tgrriga gummaitic. [Translated and Prepared for our Columns.] IiOL.LAND. While the grossest forms of rationalism are held • and prOclaimed with impunity in the pulpits of the National church, it is also matter of thankfulness that signs of spiritual life are not utterly absent from .the churches. Such are the constant increa ein the,number of believing pastors and church members, and the powerful evangelical re adtion going on in the towns and villages. Another is the immense attendance at the second celebration of the great evangelical national missionary festival, which was held the 14th of last July, and attended.by nearly fifteen thousand visitors. A great blessing accompanied the ex , rcises. All really Chris tian sometiesreceive the powerful supportof the people. The missionary societies of Utrecht received contributions last year from 220 churches. The new Rotterdam Society from 208 churches. The Society for the Jews has 37 auxiliary societies. 'The Christian Na tional Education Society received within a fraction of forty thousand florins annual in come. A meeting of the Evangelical rreach= ers' Union was held atUtrecht Oct. llth and 12th, from which good 'results Were expect ed. The old Rotterdam Missionary Society,. founded in 1797,. andhaying, suecesful mis sions among the. Mohammedans of the Dutch East Indies, is coming under the control of the "liberal'party of the country. At the last anniversary, the demonstrations of this party were so decided, that several orthodox mem bers, including the Director, felt constrained to separate from it.. SAXON'. The Evangelical Lutheran Church has been seeking a better form of government at the hands of the civil authorities. The principal objects sought are a fuller par ticipation of the congregation, by representa tives of their own choice, in the church goy erntneht, and the representation of the entire national church by means of Synods. The project of a form of government embracing these points has been drawn up and is under consideration, though the Diet in a nine months' session could not find time to dis pose of it finally. It will come up at the next session. ITALY A Journal of Palermo asserts that is is proposed to confiscate at once thirty churches belonging to various orders of monks, with their landed estates, for the purpose of es tablishing common schools in Sicily. Monks have been expelled from their cloisters in Florence, in Cremona for participating in .reactionary measure&. The Prior .of the Ca ,puohins in Bologna fled, to escape the police sent to search the establishment. The clergy of the Kingdom of Italy, by an act of the Bth of July, are no longer exempt from military duty. GERTPIA.NY. • Baptists in Germany. —The Baptist Ttact Society of Hamburg has issued its twelfth annual statement, up to April, 1864. The Society has been especially active in the late war , upon Denmark, having distributed among the allied troops and the captive Danes 123,675 tracts, which were almost in variably well recciived: Officers in the'army rendered cheerful assistance in the distribu tion. In spite of the unfavorable aspect of affairs, in Poland and Russia the work is extending. Hitherto, 130,000 • tracts have been distributed in those countries. A ser mon on the text, " We preach Christ cruci fied," by one of their preachers, Joseph Lehmann, has been publisheiLat Hamburg, and is favorably spoken of, as an exposition of Baptist teaching. If the prette,her had used the passage in the context, 1 Cor. i. 17, as elucidating Baptist practice, he doubtless would have been greatly aided in -removing _ any :suspicion of narrowness and exclusive ness, which otherwise might attach to the proceedings of the •missionaries. We hear tily wish success to all attempts .to preach the simple gospel of Paul and of Jesus Christ to the worse than Corinthian opposers of Hamburg end of the cities of modern Germany. The Lutherans of Prussia who refused to join the Evangelical Chui&,*fitormed of' the united Lutheran and Reformed Churches, are a considerable body, called by the Evan gelicals "separated." . In Pomerania a wide-. spread dissension has broken out among them, the nature of which we cannot learn. A pastor, Diedrich, has disagreed with the church authority at .Breslau, and sides are taken all through the country. A single congregation, three thousand strong., has left the Breslau Conference with its pastor, and being deprived " their house of worship by ts mere handful ; Lle minority, is at work erecting a new one without delay. Tire di vision is spreading beyond Ponierania. The Breslau authorities are suspending . malcontents from the ministry, and thus expect to retain a majority of their friends in the General Sy nod. Two pastors within the circle of the dis sension have left the Lutheran for the, Evan gelical church, an indication, says the NEv. Kirehenzeitunq, to what result these separa tions in the Separation will lead. A periodical in the interest of the movement, called Immanuel