A Victim of the Palk Laws: the Adventures of a
German Priest, in Prison and in Exile. Told by the Victim. (Bentley and Son.)—The "German priest" accepted the cure of a parish in Germany, con- trary to the provisions of the Falk Laws, suffered imprisonment, and was finally banished from the limits of the empire. His adventures remind one (let us hope that the comparison will not offend him beyond pardon) of what is recorded of Covenanting ministers during the days of Claverhouse, of Protestant preachers in the "Desert," after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, though they are told with a considerable touch of humour, which we do not remember the other " confessors " to have shown. The boldness and ingenuity which the "German priest" displayed in defying and eluding the persecuting officials make a very interesting and, apart from the serious aspect of the matter, an entertaining narrative. Again and again he returned from his banishment, and ministered to a crowded congregation of his people in his parish church, with out the authorities having any idea of what was happen- ing till all was over. On one occasion, they watched the church from 5 a.m., when the service had begun at midnight, and was completed long before their visit had commenced. Without making any apology for the laws, which are as bad as can be, we may suggest that the writer's method of proceeding was unnecessarily oontumacious,—as, e.g., in the matter of his entry into the parsonage. It may have been wrongfully taken pos- session of by the authorities, but yet be should have respected the fact. About one matter there can be but one opinion, the barbarity of the prison regulations, too severe to enforce against an habitual criminal, but simply atrocious, when regarded as the treatment of an educated man, suffering for what was, at the worst, a "political" offence.
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