or fret. He deals fairly by those from whom he differs most fully. His book is modern; he is himself steeped in modern continental thought; yet he has kept himself free from all taint of continental arrogance; he never offers you a "thus saith Professor Orr" in room of fair argument or appeal.

Some points in the book are marked for future reference. Let this brief estimate of the scope and spirit of it suffice for the present.

THE CHURCH AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE. BY W. M. RAMSAY, M.A. (Hodder & Stoughton. 8vo, pp. 494. 12S.) Professor Ramsay's volume, which the publishers have produced in an attractive form, with two excellent maps and three illustrations, consists of two parts. The first part, which runs to 170 pages, discovers St. Paul's traces in Asia Minor, but it is the second part to which the title of the book properly belongs, and to which Professor Ramsay seems to attach the greatest importance.

The first part is the most original portion, and it is also the most profitable. For here, so different from almost invariable experience, the work is profitable in proportion as it is original. And that is because its originality arises, not from mere idiosyncrasy, but from the author's personal observation as a travelling scholar in Asia Minor. It is enough to say of this part of the book that henceforth it must be consulted by every writer on the Book of the Acts, and ought to be consulted by every preacher.

It

The second part is also original, though not to the same extent as the first, and its importance is not so fully in line with its originality. contains a history of the Church between the years 64 and 170. Not, however, an exhaustive history, not even a quite connected or consecutive history. It is rather a series of discussions in a fairly observed chronological order of the leading points under debate at present in that part of the history of the Church. Hence, if it is less systematic, it is even more interesting than its title leads us to expect. Indeed, this part of the volume is much more easily read than the first, though we must repeat that it is less original and important. Perhaps its familiarity makes it more easily followed. But if it is more easily read, that does not mean that it

commands assent more easily. The subjects with which it deals are the old and almost insoluble problems of this most obscure and difficult period. in the life of the Church; and if there is a general consent of opinion upon any of them, an orthodox position as it were, Professor Ramsay is just as likely as not to assail that very position and drive us at once into open revolt.

THE GREAT ENIGMA. BY WILLIAM SAMUEL LILLY. (Murray. 8vo, second edition, pp. lvi, 334. 14s.) "Mr. Murray informs me that the thousand copies of this work, published two months ago, are sold, and that a second edition is called for." And yet the work is merely a collection of essays, most of which have already been circulated in popular reviews, to which a long summary of contents and a short index of subjects have been given to make it more like a serious book, while the price is fourteen shillings. What does it signify? It simply signifies this, that Mr. Leslie Stephen and the vivisecting surgeon in Tennyson have both of them spoken too soon. They say that Christianity has been "found out," and that "the Good Lord Jesus has had His day"-"Had? Has it come? It has only dawned; it will come by and by."

If, then, that is the lesson of Mr. Lilly's book, what is its purpose and aim? It is to hasten the dawn of that day; or, if that day has dawned already, to make it more bright and clear. Does it fulfil its purpose?

It has just been called a mere collection of essays. That was not meant as a disparagement. It was only meant to make the wonder appear that after circulating largely in popular reviews, it still should find so large and ready an audience. As a collection of essays it may serve its purpose better than if it were a closely jointed treatise.

It probably does serve its purpose better. For its first purpose is not to make the day dawn brighter, but to make the brightness felt in one of the coldest regions on the face of the earth.

And here is at once the strength and the weakness of Mr. Lilly's book. Mr. Lilly has deliberately chosen his audience out of that exceedingly cold country where the inhabitants live and move and have their spiritual being in the monthly reviews. They are intensely in

terested both in science and in religion, but alas! they go not for either beyond the conflicting and counsel - darkening contributions to the Nineteenth Century.

Professor Davidson speaks of a certain commentator whose work "is perhaps the most prejudiced and ill-informed thing ever written even on Ezekiel. At the time of writing it, however, he appears to have read only Smend's Commentary; when he comes to read the prophet's own writings, he will do better." But the trouble with Mr. Lilly's audience is that they never come to read the prophet's own writings. So the strength of his book lies in this, that he has deliberately chosen his audience, and it is an audience he can speak to. He knows their language; he waits for their understanding; he never lays a greater burden upon them than they are able to bear.

But it is the weakness of the book. For if you have happened even once to have read the prophet himself, you find Mr. Lilly's movements slow and his course perplexingly uncertain and circuitous. You may even be tempted, though without disrespect, to think he has taken you a voyage in a dredgingmachine. You never really get out to sea, never feel the keen breeze which tells of progress made. You are become a partaker in what you may acknowledge to be useful and even imperative labour, but the sounds are unmusical, and the flavour is unwholesome, and the touch is a little unclean.

JESUS CHRIST. DIDON. (Kegan Paul.

BY THE REV. FATHER Post 8vo, second edition, 2 vols., pp. lxxxiii, 493, 481. 125.) It is no surprise that Père Didon's Life of Christ should have reached a second edition already. It may owe part of its popularity to the exceptional circumstances of its birth, for there is no denying that these circumstances were exceptionally piquant and interesting. As soon as we heard of it, we cried, "Can any good thing come out of France? and especially, Can a Life of Christ that shall be worth our looking at come out of the Roman Church there?"

