century Palatinate or Swiss forms, while yet the original intention had been simply to restore, not to formulate anything new. It is easy to see what an opportunity this would afford an opposition party. Dr. Nevin served upon the committee, together with Dr. Schaff, not of his own choice, but as a duty assigned him. It was a long, weary struggle, not without episodes that afforded him the opportunity to witness for the truth as he held it, but, on the whole, ofttimes disheartening. And yet the result was an immense improvement in the worship of the Reformed Church as a whole, for which it was well worth the while to have spent years in toil and controversy.

It was in more immediate connection with this liturgical movement that Dr. Dorner, of Berlin, was led to make some criticisms on the Mercersburg theology, to which Dr. Nevin replied in his "Review," in an exhaustive article of one hundred and twelve pages. The truth is, Dr. Dorner was not accurately informed on all points at issue, we mean as to the facts of the situation on this side, and that he held no such faith in a holy Catholic Church as did Dr. Nevin, and hence could not but diverge from Dr. Nevin's views on many other points. We regret that Dr. Appel could not in his biography have given more space to this great debate; but we realize too well what must have been his constant embarrassment from too much material.

And now, as we are confronted by the necessity of bringing this sketch to a close, we feel deeply how little, after all, we have told the reader who John Williamson Nevin was; how he lived and wrought; what he accomplished. We regret our inability to portray the personality of so interesting a man in detail. His biographer, a former pupil and afterward a colleague in the faculty of the college at Mercersburg and at Lancaster, gives us many delightful glimpses of him, many charming bits of reminiscence that serve to relieve the solidity of theological and philosophical chapters. Dr. Nevin's outward life was, in a sense, uneventful; yet, as being conspicuously the foremost figure in his church for a whole generation, as called to lead in one campaign after another, and summoned to one burden of responsibility after another, it was a most eventful life, too; eventful in the romance of high, unwearying, difficult, noble service. He was the teacher, the "doctor," of his church; not the less so, though he might be in retirement on his lovely farm, Caernarvon Place, near Lancaster, for even there intellectual labors of one kind and another

1 Mercersburg Review, October, 1868.

so long as his hand was able to wield the pen, so long as his strength sufficed him for the college pulpit of Franklin and Marshall still served to inspire readers and hearers.

But it must not be inferred that he was a mere student, shut up in his library, withdrawn from the world of men. His life was a life of action, a life of efforts, directed to practical ends. Much in meditation, much in prayer, he never ceased to do as at Princeton and at Allegheny he had always done, to go out of his study and his lecture-room into the active work of counseling, aiding, and organizing efforts to promote reforms or to advance the church. And, as we have seen, in such steps he was not wont to take counsel of his fears.

Strange as it may sound in view of his theological position, we cannot but say with Dr. Gast, in his admirable Introduction, that Dr. Nevin was a Puritan. As Dr. Richard S. Storrs has recently re-defined the "Puritan spirit" for us, we are struck with the aptness of the characterization as applying to Dr. Nevin: "An intense conviction of apprehended truth,” “a masterful sincerity,” "a a majestic Ideal," "a superb and shining courage," — all these were his in marked degree. If, however, there was in him the austere spirit of a Hebrew prophet, there was something more; rather let us say, if there was in him the spirit of the Boanerges, there was also, and much more, the spirit of him who had "beheld the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth," and who to his latest days bore witness of Him who is "the true God and the Eternal Life." The glory of Christ, his unique Personality, his Headship over the church, over humanity, over the world, his testimony in the Scriptures, this was that "apprehended Truth" for which he contended with "superb and shining courage," and which served to shape his "majestic Ideal.”

Has his work any present significance for us? Very much, we believe.

The Mercersburg movement, viewed on its own merits, is a great movement. It sought to recover, in a more philosophical and spiritual way, what the Oxford movement sought to recover in the English Church. We are not saying that the Mercersburg leaders were better men or greater men than the Oxford leaders, or that the former movement, for picturesqueness or for visible results, is once to be mentioned with the latter; but we do say that the answer which Dr. Nevin gave to the Church Question will increasingly appear the right answer, when the answer of John 1 The Puritan Spirit, an Oration delivered at Boston, December 18, 1890.

Henry Newman and the answer of Professor Pusey will be seen to have been wrong.

Upon this view of the case, the American church has not yet done with Dr. Nevin; indeed, in a sense, is but beginning to seek him; and if those who know him shall make him better known, he may yet teach us all very much. For we do not agree with those who consider the Church Question a dead issue: there are some church questions which are dead issues, though not yet so recognized by their valiant champions; but the more such questions are clearly seen to be dead, the more does the CHURCH QUESTION itself loom up in magnitude and compel attention. Every question of social readjustment and reintegration bears relation to it. The industrial world, the political world, are interested in it. It is, in its last analysis, the question whether there is in reality a Christian society, and, if there be, whence it derives its vital principle, and what limits are to be set to the operations of that principle in the activities of the common life of man; not idle or curious speculations, but matters of greatest import to the cause of Christianity at this time, and to the nation no less.

