pioneers in the road to the improvement as well as to the development of the species.

The serious problem, too generally ignored, of the immigrant population of the United States is plainly stated by Mr. E. Gardner Murphy in his book on The Basis of Ascendancy (Longmans). There is no blinking the fact that in the Southern States of the Union there is a steadily increasing negro population for whom no place is recognised in practice in the scheme of self-government of which the white citizens of the Republic are justly proud. Mr. Murphy recognises that the present methods of holding down the negroes cannot be permanent, and suggests that the danger which lies in the future may be lessened, if not averted, by raising the moral and intellectual standard of the subordinate race to that of the ascendant.

The egregious self-complacency with which the majority of the English middle-class regard their Public School system will prove a serious obstacle to the recognition of the value of Messrs. Norwood and Hope's volume of contributions on The Higher Education of Boys in England (Murray). Its perusal should be made compulsory in all educational centres, for it is a telling indictment of the methods in vogue amongst schoolmasters of the higher grade. France, Germany and the United States have long since recognised the need of recasting the old forms of secondary education. England has not only lagged behind, but her doctrinaire schoolmasters and their University supporters have persistently maintained that stare super antiquas vias was the one thing needful. The result is shown by the anxiety prevailing in the industrial and commercial world as to how our boasted supremacy in trade can be maintained. To the loud and constant inquiry, "What shall we do with our sons?" this volume gives the serious solution-that education must be organised from bottom to top, and since the State alone is capable of this duty all attempts to impede its action or to narrow its sphere are crimes of which the nation will have to pay the price.

It is a sign of the stirring, though not revolutionary, times in which we live to find the Chancellor of the University of Oxford writing on the Principles and Methods of University Reform (Clarendon Press) with the conviction that changes are needed. Lord Curzon recognises that he is giving expression to the feelings and wishes of many who are still engaged in University teaching, as well as of those who have passed into active life elsewhere. He does not favour the idea that college endowments should be more strictly applied for the benefit of those on whose behalf they were presumably founded, "the poor clerks." Indeed there seems to be no desire on the part of the working classes as represented at Ruskin College for a return to the intentions of the "pious founder." Lord Curzon, however, would like to see University education so organised that whilst it retained the qualifications for training the future politician, lawyer, theologian or scholar, it should widen its paths and train others in the requirements of a business career. For the former the University degree would be still the distinguishing mark, for the latter the diploma, which in process of time would be regarded with even greater favour as the hall-mark of efficient training, should be instituted.

Presumably the intention of Dr. W. S. Holdsworth in writing or

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rather compiling A History of English Law (Methuen) was to provide students with sign-posts on their way, and the general reader with a compendium of useful information. To a very considerable extent these three volumes fulfil their supposed intentions, but those who desire to pursue their inquiries further will have to turn to other writers. Dr. Holdsworth possibly takes too little cognisance of the part played by law, and especially by its exponents, the judges, in the making of history; but to reduce to moderate proportions a survey of constitutional government would be as difficult as to explain the land laws of England under equal restrictions. Dr. Holdsworth has not shrunk from either task, and he adds much to the knowledge of the lay reader at least on these and many other important matters.

THEOLOGY.

Under the general editorship of the Rev. Arthur Carr the various books of The Revised Version of the New Testament (Cambridge University Press) have been entrusted to competent scholars who are at the same time discreet critics. Mr. H. W. Fulford in dealing with the Epistle to the Romans defends the writer from the charge of having condemned the whole barbarian world, of which the mental and religious condition must have been absolutely unknown to the apostle. Mr. S. C. Carpenter in dealing with the two Epistles to the Corinthians throws out the ingenious suggestion that the very different attitude assumed by the writer in the concluding chapters of the second letter, may be explicable by supposing that they formed part of a third letter of which the earlier portions have been lost. The notes and introductions to the various books of the New Testament will be found invaluable by those who, whilst holding to the traditions of reverence, are ready to receive help from modern inquiry.

The bold and laborious task of compiling an Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics (T. & T. Clark) has been undertaken by Dr. James Hastings, who is supported by an array of competent writers. The scheme proposed by the editor is a wide one, and will embrace articles on "the whole range of theology and philosophy." Of recent years, thanks to liberal endowments and to increasing interest, our knowledge of religious beliefs and customs has widened, and Dr. Hastings has probably too much instead of too little material for dealing with comparative religion and its accessories. It is difficult to foresee the extent to which the Encyclopædia may not be expanded if subjects so wide. and various are treated with the same liberality of space as is accorded to them in the first volume. In any case the Encyclopædia marks the tendency of the times, and every one concerned in the extension of our knowledge in this direction will wish Dr. Hastings success.