But it owes the larger and most enduring part of its popularity to its own considerable merits. These are mainly a faultless style, a fearless criticism, and an unfaltering personal devotion.

The style is no surprise. Nor is it much surprise that it should have been given to us in clear and forcible English.

The greatest surprise was, of course, the fearlessness of the criticism; since we had not doubted that in such matters we were the people and wisdom would die with us. But here let it be at once understood that the criticism is not fearless as Renan's was. It is fearless of consequence. And it will not for a moment allow that there is no honest and impartial criticism, but that which overturns half the verdict of history. But it is never fearless of God.

But if the candour of its criticism was its greatest surprise, its most abiding worth lies not there, but in its strong and personal devotion. It may be that that devotion would have availed nothing without the candour; for how could it have made good its claim to our attention without that? But it is, at least, equally certain that no bravery of investigation would have made the book so truly fertile, and even convincing to us, had there been weakness of faith in the Son of God, or coldness of heart towards the Man Christ Jesus.

RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. (Sonnenschein. 8vo, third edition, pp. 824. IOS. 6d.) One of the earliest and most serious difficulties which the editor of an encyclopædia has to face is this: Should the various systems of religion be described by believers in these systems or by unbelievers? Much may be said for both methods. If Parsism is described by a Parsi there is no risk of unfair depreciation, but there is the risk that it will not be made intelligible to those who are not Parsis. If, on the other hand, it is described by one who is not a believer in Parsism, there is a strong chance that, however fair, it will not be accepted as authoritative, and may even break down, however well informed, through lack of sympathy with the inner secret of the religion. The Committee of the South Place lectures and the editors of this volume have chosen that, as far as possible, every system should be described by a believer. And so we have the Parsi religion, for example, described by a Parsi, the now wellknown Hon. Dadabhai Naoroji, M.P. And the choice is ratified by the public, for the book has already reached its third edition. There are over fifty writers, and yet some of them write of more than one system, so that the number of professed religions here dealt with is very great. But it should be borne in mind that the word "system" is somewhat loosely employed for it is hard to

describe the Mass, and perhaps still harder to describe Scepticism as in any sense a system of religion.

RELIGION AND MYTH. BY THE REV. JAMES MACDONALD. (Nutt. 8vo, pp. 240. 7s. 6d.) Mr. Macdonald writes on ethnology and folklore, matters which long residence in Africa have made interesting and familiar to him. But he does not draw from the stores of his own experience only. To his travels in the Dark Continent he has added excursions into the land of books, and confesses freely that his debt is considerable to Mr. Frazer's Golden Bough, and the like. He writes, it must be confessed, in a somewhat monotonous style, but his book can scarcely be called dry reading; he sets down everything he knows with far too absolute an independence of Mrs. Grundy for that. The chapter we have found most absorbing is the last. It discusses the problem of the modern savage. What shall be done with him? Mr. Macdonald has heard various answers. He has heard the gospel of work proposed, and the gospel of clothes, and even the gospel of gin and rum. But his experience has led him to believe in none of these, but only in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet he speaks with freedom, and after a long discussion of the right method of applying the gospel of Jesus Christ, he closes his book in this way: "The Church that first adopts for her intending missionaries the study of Comparative Religion as a substitute for subjects now taught, will lead the van in the path of true progress."

ALEXANDRIAN AND CARTHAGINIAN THEOLOGY CONTRASTED. BY REV. J. B. HEARD, A.M. (T. & T. Clark. Crown 8vo, pp. 362. 6s.) Mr. Heard has made claims upon our attention by his previous works, claims so imperative that we cannot pass this new work by without an interested examination. But if it were not that we know him already, and know him so favourably, it is scarcely likely that the present volume would receive the attention it deserves. For its title is unattractive, and it contains no index of any kind whatever, nor any guidance through a difficult and almost distracting country except the briefest chapter headings. This severity is unfair, and especially to the author himself. What he wishes to tell us is that Augustinianism

will not do. He has made the discovery that its antiquity is nothing to boast of in comparison with the other, and that, in short, it is an afterthought, and one that no man's mind should have been allowed to entertain. There are three tests of "Afterthoughts": (1) they are unprimitive; (2) they are irreconcilable with higher light yet to break forth from God's Word; and (3) they represent a metaphysical stage of thought. And these three tests, you perceive, are three condemnations.

The book contains the Hulsean Lectures for 1892-93. You do not look for levity or even light-heartedness. You find gravity and hardthinking. Your only objection is, that it is made harder than nature ever really intended it should be.

