does not tell us for whom he has written. But the strength of the work-and it is an exceedingly strong and stimulating work-lies in this, that he carefully and purposely avoids wringing the last drop of application from his text. The central teaching of Jesus Christ he finds in the five chapters of St. John's Gospel, commencing with the thirteenth and ending with the seventeenththe great upper room discourse. We have had expositions of that discourse before. Quite recently we have had an exposition by him whom many call the greatest expositor living. But Canon Bernard's work is still the work that will help the preacher most, and will hinder him the least.

THE CHURCH IN RELATION TO SCEPTICS. BY THE REV. A. J. HARRISON, B.D. (Longmans. Crown 8vo, pp. 348. 7s. 6d.) The advantage of a "Conversational Guide to Evidential Work" is obvious; but the difficulty is insurmountable. Have we not all seen the conversational guide which put its doubter into positions so humiliating both to his intellect and to his heart, that our hearts rebelled and took his side, in spite of the protest of our understanding? Mr. Harrison has not surmounted the insurmountable. He knows far better than his reviewer-but, does he find the flesh and blood infidel or doubter say, "I am beginning to see, but surely . . . ‚” or “I am afraid I have wandered into the wrong way of looking at the subject. It seems to me now . . . ?” What shall we say then? That the work is It is the very best

a failure? No, by no means. handbook for the practical worker in the infidel or semi-infidel fields of our cities and villages that anywhere can be found. We have already noticed a volume of Christian evidence in this month's survey. It, and the like of it, is indispensable to your knowledge of what Christianity is, and the full assurance of your own hope. But you might have it at your finger-ends. You might be as sure of your salvation as the Apostle of the Gentiles. And yet you might find yourself as helpless as a child in the face of an ordinary Hyde Park orator, or in the presence of a working infidel shoemaker. Mr. Harrison knows how little these men know of the truth as it is in Jesus. He knows how deftly they can use their ignorance to the discomfiture of your vast erudition. Again he has appreciated the power of "the inertia of habit." He knows how helpless your arguments are when

it is not conviction of the understanding but an effort of the will that is required. If we would deal with the everyday unpicturesque indifference and irreligion around us, let us serve an apprenticeship to the methods of this volume; let us learn its reasonableness, its patience, its tact, its charity that never faileth.

PRACTICAL REFLECTIONS ON GENESIS. With a Preface by THE LORD BISHOP OF LINCOLN. (Longmans. Crown 8vo, pp. 294. 4s. 6d.) The preface by the Bishop of Lincoln is more instructive than such contributed prefaces generally are. It frankly describes the writer's position, as when it says: "The references to the Holy Eucharist as the divinely-appointed channel of grace, and as the Memorial of the One Sacrifice of Calvary, are such as might be expected from his patristic point of view." Every verse in Genesis is quoted, and is followed by its "practical application." These comments are not original; the author tells us that they are, for the most part, drawn from or suggested by Du Guet on Genesis (Paris, 1732), "De Saci" in vol. i. of Bible avec Explication (Paris, 1725), and Delitzsch's Commentary (in Messrs. T. & T. Clark's Foreign Theological Library). And to the piquancy of this choice of sources there follows the real interest of the most of the reflections selected. Perhaps they will often be found to furnish both text and topic for the preacher's sermon, as well as food for devotion in our quieter moments.

WHAT AND HOW TO PREACH. BY ALEXANDER OLIVER, Anderson, Ferrier. Crown 8vo, pp. 189. 3s. 6d.) "Legh Richmond says: 'Keep in mind the excellent rule, never preach a single sermon from which an unenlightened hearer might not learn the plan of salvation, even though he never afterwards heard another discourse.' 'Modern homiletic science,' according to Phelps, 'has abrogated that rule. The taste of modern congregations would,' he says, 'soon weary of the sameness of the preaching which that rule would create.' (Men and Books, p. 290.) But I venture to differ from Phelps, and agree with Richmond and Vinet too, so to have Christ in some way in every sermon that His saving character may be seen.”

B.A., D.D. (Oliphant,

Will that single short paragraph serve in any respect towards an estimate of this volume?

It

SON, M.A. (Nisbet. Crown 8vo, pp. 305. 5s.) Christus Magister: some Teachings from the Sermon on the Mount. It is a volume of sermons, twenty in all, of the kind which goes by the name of "lectures" in some parts of the land. The distinction between the lecture and the sermon has come to be that in the sermon you choose a "text" from any portion of the Word that pleases you, and preach from it; in the lecture you pass through some fairly large portion of Scripture in order, breaking it up into smaller parts, and preach upon these parts. There may be exposition, and there may not; here it is nearly absent. But there must be practical application, and that to present trials and necessities. This is not, therefore, another exposition of the Sermon on the Mount; it is an example, and a good one, of how the Sermon on the Mount may be made to tell upon our present social and individual life.

THREE GATES ON A SIDE. BY CHARLES H. PARKHURST, D.D. (Nisbet. Crown 8vo, pp. 271. 6s.) Dr. Parkhurst's pulpit in New York has lately proved itself such a power on the side of righteousness that the whole city has been moved by means of it. These sermons are the instrument which Dr. Parkhurst uses. No doubt they have got blunted to some degree through the process of printing, perhaps even to an exceptional degree. Yet so sturdy and unconventional is their language, so undisguised and intensely personal their appeal, making directly for righteousness always, righteousness in the family, righteousness in the street, righteousness in public trust and private transaction, that you cannot choose but feel it. The first sermon is from the text, "On the east three gates," etc., Rev. xxi. 13, whence the title of the volume.