Students will recognise the service done to the history of Christianity by Mr. W. Fairweather's course of Cunningham Lectures, and published under the title of The Background of the Gospels (T. & T. Clark). They are a serious effort to write something reasonable on the blank page which in our Bibles divides the New from the Old Testament. In the Jewish Apocalyptic writings from the time of Daniel onwards there are to be discovered traces of a belief in a future life. But it was especially in the days of the Macchabees, when Jews found themselves persecuted

by their co-religionists, that the hope or idea of a recompense elsewhere than in this world took firm hold upon the minds of the pious sufferers, to whom Greek philosophy was not altogether unknown. The epoch with which Mr. Fairweather deals is well described as the "tunnel period," and there are but scanty rays of light to assist the wanderer. By degrees, however, the chinks are being widened, and it may be that the "false-dawn" of Christianity will make the full dawn more intelligible and more appreciated.

In connection with the cognate subject of eschatology Dr. Oesterley treats The Doctrine of the Last Things; Jewish and Christian (Murray) from a somewhat different point of view. He, however, establishes the connection between the Apocalyptic writers of the Christian and those of the Jewish periods. He has naturally availed himself largely of the labours of Dr. Charles in the same field, not arriving, however, at similar conclusions; Dr. Oesterley's aim apparently being to show how the thoughts and visions of the two periods were ultimately merged. How far the soul of man and its regeneration were recognised before the preaching of Christ is as obscure as the part played by the apocalyptic elements in His teaching. This is a question. which for the present must be left to theologians, but its importance cannot be overlooked, and it is to such anticipations of Christianity as are to be found in the "Similitudes" of the Book of Enoch that Dr. Oesterley does well to direct attention.

There is so much of essential importance to be learnt from various Aspects of Rabbinical Theology (A. & C. Black) that Dr. Schechter's careful exposition of some of them will be appreciated by all Biblical students. He deals more especially with the various aspects of civil and criminal law, and its bearing on the daily life and development of the Jewish people. He claims for his co-religionists the place of standardbearers of Christian ethics, and shows how the teachers of Israel dealt with problems of the highest import, though not within the range of the Biblical writers, and in a spirit which goes far to support his thesis. A careful and conscientious study of the Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire (Methuen) such as that offered by Mr. T. R. Glover enables students to understand the task which the teachers of Christianity had to face. He recognises the efforts of Augustus and others to invigorate by Egyptian and other influences the professed religion of the Empire. Their failure and its cause have been frequently discussed; but the value of Mr. Glover's inquiry lies in the vividness with which he portrays the solvent influences of St. Paul and his immediate successors, Ignatius, Tertullian and others. The tone of deep conviction in which Mr. Glover writes of the causes of the triumph of Christianity, adds to the value, without detracting in the least degree from the impartiality of his analysis.

The influence exercised by Professor Gwatkin as a teacher of Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge gives special importance to his volumes. on Early Church History (Macmillan) which appear very opportunely. Professor Gwatkin holds that all trustworthy testimony points to the dominance of the Jewish or Petrine element, and he is equally convinced that the struggle between it and the Pauline views was protracted and strenuous. It was the partisanship of the "Tractarians" which

gave strength to uncritical treatment of Early Church History; and they have been followed blindly by those who were more anxious to impress Catholic views on the English Church than to disturb the groundwork of tradition. Professor Gwatkin writes fearlessly, but at the same time impartially, and he throws the weight of his great authority against the teaching of the Tractarians.

Dr. Strong, the Dean of Christ Church, has paid a fitting tribute to his colleague, the late Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Oxford, Dr. Bigg, by editing the latter's course of lectures on The Origins of Christianity (Clarendon Press). Dr. Bigg in these has given an impartial analysis of the influences at work within the Christian Church during the second and third centuries, and he has the courage to speak disrespectfully of the policy adopted by the dogmatic councils of that and the succeeding period. The personal elements which counted for so much in weighing the claims of orthodoxy and heterodoxy are not lost sight of, and although little is added to our knowledge of the controversies of those times, we get by Dr. Bigg's aid a keener and possibly a truer appreciation of the controversialists.