BY

THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM. C. H. SPURGEON. (Passmore & Alabaster. 8vo, pp. 263, 6s.) This is the work upon which Mr. Spurgeon spent the last days of his life. Yet no sign can be discerned of the weakness of an old man's child. For, indeed, he never was an old man. The Commentary-it is a Commentary on St. Matthew's Gospel-is much after the manner of Mr. Spurgeon's own work in the Treasury of the Psalter, and the volume is bound in harmony with that book.

RELIGION AND THE PRESENT HOUR. (Hodges. 8vo, pp. 262.) Perhaps the title of this book sufficiently explains its meaning. If not, nothing that we can say about it will explain it. No quotation we could make from it would make it one degree clearer; nor if we quoted the whole book would you be one whit wiser. The author has plenty to say, but he never succeeds in saying it. And the disappointment of it is, that he seems always on the verge of saying it. You read on, fully persuaded that before you get to the bottom of the page, the light will break forth upon you. Then you are confident that you have only to turn the next page. And so you are led on. But it You get to the end of the book without one glimpse of the author's intention. Only you feel that the fault is yours, not the author's, and you have a strong desire to read it all over again. If any one does that, will they kindly tell us what the result has been?

never comes.

THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE HEXATEUCH. By C. A. BRIGGS, D.D. (T. &T. Clark. Post 8vo, pp. 259. 6s. 6d.) Notwithstanding that Dr. Driver has been before him, Professor Briggs believes that there is room for his new book over here. And it may be so. For he does not write for scholars or students of the subject as Dr. Driver did. He writes for the intelligent general reader. And certainly he has the skill to do it beyond most. He is intelligible always, and always very practical. Moreover, he remembers that our delight is with the sons of men, and he always has something to say about men, as much at least about the men who are higher critics as about the the thing which is called higher criticism.

THE FIRST FARRAR, D.D.

THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE. BOOK OF KINGS. BY F. W. (Hodder. Crown 8vo, pp. 503. 7s. 6d.) The Expositor's Bible-then, where is the exposition? We have been driven to give the word a fairly wide range; but if it reaches as far as this, what place have you for history? Here is no text expounded, nor any passage. From the first chapter to the last we have simply a rewriting of the history in this First Book of Kings. It is a most interesting rewriting, full of Dr. Farrar's character and style, full of his wide reading and marvellous control thereof, a most interesting and instructive book throughout. But it is not an exposition; that is the one fault to be found with it. It is a right book, but it has a wrong name.

THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE. EZRA, NEHEMIAH, AND ESTHER. BY WALTER F. ADENEY, M.A. (Hodder & Stoughton. Crown 8vo, pp. 404. 7s. 6d.) Professor Adeney's volume, which has followed so soon after Dr. Farrar's, offers as complete a contrast as could be found in two volumes in the same series of books. For, in the first place, Professor Adeney's style is simple, straightforward, unimpassioned. He has no kinship, it seems, with "literary epicures who prefer flavour to substance"; he suspects that "the method of melting down their materials, and recasting them in the mould of their own style, must gravely endanger their accuracy"; and he has himself plainly resolved that he will be accurate, whatever may be said of flavour and of style. But in the next place, he

writes exposition and not history. And this is the more striking in the light of Archdeacon Farrar's work, since the materials of both authors are so nearly alike. Professor Adeney had all the temptation to rewrite his historical books that Dr. Farrar had, and something more, on account of the unfamiliarity of his portion of the history of Israel. But he was set to write exposition, and he has written it. So if he has done it less brilliantly than his colleague, he has the satisfaction of knowing that he has done that which it was his duty to do.

THE HOME AND SCHOOL HYMNAL. (Edinburgh. Pott 4to, pp. xxiv, 552. 3s. 6d.) Under this title the Praise Committee of the Free Church of Scotland has issued a new Hymnal for children. As a volume it is handsome beyond most Hymnals even for adult use. It contains no fewer than 392 tunes, revised by Sir Joseph Barnby, and nearly as many hymns, carefully, and we are bound to say judiciously, and for the most part even most felicitously, chosen by the Committee. The only risk is the risk of the needle in the haystack, and we wish the Committee had marked, say, a hundred of the most immortal for our superintendents' sakes.

Besides this large paper edition, there is one with two-part music at 6d., and one with the words only at 2d. When will the profit begin to come?

THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM. BY ALFRED J. JOLLEY. (Macmillan. Crown 8vo, pp. 124. 3s. net.) Mr. Jolley knows what the problem is, but he has not solved it. It is doubtful, indeed, if it can be solved in this way; for it is not a Synoptic problem, not a problem with which the first three Gospels alone are concerned, but a problem in which John has his interest also-in short, a gospel problem. Mr. Jolley has nothing new to say, and he knows that also. He writes for the "English reader," and from his book the English reader will clearly perceive the conditions of the problem, and the way Mr. Jolley thinks it will be solved.

BUNYAN CHARACTERS. BY ALEXANDER WHYTE, D.D. (Oliphant. Foolscap 8vo, pp. 281. 2s. 6d.) Whatever else this book contains, it contains a wealth of paper and binding. That much one may see at a glance. And the publishers have