has been started. Rouge's Society of Reformers in Frank fort have taken the side of the notorious Dr. Schenkel, against the Protestant clergy of Biden, Who,lt will be.remembered, vairdide manded •the removal of Dr. S. from the fac ulty of the Protestant Seminary. FRANCE. The Tahitians in Paris. —Seven young Ta hitians, including the son of Queen Pomare, ,come not long ago to Paris, to receive a Eu ropean education. They were all placed in a Catholie inStitUtien. One of them, a Protes tant, died soon after their arrival. Of the remaining six, four, including the Queen's son, wotie discovered to be:Protestants. The government allowed the other three to enter a Protestant seminary, at Nerac, in the south of France, but the Queen's will • not being known in regard to her son, he was still retained in a Catholic institution. •Yet Pomare had written specially to - pastor. Grandpierre, . in Paris, to Visit: her•. ,'son as often as possible, to watch over. - hia.studies, and report his progress to her. Grandpierre. felt it his duty to answer, jam:Mine - her of the impossibility of executing her commis sion. Last September he received her reply, dated Papete, ..May 0, 1864, in the following terms : "I havq, received your letter, infbrming me tbatthe door of the institution in which my son is placed is shut against you. Up on mature consideration, I have deaided it - to be better to leave my son there for the moment, a.s.he will very probably soon • return to - TEk hiti, and because the measures which you suggest for his removal might be attended with unpleasant consequences to you and to him. - I have frequently written to my son, earnestly charging him to remain true to the religion *Mott we ourselves profess, and to beware of the wiles of the Catholics, confin ing his attention rather to those sciences which may be. of use to him in this -life. I cease not to pray God. to • eep my beloved son f'aithful to our holy religion. I am re joii-ed to learn that three of his fellow-travel lers have been placed under your care. I greet you in the name of the trite God.— QUEEN POMAR,E." THE AMERICAN PRESBYTERIAN, TITURSI)AY, FEBRUARY 23 1865. Doubtless it would have been better and more consistent for the Queen to have insis ted upon her son's removal from circumstan ces so unfriendly to his faith, lest the bad seed sown in his heart might spring.up' and bear evil fruit, inflicting upon her country far more " unpleasant consequences" than those referred to in her letter. Martin Paschmai, pastor of the National Reformed Church at. Paris, retains his •_posi tion in spite of. his entire sympathy with the radical and violent rationalists who form a minority of the congregation. On the occa sion of the• exclusion of the radical Reville from the pulpit, by the orthodox majority, Paschoud's temper seemed quite to get the better of him. Ascending the pulpit, he fbrgot that his business was to edify and in siruct the waiting people, and proceeded, on the contrary, to denounce "the impatience that had robbed the people of the eloquent discourse of Pastor Reville." " Thus," he continued, "orthodoxy, in its dying stages, incapable of refuting its opponents, takes re fuge in denying them a hearing. Truly, much the simpler method ; but it is not to the a hero's death bravely fighting, but to 'commit suicide like a coward." Upon this, an orthbdox preacher, who was in the house, arose andleft the church, to show his disap proval of language so reckless, and so unwor thy of the place. Meanwhile, it is this very Martin Paschoud • who presided at the Re formed Council at Lyons, a number of years ago,' - Where the most - 'French preacher of the. century, Adolph Monod, was not only shut, out from his own, pulpit, but actually suspended from his °Bee, be cause he insisted on a stricter discipline in administering the Lord's supper. BRAZIL Brazil.—Not a few Protestant congrega tions are found in this country, principally among the German immigration. In a num ber of instances, and in accordance with a general law, the Brazilian government itself provides for the support•of the Pastors of these congregations. The German Church in Rio Janeiro originated as early as 1826. But the first pastor only arrived in 1836. It has become self-supporting, but it is torn by divisions, and exerts no evangelical influence over the 2,500 to 3,000 Germans of the city, or upon the community at large. - The Ra tionalist element is very strong. The apos tasy of Schenkel is received as the dawn of a new era by these German emigrants, who are even more enlightened " than their Euro pean contemporaries. There are two other German Evangelical churcheS in the province, in New Freiburg and Petropolis. Forty years ago, a pastor and his entire flock emi grated from the banks of the Rhine to New _Freiburg, and there they are yet! At Petropolis, a Basle missionary, Strole, is laboring. The Swedish ambassador, Von Tschudi, succeeded in enlisting the Basle mis sion in this work. Five of the