Yet we leave our own colleges to the competition with them without providing one-quarter or one-tenth the equipment needed for it; East and West our people give freely to the colleges of other denominations, also competing with ours, while there always are colleges of our own as needy, or more so; they send their children to both classes of competitors where the work done is inferior, and then wonder that our college classes are small in new States where a thorough higher education is not yet prized! A million of dollars distributed at once to ten of our youngest colleges that are chief in promise and need, would be no more than the equity of the case demands. It is from these the largest per centage of our supply for the ministry now comes. It is in these that "the religious idea is still very prominent."

V. Whether it is possible for us in theological training to do in "the New England Zone" for a less scholastically educated ministry what the Training schools of the A. B. C. F. M., fifteen in number, with 605 pupils, do for our foreign churches -what the theological departments of the chartered colleges of the A. M. A. do for Freedmen's churches with their 88 students-taxes all our present wisdom to divine. But it is as easy to discover the unwisdom of multiplying theological institutions in any one State as of multiplying colleges, and of leaving the one class as well as the other too weak to do their work well, whether in endowments or in the ripest and most advanced instruction. If the wide area from the Hudson to the Pacific is to be blessed with a Congregational ministry fit to lead a scientific and skeptical age into the right ways of the Lord, the three seminaries that stretch across its immense unsubdued breadth, must be made strong with grand gifts as well as the four that stud the cultured space between the Hudson and the Atlantic. The latter have two hundred and eighteen students out of our total of three hundred and seventeen; the former have but ninety-nine. True, New England and New York have 239,849 Congregational church members to be supplied, while the rest of the Northern States have but 112,125. Yet New England and New York have together 1728 churches, while the West, from Ohio to the Pacific, has 1710, very nearly the same number. As the number of edu

cated ministers furnished the latter from the region East of Ohio grows less, the practical question arises: Ought the three Western theological schools to remain so weak relatively? But this is by no means the whole case; the population of the Northeastern States, including the great State of New York, is but 7,653,360; while that of the commonwealths for which the younger colleges and seminaries are equipped, shall we say? -is 13,107,687! As long as we pride ourselves somewhat on leading in collegiate and theological education-as to its quality—it is, and must be a question; whether we provide for them where it is most needed as we should? whether it is good Christian judgment to do so much less for both, where for both the demand is so much greater, from the relative smallness of the supply, the exceeding growth in numbers of those from whom the demand comes, the pressing and prodigious exigencies of a forming Christian civilization, and the exceeding promise of results? As a body of Christians we have been actuated hitherto in all our various educating enterprises by religious motives; if these prompt us still to exert ourselves and to devise liberal things for collegiate and ministerial education anywhere, they will not allow us to fail to see where our chief duty is.

ARTICLE VIII.-NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

BISMARCK IN THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR.*-This is a book concerning which a great many disparaging things have been said. Still there can be no question about the interest which it will awaken, or its value to the student of the history of the Franco-German war. As is said in the preface: who would not now be delighted to have, from some intelligent observer who was ever by the side of Luther in the great days of his life, a report of what he said and did as the battle of the Reformation went on? Now the very thing which would be esteemed so valuable, in the case supposed of the Wittemberg doctor, this member of Bismarck's staff during the war has done for the great German chancellor. Boswell has appeared again in the form of this enterprising, accomplished, versatile, wide-awake, trusted, attaché of the German foreign-office. The reader may be amazed at the audacity of the writer in publishing all this, while Bismarck is still living, and when ten years have not passed since all these events took place which are here recorded, but it can make no difference in the value of his report.

Dr. Busch is a fervent admirer of his chief; so, whatever may be thought of the propriety of revelations which extend even to minute particulars, Prince Bismarck suffers no harm from them. We are told how he arranged his meals during the campaign. "Early in the morning he took a cup of tea, and perhaps one or two eggs; after that, generally nothing till dinner in the evening. He very seldom took a second breakfast, and then only tea, which was served between nine and ten o'clock. Thus, with very few exceptions, he ate only once during the four and twenty hours, but then, like Frederick the Great, he ate plentifully and with appetite. Diplomatists proverbially keep a good table, and, I am told, come next to prelates. It is part of their daily business to entertain distinguished guests, who, for some reason or other, have to be put into a good humor by the contents of a wellstocked cellar, and the efforts of a skillful cook. Count von BisAuthorized translation

