creation. Professor Schurman's form of statement, that the possibility of sin is the correlative of the free initiative God has vacated on man's behalf" (p. 47), is a mystical and unsatisfactory way of stating the truth involved in the ordinary doctrine that God has created man a free and responsible being. Naturally enough such an unsatisfactory statement of truths leads to its being generally forgotten and ignored in subsequent portions of his philosophical argument. We can but sympathize with Dr. Hovey in his vigorous protest against forms of statement which darken counsel by words without knowledge. The chapter on "Christian Science and Mind Cure" illustrates how rapidly these erroneous philosophical views are taken up by fanatics, and made the basis of dangerous systems of practical conduct. The basis of the so-called Christian science, by which the healing of bodily diseases is attempted, is found in the monistic philosophy of Lotze, Bowne, Royce, Schurman, and others, who break down the barrier between mind and matter, and between the infinite and the finite. The use made of this philosophy by those who are engaged in so-called "mind cure" is a striking commentary upon the importance of sound philosophical reasoning both in its relations to religion and to the affairs of ordinary life, and is a reductio ad absurdum of the philosophy itself. Says Mrs. Eddy, "Sickness is a belief, and to understand this destroys the belief and breaks the spell of the disease" (p. 79). Especially valuable, at the present time, is Dr. Hovey's essay upon the authority and inspiration of the Scriptures, which he defends with rare skill and ability. His position is one which admits of large freedom of interpretation in the incidental allusions of Scripture connected with figures of speech and forms of rhetoric. Where the argument does not depend on giving the precise length of time, the ordinary figures of rhetoric allow a writer to use round numbers. When one is not writing a work on chronology, minute exactness of dates is not to be expected. It does not belong to that form of literature. The methods of a chronologist would be inappropriate. He agrees with Professor Green "that the sacred writers do not attempt to give the data for a chronology of mankind before the time of Abraham" (p. 212). His exact position is summed up in a sentence which, though long, could not well have been made shorter without obscuring his meaning "It is, therefore, our belief that the Sacred Scriptures, rightly interpreted from beginning to end as the record of a progressive revelation of God to man, of man to himself, and of spiritual life to all who will accept it, will lead to truth without error, and will justify that revelation, as one that gave to those addressed by it, in each particular age, the religious truth most needed by them, in the best available form for reaching the heart and purifying the life." ETHICAL TEACHINGS OF OLD ENGLISH LITERATUre. By Theodore W. Hunt, Ph. D., Litt. D., Professor of English in the College of New Jersey. New York: Funk and Wagnalls Company. (Pp. 384. 3x5.) We have hitherto spoken highly of Professor Hunt's "Studies in Literature and Style," and "English Prose and Prose Writers," and our favorable opinion has more than been confirmed by later perusal of the same works. We are prepared, therefore, to accord to this new work a hearty welcome, which it richly deserves. Of use to all students of literature, it is especially designed for the minister. Valuable for the information it contains, it will double that value to many readers as it stimulates them to further study in this interesting and important field. The author says that "He must have read these Old English writers with indifference or settled bias who does not see that as a general rule they were devout and sober-minded men; writing and teaching for the common weal and the cause of truth; for what Bacon has termed 'the glory of God and the relief of man's estate'" (p. 139). To any who, knowing of the immorality of these times, think of gathering ethical lessons from their literature in the light of figs from thistles, he says, "If it was true, in those days, that immorality was the law, and possessed the numerical majority, morality, though the exception, possessed the literary strength; and it is to the lasting honor of England to know, that licentiousness and literary talent were in an inverse ratio" (p. 27). "The old monastic method undoubtedly erred in the line of religious moroseness and the undue emphasis of the graver features of the scholastic theology, but have we not long since passed over by reaction to the far more dangerous extreme of a loose theology, a loose method of preaching, and a decided widening of the 'strait gate' through which Christ has told us we must pass into his kingdom" (p. 160)? Their excess of mysticism he admits, also, but says, "There are some things worse than mysticism; and care must be taken lest, in its sweeping condemnation, we do not prove too much, and confirm the modern church in its tendency to be indifferent and heartless. . . . Abelard is as much needed in church history as Anselm; and Edwards is as much needed on 'The Affections' as Edwards on ‘The Will'” (p. 163). The book contains two parts: the first containing a study of the literature from Caedmon to Chaucer, and the second from Chaucer to Ascham. The length of the time covered, he reminds us, is so great, that "the three centuries from Spenser to Tennyson are more than trebled by the ten centuries from Caedmon to Spenser." Throughout all there appears much of ethical teaching, with an increasing purpose to make known the truths of the Bible, "thatt all Englisshe lede with aere shollde lisstenn itt, with tonge shollde spellen itt, with dede shollde itt follghenn."