Within the present year, the "Church Review" has published a large number of articles as a symposium on Christian unity. To ourselves, reading these papers, it is sadly evident that most of the writers on both sides could with great advantage sit at Dr. Nevin's feet. There is much of the same unhistorical, unchurchly, self-complacent denominationalism on the one side, much of the same unphilosophical, mechanical ecclesiasticism on the other, that forty years ago Dr. Nevin began to combat in the name of History and of the Creed. What in these circumstances gives the writer most pleasure is the fact that in his own Presbyterian Church some of the best men are, in regard to these points, coming to stand just where Dr. Nevin stood; and that the present forward movement in theology in the Congregational communion is especially marked in the new emphasis laid upon the Historic, Christocentric, and Positive aspects of Christian truth. The Apostles' Creed is coming to rule once more. And while it is possible to exaggerate the importance of the greatest of men; while it is true that Dr. Nevin failed to see certain aspects of truth, that, in a word, he had "the defects of his qualities;" while no doubt it is also true that there are great questions soon to be faced by us which Dr. Nevin had not to face, it is safe to say that we shall be ill-prepared to face such questions without having learned those truths of which he was so conspicuous a teacher, and that,

till we have first risen to his position, we certainly shall not attain to a better. And to that, as we think, the Christian thought of the time has not yet risen.

WESTFIELD, New York.

William Frederic Faber.

THE SUN'S SONG.

IN turning the leaves of the elder Edda, we meet only with poems inspired by the Odin faith or the Viking age. It is difficult, indeed, if not impossible, to distinguish the Christian elements, that undoubtedly have entered into the very texture of the old Norse cosmogony and hero-worship depicted in these poems, from the primitive Germanic traditions.

The Odin faith yielded, about the year 1000, its throne in Norseland to the apostles of the white Christ. But the old memories were still fondly cherished. In the age of writing (circa 1140-1220) the Icelandic clerks did not scorn the sagas, that contained the oft-told tales of heathen times, the records of the stirring days of the settlement. Where the ethnic and heroic poems came into being is not as yet determined. But the parchments, upon which faithful scribes copied down for Icelanders the alliterating strophes, date from a period long posterior to the introduction of Christianity.1

It is this primitive Norse spirit, pervading saga and song alike, strong with the strength of the northern world, glowing with all that magnificent life in sound, color, and form that distinguishes old Norseland, Norway, Iceland, the Faroes, the Shetlands, the Orkneys, the Hebrides, it is this that places Norse literature side by side with the Greek.

The classic art of Norseland is not statuesque and noble in perfect symmetry of form, nor clad in that wonderful harmony of coloring or of rhythmical measures that Greek art borrowed from Greek nature, but rude, massive, strong. Its rhythms are attuned to the pulsings of its storms; its characters and imagery are as bold and rugged as its mountain and coast lines, as dread and mysterious as its fogs.

To us, there is such perfect consonance between the literature

1 The most important MS., the Codex Regius, dates, according to Vigfusson, from about 1230; the poems themselves, from 800 to 1100.

and the physical aspects of Norseland that, wherever we have wandered in the North, it has seemed as though we heard again in the air about us the same strong, broken harmonies of sound, and almost knew the presence, the companionship of the Norse gods and demigods, the brave, reckless, and pitiless Vikings, or the strong, simple Icelandic farmers.

The verses of which we offer a translation are not contained in the codices from which the collection of old Norse poetry known as the Poetic Edda has been drawn. They are found only in paper transcripts of the seventeenth century. The "Sólar-Ljóth (Sun's Song), though distinctly the work of a Christian poet, belongs, however, without question, to a late section of that same early period that produced the Eddic poems. Vigfusson assigns it to the early part of the eleventh century. With its Scandinavian traditions, its Odin figures, dimly outlined in the background of a canvas depicting the medieval Christian cosmos, it serves as a fitting link between the old and the new. According to Vigfusson, there is no mention of its existence during the Middle Ages. The first reference thereto is found in an unpublished writing of Björn of Skardsá (1574–1655).

The name of Saemund, the once reputed author of the Eddic poems, became at a late period connected with this song. It was currently reported that this poem was his last, and had been recited by him, rising upon his bier, after having been three days dead.

The verses we have translated form only a part of the entire continuous composition contained in the MS. Our introductory verse, "Thereof I will speak," is preceded in the MS. by thirtytwo others that treat a distinct theme, and Vigfusson has, we hold rightly, regarded this part as a separate poem. Its first twenty-four verses contain moral teachings, illustrated by parables; the last eight, "friendly counsels in wisdom fashioned."

Toward the close of the poem, also, after the prayer, there are four verses that have no connection with what precedes or follows, nor any manifest inter-relation. They are heathen in character, and so clearly an interpolation that we have no hesitation at all in following also here Vigfusson's dictum and rejecting them.

The poem itself is a northern Divina Commedia, lacking the Purgatorio. A father appears in a vision to his son and tells him, first, how painful was the passing away from the happy world of mortals. Sorely and long he struggled against the stronger one, Death, but in vain.

The sun was sinking in the ocean, all bathed in blood, when