Students of the Bible, lay and clerical, are alike under a debt of obligation to Dr. Driver for his guidance towards a better appreciation of the sacred volume. His latest work, Modern Research as Illustrating the Bible (Frowde), is the embodiment of his Schweich lectures, especially addressed to the members of the British Academy. The nineteenth century was especially distinguished by archæologists, and the literary treasures of Assyria, Babylonia and Egypt were for the first time revealed after the lapse of many centuries. From these we have learnt much of the original sources of the Mosaic Law, as well as of the Mosaic Cosmogony. We understand better the position of the Jewish kingdom as the buffer State between Assyria and Egypt, and subsequently the battlefield of Western and Eastern thought and civilisation. Dr. Driver urges in the interests of Biblical study that the explorations in Palestine and Egypt should in no ways be relaxed, and that the scientific study of Semitic languages should be fostered in this country as is already the case on the Continent.

Two volumes which written from very different standpoints face many of the same questions are Dr. Rendel Harris' Side Lights on New Testament Research (J. Clarke & Co.) and Mr. Wilfrid Richmond's The Creed in the Epistles (Methuen). The former, consisting of the Angus lectures, delivered presumably to students of theology, are full of suggestions for thinkers, old and young. The aim of the lecturer has been to put his hearers upon the way to arrive at their own conclusions from the materials at their hand. He also touches upon the more difficult question of how far a textual revision of the New Testament is advisable. Mr. Wilfrid Richmond, on the other hand, keeps more closely to the influence of St. Paul on the direction of teaching in the early Church. That all did not work smoothly is obvious to the most casual reader of the Epistles, and Mr. Richmond is anxious to show that the persistent assurance of peace when there was no peace— as the habit of many theologians-weakens rather than strengthens the authority which finally asserted itself.

Mr. Henry Sturt's Idea of a Free Church (Walter Scott Publishing

Co.) is pitched in a note somewhat too harsh for sensitive ears. To such, however, as are inured to theological discussion, it will be found suggestive, though possibly not convincing. To apply the principles of J. S. Mill's treatise "On Liberty" to the theories of Matthew Arnold's "Literature and Dogma" may attract individual thinkers; but such a basis seems wholly unsuitable for a national, and still less for a universal Church. Mr. Sturt finds that the method of Christianity since the days of its Founder have been towards idealising life and its duties. He would consecrate worldly duties, instead of supplying the motive to perform them. It would be difficult to put in practice Mr. Sturt's ideas without a trained body of teachers, and to these, as tending to sacerdotalism, he is opposed. Nevertheless, the book is important as indicative of the strong opposition to the present attitude of a large section of the clergy, Anglican and Roman.

Professor Denney, of the United Free Church of Scotland, boldly carries the sword into the camp of the Higher Criticism, and in his able volume, Jesus and the Gospel (Hodder & Stoughton), shows that orthodox believers can face with equanimity difficulties which are stumbling-blocks to the modernists. Professor Denney is ready to recognise the debt which Bible history owes to archæologists and philologists, and is not afraid to admit the use made by the synoptic evangelists of the Jewish apocalyptic writers.

The treatment of the various subjects which compose The Harvest Within (Longmans) will convince the reader that Admiral (Dr.) Mahan possesses qualities to which his famous works on naval strategy gave no clue. He is a diligent student of the Bible, which he accepts in simple faith, and on its teaching he founds his views of Power, Fulfilment and Hope. There is nothing very novel in Admiral Mahan's opinions, and one gathers that they are rather the thoughts of a Christian's lifetime than a discussion of Church doctrines. The personal forcefulness of the writer makes itself felt throughout the volume no less than his singleness of heart and earnestness of purpose. In many ways it is a peaceful and refreshing change from the turmoil of unrestful critics.

There is further evidence of the interest in purely religious discussion by so logical a utilitarian as Professor Goldwin Smith. In a small volume of Essays, No Refuge but in Truth (Fisher Unwin), he defines his attitude towards contemporary Christian doctrine. Whilst withholding his assent from many of its fundamental dogmas he recognises that there is in man's mind a spiritual side which is not satisfied with the teachings of science or the blankness of agnosticism. "Evolution cannot have evolved itself and does not seem capable of infallible demonstration." It may be that when beliefs now regarded as orthodox have passed away like their predecessors, others having a higher and more spiritual expression will take their place and hold the Truth against scepticism and materialism. Such seems to be Professor Goldwin

Smith's hope and belief.

To what extent Mansfield College may contribute to bringing about the recognition of a common Christianity on a broader basis must be left to time. Meanwhile the volume of Mansfield College Essays (Hodder & Stoughton) should not be passed unnoticed. Written for and pre

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