-The Ormulum. EVOLUTION IN RELIGION. By William W. McLane, Ph. D., D. D. Boston and Chicago: Congregational and Sunday-School Publishing Society. 1892. (Pp. 226. 54x2%.) $1.00. In this volume Dr. McLane has furnished us with an exceptionally valuable treatise upon a subject of great interest, especially to those whose religious faith is likely to be disturbed by the echoes which come to them from the din of the scientific world which is now so actively invading all realms of human thought. It is a good omen that a denominational publishing society sees the importance of introducing such books to the world. The volume contains a concise, accurate, and fair statement of the doctrine of evolution as it is now most widely defended by the best scientific authorities, and maintains with marked success that, so far as it is capable of proof, it cannot seriously interfere with any cardinal doctrine of the Christian system. The weight of his argument goes, however, to show that no system of evolution can reach to ultimate truth; that whatever is evolved from nature must first have been involved; and that it is impossible to work any system of evolution without God behind it, if not in it. We should hesitate, however, about laying as much stress upon evolution as the author does in positive proof of a Christian system, though, no doubt, there is much weight to his argument. Briefly stated, it is a modification of the ordinary defence of Christianity drawn from the beneficent character of its fruits. As in ordinary evolution there must be a correspondence between the physiological power of variation and the conditions of existence directing to a definite and higher development, so, it is maintained, there must be a correspondence of reality between the Christian faith and the conditions which secure from it such noble results. The argument is neatly summed up in the following well-turned periods:— "By all the facts and analogies of the laws of correlation and correspondence in the lower realms of life, we must confess that a God who is to the heart of man what bread and water are to the body, and who is to the soul of man what light is to the eye, must be the living and true God, to believe in whom is peace, to know whom is power, and to love whom is life" (pp. 229, 230). THE LIFE OF OUR LORD upon the Earth, considered in its Historical, Chronological, and Geographical Relations. By Samuel J. Andrews, author of "God's Revelations of Himself to Men." A New and Wholly Revised Edition. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1891. (Pp. xxx, 651. 61⁄2 x2%.) $2.50. From the time of its publication we have had the first edition of this great work upon our table for convenient reference, and have found it, on the whole, the most valuable of the many lives of Christ which have come to our notice. It is comprehensive, free from verbiage, scholarly, in the best sense of the word, without being pedantic, evangelical in its sympathies, and exhaustive in its treatment of the more important questions affecting the chronology, geography, and harmony of the Gospels. In the present edition the author has added to the value of the first by rewriting the whole volume in the light of the discussions of the thirty years which have elapsed since its appearance. In its present form it will doubtless maintain its standard character for another quarter of a century. We cannot give a better representation of the author's style of reasoning than by quoting a couple of paragraphs in which he controverts the position of Schürer and others, that there is an irreconcilable contradiction between John and the Synoptic writers in reference to the time of eating the Passover in connection with the crucifixion. Our author says: Placing ourselves in the position of John, and remembering the position of those for whom he wrote, how few of them had any real knowledge of Jewish laws and traditions; we shall readily understand why he speaks in such general and indefinite terms of Jewish rites as of things now superseded. Since Jesus, the true Paschal Lamb, had been slain, the true paschal supper was kept only in the Christian church. To Christians, he could say with Paul (1 Cor. v. 7, 8), Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast.' The Jews in their passover had only the shell or shadow; the church had the kernel or substance. Hence it is not to be expected that he would refer to any rites of the Jews at this feast with the care that marks the Synoptists. He does not distinguish, as do they, its several component parts, but speaks of it only in general terms as one of the Jewish feasts. There