graduates are now in Brazil. Strole is paid by the Emperor for his extra work in an outlying colony. The Emperor aids colonies, but not the set tlements which have risen to an independent municipal status. Petropolis pays Strole for his work there. ' Five other German churches are found in the provinces of Espirito Santo and IVlenas Geroes, at Sta. Isabel, Sta Leopdoldina, Rio Novo and Philadelphia, and in a settlethent of Hollanders who have a German preadlier. Three of these enjoy the imperial patrons e. A Basle missionary is at Rib Nova,. In Philadelphia affairs have been at a low ebb, and the presence of an Evangelical' pa'Sfor in the church, is due to the Brazilian Govern ment. He is from Basle. In the Province of Sta, Catharina, there are four, German Evangelical churches. Two of the colonies are qute populous, numbering 3,000 and 2,000 souls. Religion is at a low ebb. DeVoted pastors are much needed here. In the other two, which are neighboring colonies, numbering 1100 together, a Basle missionary is laboring, ' As the moral Condi tion-of-the old generation 'is deplorable, the missionary is -strenuously laboring to prOviae means for training the . young. He has received from Europe the means necessary for building a boarding school. But the best German colony in Brazil is that of Sao Leopoldo, in the Province of. Rio Grande - do Sul. A single district of this colony comprises 62 square miles, and 12,000 inhabitants, called "Hamburger Berg. Here are three pastors, and a number of false claimants to ministerial character, whose professipnal.acts, however, under the. Brazilian Government, are recognized as legitimate. Two other colonies are located in the same province. Altogether there are sixteen German preachers (besides those without ordination) and eighteen churches in Brazil. SINGULAR COINCIDENCE. The circumstances attending the tragic death of the rebel qreneral (Bishop ) , Leon idaS Polk, finds a singular coincidence in the fate of Marshal• Moreau, once one of Napoleon's ablest officers, but a traitor to his country after the banishment to Elba. It is said that at, the battle in Which Leonidas Polk was killed, General Sher man, espying a group of rebel officers tipim a neighbouring enimence engaged in scan ning our lines through their field-glasses, called an artillery officer, and pointing to ward this , group, ordered a few shells to be thrown in. that directibn. In obedience to this order ,a few projectiles were immedi ately fired into this group, one of which' was seen to burst and strike, one of the number. It subsequently appeared that Gen. Polk was - the victim to -his own te merity by venturing within range of your artillery. Mareau fell at the battle of Dresden in August, 181.3,.under peculiar circumstan ces. He had just returned from the United States, and, at, the solicitation of the Em peror, Alexander, consented to take up arms against his own country. Ney and Murat bad each gained the rear of the Austrian column, on both flanks, and, with their famous cavalry, charged the enemy's line so successfully as to determine the victory. About noon on the last day of the fight, Napoleon noticed a group of officers on an eminence a half mile distant Supposing they were watching „his manoeuvres, he called a captain of artillery, and, pointing to them, said : " Throw a dozen bullets in that group— perhaps there are some little generals iu it I" ' The officer obeyed, and it was imme diately seen to produce some agitation. One of the balls struck Moreau'E,leg, cut ting it off below the knee, passed through his horse, and carried away the other leg. It was not known who was the victim un til the advance guard, in pursuing the, en emy, came upon a little spaniel roaming over the field, moaning piteously for its master. Around its neck was a collar en= graved with the words, "1 belono- to Gene ral Moreau!" So •perished, tli. - ese two general officers, under - circiltustances almost parallel—both in rebellion against their country, and seek ing its overthrow.—No sh. &Won.. Sigallamo. THE GREAT TRANSITION, O what a contrast does every depa:rting saint experience as he passes by death from time to eternity; from this world, with all its cares and sorrows; to the bliss and glory of the heavenly inheritance! However " meetened for their inheritance," however "wrought for the self-same thing," yet the .transition from the extreme - of weakness and suffering, from the overwhelming abase ment and rending struggle of the mor t al strife, into the sudden brightness and per fect rapture of the heavenly vision, and this, too, in " a moment, in . the twinkling Of an eye ;" such a transition it is impossi ble to describe, for the single step appro priates heaven, and the single moment com mences eternity. "In yain our feeble fancy paints The moment after . death, The glory that surrounds the saints When yielding up theiebreath. One gentle sigh their fetters breaks; We scarce can say they're gone, Before the willing spirit takes