterwards for theology (1384). The four nations here were the Austrians, Hungarians, Saxons and Rhinelanders. Vienna was soon followed by Heidelberg, 1387, Cologne,1388, Erfurt, 1392, Würzburg, 1403, etc. The universities are now Königsberg for Prussia, Berlin for Brandenburg, Breslau for Silesia, Greifswalde for Pomerania, Rostock for Mecklenburg, Bonn for the Rhineland, Kiel for Schleswig-Holstein, Leipzig for Saxony, Halle (Wittenberg, 1502-1815) for the province of Saxony, Jena for the 'Saxon duchies, Göttingen for Hanover, etc., Tübingen for Würtemberg, Heidelberg (and the catholic Freiburg) for Baden, Marburg and Giessen for the two Hesses, Erlangen for Franconia, Munich for Bavaria, Vienna, Prague, etc. for Austria. As to the Austrian universities, however, it must be mentioned, that they have a different organization from those in other German States, and that they, except Vienna and Prague, which have, in spite of the prejudice of non-Austrian Germans, a celebrated name throughout the States for their physical and medical learning, have no just claim to rank with the universities out of Austria.

A university has four faculties. Each faculty has three kinds of VOL. VII. No. 26.

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teachers, called professores publici ordinarii, p. p. o., prof. extraordinarii, p.e., and privatdocenten. Only the ordinary professors are members of the faculty, and of the senate consisting nearly of all the p. p. o. The senate of Leipzig numbers 40 members and upwards. At the head of the senate and of the whole institution stands the Rector, elected for one year by and out of the senate, or Prorector in those States where the prince himself is the permanent rector. On the 31st of October, the anniversary day of the Reformation, yearly celebrated in Saxony, the rector in Leipzig abdicates in the "aula" of the "augusteum," after having given a short account of the last year. Then the professor of eloquence and poetry (formerly Hermann) speaks a Latin oration, and "his magnificence," the new rector, is installed for the next year. He is the highest administrative and judicial officer, without having, of course, the manual labor of it. He presides in the senate and court, but every branch has its particular functionaries. There is a royal judge appointed with two secretaries, a treasurer with several clerks for the administration of the university estates and capital, and plenty of other officers down to the prison keeper, who has about thirty "carcers" under his care, sometimes full, often containing but one or two chief malefactors, who are confined to their solitary residences perhaps for half a year and more. The wealth of the university in Leipzig is immense. Besides the large foundations for the professors, there are nearly a thousand "stipendia" for students belonging to certain families or towns etc., and most of them paying a yearly rent of thirty dollars.

The larger universities have from 50 to 107 professors (in Leipzig 69), for each important branch of science one prof. publ. ord., who is bound to teach it, yet at the same time he is allowed to lecture on whatever he pleases (some time ago the government prevented certain political lectures). The number of p. p. o. in Leipzig is at least forty; that of the p. extraor., who have generally small salaries, and of the privatdocenten, who have none at all, is varying and unlimited. Most professors give one lecture "publicly," as it is called, meaning gratis (a p. publicus o. is bound to do it), and another "privately" i. e. for pay. The expenses of the student in this respect are not large. To become a privatdocent, the scholar must receive the permission of "habilitation" from the faculty, and then, like any p. p. o., present a dissertation and defend it against the attacks of those professors, who are willing and able to censure him. Any vacant ord. professorship is filled by the election of one by the government, out of three nominated by the faculty. At the head of the faculty stands a dean, "decanus."

The new student, when he has made up his mind what course to pursue, looks into the lecture catalogue, index lectionum, or on the

blackboard (posted at some conspicuous place in the buildings, and containing the notices of the professors), to choose four or six lectures to his liking. Some experienced friends advise him, and he acts accordingly. A student of theology, for instance, used to hear in Leipzig (in the first term of five months), historical introduction to the Scriptures by Winzer, Matthew or Luke by Theile, the psalms by Fleischer or Brockhaus, logic by Drobisch, anthropology by Heinroth, a Greek author by Hermann; in the following terms the Romans or Hebrews by Winer, history of the church by Niedner, dogmatic by Winer or Grossmann, pastoral theology by Krehl, moral philosophy by Hartenstein, etc. Others may have attended the lectures of other professors on the same subjects, but all generally hear in the first year exegetical lessons on the Gospel besides philosophical and philological lectures, in the second year on church-history and on the epistles, in the third year on dogmatic and pastoral theology. When they apply for the theological examination, they must show a list of the most necessary lectures attested by the respective professors as having been attended. But this might require only a few hours' attendance and the subscribing of the name on the circulating sheet, since the professor is unable to control his hearers, whom he does not know, or to convict them of non-attendance. The subscription, or the payment, is what he testifies by his name. However, the examination will show the scholar. Many a first rate gentleman, accomplished in all the worldly wisdom, which the university life imparts, has been transferred to another year or to another business, after he had received a zero in Hebrew or in any other of the five or six theological branches. Many a first rate talker in his mother tongue, who could not express distinctly his feelings and meaning in a dead or outlandish jargon, sounding alınost "like Dutch," (as the proverb runs, though there is probably no language on earth coming nearer the English than that same Dutch) "fell through," as it is called, in distinction from "came through." A favorable result of the examination in Leipzig, which makes the student candidate of theology, is a good recommendation to the second or State-examination, two years afterwards, which is to declare him candidate for the ministry, by Ammon, Wahl, Käuffer, Lange in Dresden. This gives him the undoubted right, to wait ten years more for a ministry, if he is not so lucky as to come in before by the favor of some private "collator" i. e. country nobleman or city senate. There are two such examinations, also, for the lawyer, the former being theoretical, the latter practical. Only the physician, when he has made his examination, and for his degree the disputation, may go and practise, wherever he pleases.

The philosophical faculty has a nearer relation to the three sister

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