GOD'S IMAGE IN MAN. BY HENRY WOOD. (Elliot Stock. Crown 8vo, pp. 258. 5s.) The further title of this volume, Some Intuitive Per

ceptions of Truth, is not one to commend it to the incurious reader; intuitive perceptions are so often found to be egotistical platitudes. But Mr. Wood, who describes himself simply as a layman, and gives the address, "Boston, U.S.A.," moves more by rule and system than he admits or probably knows. And the work is in reality an excellent example of a present tendency in theological thought. He accepts the doctrine of evolution, much after the manner of Dr. Lyman Abbott, and applies it with, as it seems to us, even more success than he, to the things most surely believed among His determined effort to owe nothing to "systematic theology" is never quite successful, but it is always interesting, and nearly always instructive.

us.

CHRISTMAS DAY, AND OTHER SERMONS. BY F. D. MAURICE, M.A. (Macmillan. Crown 8vo, pp. 410. 3s. 6d.) It is a great pleasure to see that the reception given to Maurice's Lincoln's Inn Sermons has encouraged the publishers to extend the series to his other sermons. May it not end with the sermons. Why should we not welcome a complete edition of Maurice's works in this beautiful binding, and at this cheap and accessible price? But it is startling to observe that the flyleaf record of editions is "First edition, published elsewhere, 1843; second edition, 1892."

THE CRITICAL REVIEW OF THEOLOGICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL LITERATURE. EDITED BY PROFESSOR S. D. F. SALMOND, D.D. (T. & T. Clark. 8vo, vol. ii. pp. 449. 75.) While there are some delightful notices in this volume, we like the long reviews the best. Thus Principal Rainy's handling of Gore's Bampton Lectures was nearly as good as the reading of the volume itself. And Professor Marshall's account of Paul Ewald's "Hauptproblem" of the Gospels, though not so long as that, left an abiding treasure behind it. But it is folly to attempt to particularise. There is scarcely a dull line in the volume. The lover of books, especially of German books, finds a quarterly feast of reason and flow of soul in the Critical Review.

ETHICS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. By C. C. EVERETT. (Boston: Ginn & Company. Foolscap 8vo, pp. 185.) Already a great and systematic

text-work of ethics has been noticed here. Two volumes remain. They are both small, and both for young people. We shall take this first. It reminds us somewhat of Dr. Cameron Lees' primer on Life and Conduct. But it goes more into the principles, leaving the application to the teacher; for it seems meant for teachers. No boy or girl would have the conscience to read a book on the art of war, which never lost or won a battle. But for teachers it is good and full of suggestion. Yet it must not be taken alone, for you cannot make good boys this way. You want the start. But given the start, and the constant presence of the Power that gave it, these excellent precepts and suggestions will nearly be indispensable to full success.

pp. 28. Is.) This is the other book of ethics for young people. If its significance is of shorter range, it is of far greater intensity than the last. Dr. Strauss belongs to the party of reform in modern Judaism; and this little work will tell you, better probably than any other you could find, the direction and the goal towards which the reform of Judaism is proceeding. We do not care to criticise it, or question the relevancy of the prooftexts employed. But to all who are interested in one of the most deeply interesting questions of our day we heartily recommend its perusal.

AMONG RECENT SERMONS. THERE are few fashions in literature, or in anything else, that have spread so widely and stayed so long as the fashion of issuing books in uniform series or sets. Nor is there any sign yet that the fashion has passed its prime. The signs are all the other way.

Of uniform sets in the literature of sermons none was more needful than a set of the sermons preached by Canon Liddon. Never in all the history of sermons, it may safely be affirmed, did any man suffer more from the horrors of bad printing and bad paper. For many a year every sermon he preached was taken down by the reporter, and not by one reporter only, and published without his knowledge; and sometimes they were

published fairly well, and sometimes they were miserably done to death in the publishing. And all the while he had publishers of his own who gave us the choice of finding his best sermons in this wretched state in other publishers' lists, or leaving them alone.

But when the copyright of Liddon's works came into the hands of Messrs. Longmans, that enterprising firm speedily made reparation for the wrong that had been done. Their uniform set of the sermons now numbers seven volumes, and in all respects it is workmanlike and worthy. This is the list :

1. University Sermons.

2. Easter in St. Paul's.

3. Passiontide Sermons.

4. Christmastide in St. Paul's.
5. Advent in St. Paul's.

6. Sermons on Some Words of Christ. 7. Sermons on Old Testament Subjects. Then Messrs. Macmillan have recently issued some admirable sets. Maurice's Lincoln's Inn Sermons, in six volumes, at 3s. 6d. each, have just appeared, and this month we welcome the first volume in a uniform binding of his other sermons. May the series continue till it embraces the whole of his works. At the same price we have lately had Kingsley and Farrar, the former in nine. And, what is not volumes, and the latter in ten. quite so universally known, Dean Vaughan's are steadily appearing, at the somewhat forbidding price of half-a-guinea it is true, but in large and handsome volumes. Already we have had :

1. Temple Sermons.

2. Lessons of the Cross and Passion.
3. University Sermons, New and Old.
4. Doncaster Sermons ;

and there must be others on the way.

Of all those sermons nothing has now to be said except such a word as this in respect of outward form. Their place in literature is fully recognised.

But more than this must be said of the sermons of the late Bishop of Durham. So greatly was his reputation as a preacher outdone by his fame as a scholar and expositor, that some of us scarcely knew of the existence of a most excellent series of volumes which the same publishers are issuing. So we must come closer to Lightfoot's sermons in our next, and consider their merits a little as well as their outward show.