could see, no room for reason. It provoked the criticism that the Archbishop would credit four Persons to the Trinity if a papal constitution demanded it. But for himself, Reusch wrote in terms almost of despair. That he might no longer pursue his mission as a teacher was hard enough. That he might no more discharge his priestly functions, nor obtain absolution and communion was terrible. But yet he would be more unhappy still if these had been obtained at the price of assenting to the dogma. And Reusch uttered his grief in the words of Ecclesiastes:—
"Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive. Yea, better is he than both they, which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.'
There remained, however, a work for Reusch to do. He found within the old Catholic communion a freedom to retain unaltered the faith which, up to that year, he had taught within the communion of Rome.
4. The fate of Langen, Theological Professor of Bonn, was somewhat similar to that of Reusch. When asked for his assent to the new Decree, Langen contended that the University statutes secured him his office conditionally on assent to the decisions of Trent; and that no alteration of these conditions could be made without approval of the Government. The Archbishop overruled this contention, and Langen declined to submit. Like Reusch, he was excommunicated. Langen has left behind him a history of the Roman See, and an extremely learned and exhaustive history of interpretation of the Scripture-texts usually adduced in behalf of the papal claims. Both these works display that Langen could not accept the new definition without falsifying the facts of history.