is noi, in the other places in which he mentions the passover, any clear proof that he means to distinguish the paschal supper from the solemnities of the following days. Why, then, in the passage before us, are we forced to believe that the passover which the Jews were about to eat on the day of the crucifixion, was the paschal supper, and that only? Why may he not mean the subsequent sacrifices? Standing to the Jews in a position so unlike that of the Synoptists, it seems most arbitrary to assert that he must use language with precisely the same strictness, and that 'to eat the passover' must mean to eat the paschal lamb. 15th of There is But it is of the "As has been said, upon the first day of the feast or the Nisan thank offerings of the flock and herd were slain and eaten. certainly no intrinsic reason why John may not have meant these. said in reply, that if the phrase 'to eat the passover' may be used other offerings inclusive of the paschal lamb, it cannot be exclusive of it. But this is by no means obvious. Passover, with John, is a term denoting the whole festival; and why, if the paschal supper was past, might he not employ it to designate the remaining feasts? To affirm that he could not is mere affirmation. Norton, referring to the oft-repeated remark that the term passover is never used absolutely' to denote the thank offerings considered apart from the paschal supper, observes: "This remark has been repeatedly praised for its acuteness by Kuinoel and Strauss. But, in fact, it only implies a forgetfulness of a very common metonymy by which the name of a whole is given to a part. If, when the paschal festival were half over, it had been said that certain Jews desired to avoid pollution that they might keep the passover, every one perceives that the expression would be unobjectionable, though no one would think of applying the name passover 'absolutely' to the last three or four days of the festival.' Edersheim (ii. 568, note 1) observes: 'No competent Jewish archeologist would care to deny that Pesach [άoxa] may refer to the Chagigah.' '" (Pp. 470-471.) OUR LORD'S LIFE: A Continuous Narrative in the Words of the Four Gospels, according to the Common Version. Arranged by James Strong, S. T. D., LL. D. New York: Hunt and Eaton; Cincinnati: Cranston and Stowe. 1892. (Pp. xxxv, 218. 5x25%.) 45 cents. THE FOURFOLD STORY: A Study of the Gospels. By George F. Genung. Boston and Chicago: Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society. (Pp. 118. 54x3.) These are two most convenient and helpful volumes for every-day use. That of Dr. Strong contains the entire Gospels arranged in continuous narrative, at a remarkably low price. The volume of Professor Genung is a very able and instructive introduction to the study of the Gospels. It is rarely that we have found so much good sense compressed into so short a treatise on the fourfold story. HENRY BOYNTON SMITH. By Lewis F. Stearns, D. D., late Professor in Bangor Theological Seminary, Maine. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1892. (Pp. vi, 368. 52x3%.) $1.25. (American Religious Leaders.) This volume was but just finished and placed in the hands of the publishers, when its author was stricken down by death. But it has been carefully seen through the press by Mrs. Stearns, aided by Dr. Stearns' colleague, Professor Francis B. Denio. Taken altogether, it is a worthy monument both of the subject and of the author, and is one of the most valuable biographies of the important series to which it belongs. Henry Boynton Smith filled a large place in the ecclesiastical history of America during the last half of the present century, but his lifework was spent in such a way that he has left no literary monument which can at all adequately represent the man. His literary career really commenced when he was pastor of a country church in Massachusetts, when he began to write that series of articles on philosophy and religion for the Bibliotheca Sacra which did so much to give fame both to him and to the periodical. In the estimation of Dr. Stearns, the great literary achievement of Professor Smith's life was his Andover address, in 1849, on The Relations of Faith and Philosophy," published in the Bibliotheca Sacra for November of that year. The author repeatedly expresses regret that Professor Smith never gave himself time to fill out the plan developed in that remarkable address. He was prevented doing this by the misfortune of the times. In the first place, he was called to a professorship in the new and struggling Union Theo⚫ logical Seminary when the salary was inadequate, and his strength was largely absorbed in eking out the means of subsistence in the supply of pulpits and in writing for the religious press editorials of transitory importance Then, too, the recent schism of the Presbyterian Church threw upon him a large amount of the perplexing work which was necessary to effect the reunion which eventually took place. All this was work of great importance, and, we must believe, was in the sight of God of supreme importance, but it was not conducive to the production of a literary monument. With the apostle, however, he might point to almost the whole ministry of the New |