the hands of conservative, trustworthy Christian men, and quietly retired to their mountain homes without shedding a drop of blood. The new government elected Mr. Lange in the place claimed, but never occupied, by Strauss; but Mr. Strauss claimed half the salary, and it is said that he enjoyed it, up to 1857 at least.

How much influence could such a man in our own country exert over the American mind? For these facts touching the life of Strauss, see "Germany; Its Universities, Theology and Religion," by Phillip Schaff, pages 101, 386. The reader may rely upon the quotations given above. I have taken them with the book referred to open before me.

Infidels who investigate the Bible honestly, with reference to an understanding of its contents, are unknown to us. The master spirits in unbelief give abundant evidence of their ignorance of the scriptures of the Bible. Not one in a thousand ever investigated the scriptures of the Bible with pure and honest motives. Many have never investigated it at all. To read a chapter here and there for the sole purpose of finding fault and getting up a difficulty, is not investigation. An honest investigation requires a very different course. All the evidence must be brought into the court and presented in such a manner as to be understood, just as it was given, otherwise the court is not qualified to decide righteously in the case. That all such men as Col. Ingersoll have failed to thus investigate the Bible is evident from the fact that they, to be like him, must be infidels in all their history. It is published to the world that the Colonel was born an infidel. He has been hacking away at religion and the Bible ever since he was a small boy. So his infidelity is not the result of an intelligent investigation of either science or religion. I will not undertake to say what the Colonel's trouble is, but if he was born an infidel it is possible, according to our law, that he will die an unbeliever.

Many infidels, governed by a spirit of fanaticism, undoubtedly, have labored with as much earnestness as if the world's salvation depended upon their efforts, without the least hope of bettering its condition, for the false philosophy of materialism which they advocate gives to a man nothing to live for except his own animal nature. This philosophy says all is well as long as you dodge the sharp corners of the laws of your country. If the materialist can avoid paying fines, along with all other penalties of the laws of his country, what need he care for one course of life in preference to another? Do you say he has a conscience? Well, it may be that it is not seared so that he is past feeling. Very few men, I know, ever reach such a depraved condition. And this is doubtless the greatest reason why all infidels, as a general rule, get into mental distress during great bodily afflictions. Many of them are converted by disease of the body, for two reasons: first, they were unbelievers at will, just because it suited their desires, and, second, because they are in possession of a religious nature or conscience. But men who are converted by disease of the body are liable to go back to the old wallow as soon as prosperity and health crown them again.

Many men are driven to irreligion through its abuses. I have often thought it a misfortune that we Americans are under the necessity of meeting the infidel literature of the old world, for the simple reason that it is evolved out of the circumstances peculiar to state churches. In America our religion is heroic; that is, it rests upon the merits of its own evidence, and is supported by the voluntary contributions of the people. But in Europe, where the mass of our infidel literature comes from, Christianity is not free and independent, but entangled with the affairs of state, and supported by the secular arm. The result is that difficulties are continually arising out of the unholy alliance which are disgusting to the independent scientific mind. The natural result is to drive such persons into irreligion. Where men are educated in both science and religion, and have not been all their lives called upon to look upon religion in a secular light, tangled up in the interests of politics and law, there should be no fears on account of any literature that infidels may pass around. The misfortune that I speak of is not with such men, but with the uneducated in religion and science, who are more than anxious to find an excuse for irreligion. Christianity fears nothing in the light.

The desires that have only a bodily end and aim, that are unconnected with the high, holy, and noble purposes of a pure, true, and good life, are false desires, and should be cast off.

COUNCILS—No. II.

UNITY OF THE ROMAN CHURCH.

In our October article on Councils we closed with the council that was assembled by Mrs. Irene in the year 787. The Franks, having heard that a council at Constantinople had ordained the adoration of images, assembled, in the year 794, by order of Charles, son of Pepin, afterwards named Charlemagne, a very numerous council. In this council the second council of Nice is spoken of as an impertinent and arrogant synod held in Greece for the promotion of the worship of pictures. This council, held at Frankfort, was composed of three hundred clergymen from England, Italy, France and Germany. Aventin, Hinemar and Regina say the Frankfortians rescinded the decisions of the false Grecian synod in favor of image worship.

In 842 a grand council was held at Constantinople, convened by the Empress Theodora. Here the worship of images was solemnly established. The Greeks still have a feast in honor of this council called "Orthodoxia." Theodora did not preside at this council.

"In 861 a council was held at Constantinople consisting of three hundred and eighteen bishops, assembled by the Emperor Michael. St. Ignatius, patriarch of Constantinople, was deposed and Photius elected.

"In 866 another council was held at Constantinople, in which Pope Nicholas III. was deposed for contumacy and excommunicated.

"In 869 was another council at Constantinople; in this Photius, in turn, was deposed and excommunicated and St. Ignatius restored.

"In 879 another council was held in Constantinople, in which Photius, already restored, was acknowledged as true patriarch by the legates of Pope John VIII., who declares all those to be Judases who say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.

"In 1122–3 a council was held at Rome, in the church of St. John of Lateran, by Pope Calixtus II. This was the first general council assembled by the popes. The emperors of the west had now scarcely any authority, and the emperors of the east, pressed by the Mahometans and by the crusaders, held none but little wretched councils. In this council the bishops complained heavily of the monks. 'They possess,' said they, 'the churches, the lands, the castles, the tithes, the offerings of the living and the dead; they have only to take from us the ring and the crosier.' The monks remained in possession."

"In 1139 was another council of Lateran, by Pope Innocent II. It is said a thousand bishops were present. Here the ecclesiastical tithes are declared to be of divine right, and all laymen possessing any of them are excommunicated.

"In 1215 was the last general council of Lateran, by Pope Innocent III. Four hundred and twelve bishops and eight hundred abbots were here. This was in the time of the Crusades, and the popes have established a Latin patriarch at Jerusalem and one at Constantinople. These patriarchs attend this council. This council declares, among other things, that 'no one can be saved out