Notes On Current Topics [pp. 371-382]

1872.] ~O'rES ON CUI{RSNT TO~IO~. 371
ART. IX.-NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
This number of our Rr:vi~w is considerably enlarged, to give room
for the discussion, under different aspects, of some questions of great
importance to the Presbyterian Church, especially in view of the oemng sess~ons of our General Assembly. In our future numbers we intend to have a greater variety of topics. Among the articles we shall
publish are: Tayler Lewis, LL. D., on the Primitive Greek Religious
Ideas; Prof. ~V. LI. Green, D. D., of Princeton, on the Cuntiform
Inscriptions, with illustrations-two or three articles; Prof. ~Velch of
Schenectady, on Faitl~ and Reason; Rev. T. C. Trowbridge missionary at Constantinople, on tl~e Early History of the Ottoman Turks;
Henry Neill, D. D., on the Righteousness of God; Dr. Atwater on
Labor and Capital; Prof. Bascom, of ~ATilliams College, on Herbert
Spencer's Doctrine of Evolution; Dr. A. T. McGill, on Permanency
in the Eldership; articles by Dr. Spring, Rev. R. E. Willson, Prof.
Jos. Milliken, Prof. Cooper of Rutgers College T. H. Skinner,
D. D., etc., etc.; besides translations from French and German periodicals.
The Proposed (Ecumenical Presbyterian Councii~-The weekly religious journals have already directed the attention of our readers to
the suggestion of Prof. Blakie of Edinburgh, that an Assembly of
delegates from all the Presbyterian bodies in the world be convoked
the present year in that seat of John Knox's labors and death, that
ancient fortress of Protestantism in its purest form, and present metropolitan centre of Presbyteriamsm. The idea has rapidly taken root,
and is likely to spread, till effectual measures are devised for realizing
it The time is no less opportune than the place, being the ter-centenary of the completion of Knox's life and labors, the organization of
the first Presbytery in England, and the martyrdoms of St. Bartholemew's day in France.
No other Protestant denomination, at present, taking into view its
English-speaking, ContinentA and Missionary churches, includes a
larger, if so large a constitutency, as we think, numerically; certainly
none surpasses it in~ those characteristics of its membership and ministry which should give to any properly representative and ~cumenical
assemblage dignity and influence. *
*Dr. Blakie, ill his article in the Presb~terian, says:
"The career of Engli~h-speaking Presbytenanisin may b~ said to have oom