* Bismarck in the Franco-German War, 1870-1871.

from the German of Dr. Moritz Busch. Two volumes. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 12mo. 364, 347 pp.

marck therefore kept a good table, which when circumstances permitted, rose to the rank of a very good table." Of the widespread use of beer in Germany, Bismarck is reported to have said one day: "It is much to be deplored; beer-drinking makes men stupid, lazy, and impotent. It is the cause of all the democratic pot-politics which people talk over it." He adds, however, "good corn brandy would be better!" The table-talk from day to day is given, and we have placed at our disposal Bismarck's off-hand remarks on all sorts of subjects. Thus, the conversation once turning on mythology, we are told that he said that "he never could bear Apollo. He had flayed Marsyas from conceit and envy, and for the same reasons had killed Niobe's children. He is," he continued, "the very type of a Frenchman; that is, one who cannot bear that another should play the flute as well or better than he."

It is consoling to find that the great Chancellor shares some of the infirmities of less important mortals. We are told of his complaining that he was so often disturbed at his work by people talking outside of his door, " especially as some of the gentlemen talk so loud. The common inarticulate sounds do not irritate me. Music, or the rattle of carriages, does not put me out; but talking, if the words are audible, is quite a different thing. I then want to know what is being said, and lose the thread of my thoughts." An opportunity is afforded of learning Bismarck's tastes on a great variety of subjects. For two weeks he occupied Baron Rothchild's château at Ferrières. Commenting one day on the luxury everywhere visible, he said: "A property like this, finished and complete, could never give me satisfaction. Not I, but others would have made it. There is indeed much that is beautiful, but the satisfaction of creating and transforming is wanting. It is quite different when I have to ask myself: Can I spend five or ten thousand dollars upon this or that improvement? to what it must be when one has not to think about money. To have always enough and more than enough must at last be weari

We add part of a conversation about Christain faith. Bismarck was saying: "The feeling of duty in a man who submits to be shot dead, alone, in the dark" (he meant, no doubt, without thinking of reward or honor for steadfastly sticking without fear and without hope to the post assigned to him) " the French have not. It is due to what is left of belief in our people; from the fact that I know that there is Some One who sees me, when

the lieutenant does not see me."-"Do you believe, your Excellency, that they really reflect on this ?" asked Fierstenstein. "Reflect-no it is a feeling, a tone, an instinct, I believe. If they reflect, they lose it. Then they talk themselves out of it.""How without faith in a revealed religion, in a God, who wills what is good, in a Supreme Judge, and a future life, men can live together harmoniously, each doing his duty and letting every one else do his, I do not understand. If I were no longer a Christian I would not remain for an hour at my post. If I could not count upon my God, assuredly I should not do so on earthly masters. Of course I should have to live, and I should be in a good enough position. Why should I disturb myself and work unceasingly in this world, exposing myself to all sorts of vexations, if I had not the feeling that I must do my duty for God's sake. If I did not believe in a divine order which has destined this German nation for something good and great, I would at once give up the business of a diplomatist, or I would not have undertaken it. I owe the firmness which I have shown for ten years against all possible absurdities only to my decided faith. Take from me this faith and you take from me my Fatherland. If I were not a good believing Christian, if I had not the supernatural basis of religion, you would not have had such a Chancellor."

But the principal value of the book is the light which it throws on Bismarck's views with regard to the nature of the demands which Germany would be obliged to make of France if she proved victorious. Scarcely had the German armies crossed the frontier, when the Chancellor avowed the determination to keep Elsass and Metz with the surrounding country. On the 22d of August we find him saying: "that a feeling of bitterness will be created in the minds of the French by taking away a piece of territory is really not worth considering. The bitterness would exist even without a cession of territory. In 1866, Austria had not to cede one square rood of territory; and what thanks did we get for it ? Our victory at Königgratz filled the French with aversion, hatred, and bitter vexation. How much more effect will our victories at Wörth and Metz have upon them! Revenge for the defeat of the proud nation will, therefore, even if we took no territory, be the war cry in Paris and the provinces influenced by Paris, just as, for many years, they thought of vengeance for Waterloo. But an enemy which cannot be turned into a friend