THE EVOLUTION OF MAN AND

CHRISTIANITY.

FEW recently published books, probably, have been more widely discussed and less generally read than this ambitious volume, the first edition of which appeared a little less than a year ago. The appearance of the book made absolutely no impression on either scholars or theologians. Its author was a young and unknown man, settled in a little Ohio town, whose name provoked no interest and carried no weight. The critics who noticed it at all dismissed it with a few words as one of the numerous attempts on the part of radical clergymen to harmonize religion and science by declaring everything false in religion which cannot be proved by science. But the book was not allowed to sink into the oblivion of indifference. The organs of the Episcopal Church, of which Mr. MacQueary is a clergyman, speedily discovered that it was full of heresies and infidelities, and denounced the author in unmeasured terms, as a traitor to the Church. Prominent dignitaries of the Church took up the cry. Within the space of a few weeks this hither to unknown young man found himself one of the burning questions of the day in the theological world; and at last his fame has culminated in his presentation for trial on the charge of heresy before an ecclesiastical court of his Church.

When we turn to the work itself which has caused all this theological perturbation we find that, while it is far from being an epoch-making book, it is much more worthy of consideration than its critics have indicated in their attacks on it. Its author tries, with commendable honesty and with considerable clearness and ability, to free Christianity from a number of supernatural elements that in the popular consciousness have become an essential part of it and thus make it more rational and more in harmony with the approved conclusions of science. His speculations take a wide range and cover many fields of inquiry; but that is the final point toward which they all tend. Incidentally, he found it necessary to traverse many of the traditional beliefs and opinions of the Church of which he is a member. But in such cases he assumed either that the Church was wrong when modern criticism contradicted it, or that its dogmas could be explained in harmony with the conclusions of criticism. In a word, it was taken for granted that when historical criticism, with its careful and exact scientific methods, pronounces for or against a doctrine or a passage of Scripture, its utterances must be regarded as the final settlement of the question, the Church to the contrary notwithstanding.

A word may be said in conclusion in regard to the intrinsic literary value of the book. While it is marked here and there by a slight crudeness

of statement and infelicity of style, it is, on the whole, a clear and forcible presentation of the so-called rational, as opposed to the supernatural, view of Christianity. The author has read widely and to good purpose, putting into a small compass all that modern scientists and Biblical critics have to say against the old traditional conception of Christianity. And those who desire to know just what the case against traditional Christianity amounts to cannot do better than read this book. For while far from being either original or profound, it presents very fairly and fully everything that can be urged in favor of a restatement of the Church's theology. Finally, Mr. MacQueary tells why he did not resign from the ministry of the Episcopal Church when he reached his present views. (Appleton. $1.50.)-N. Y. Tribune.

THE GREAT DISCOURSE OF JESUS, THE CHRIST, THE SON OF GOD. THE title of this book alone will give no idea whatever of the vast amount of work confined between its severely simple covers. The author or compiler sees fit for the present to withhold his name. His work has been so well done it needs no introduction to readers through a wellknown name. According to the story told in the clearly stated "Apologia" that opens the book, the compiler found himself "in middle life without a creed-a Christian neither in faith nor work, out of sympathy with Christian ethics as adapted to the uses of modern society, and deeply antag onistic to organic Christianity as manifested in the Church." Conversations with his fellow-men brought him to the conclusion that his condition fairly represented that of many thousands about him, a condition of restless, unsatisfied dissent, continually augmented by every new breath of controversy, by every failure of correspondence between the faith and its professors, and leaving the man at odds with both worlds and himself. Although intellectually wavering, the author thinks those in this condition can never settle into agnosticism, but must wander unsatisfied, with "the echoes of the Divine voice ever ringing in their hearts, no matter how stifled, till He come again-here or beyond." There came a time when he felt he must get his bearings, to live longer in his state of mind was neither honest nor tolerable. Every field of human research was barren in food for his hunger. The various systems of philosophy and the various religions of humanity left his spiritual nature untouched. He made up his mind to approach spiritual truth from the spiritual side, to acquaint himself fully with Christ's doctrine in his own words and meditate upon it in the quiet of his own soul, free from every sort of controversy, theolog ical or rational. He could not find Christ's words

separated from the narrative context in any printed form, and so undertook the gigantic task of writing them out for himself. This method has been simple.

First. He has thought best to retain every recorded word attributed to Christ as a direct utterance in the books of the New Testament.

Second. He uses the accepted version rather than the revised, for the simple reason that it is the familiar one.

Third. He has designated the topics after a careful study of each text, assigning every text to as many topics as it would justly cover.

Fourth. He has studied the mutual relation of all the texts assigned to each topic, and endeavored to arranged them to form a coherent discourse upon that topic, retaining references to locate their true position in the Gospel narrative., Fifth. He has endeavored to arrange the topics in a scheme of relation which shall bring kindred topics into proper association.

Whatever may be said of the result "it is at least the whole of all that has been given to us of the divine philosophy of life by its author, presented by itself.... There is hardly a word, even among the special utterances to in

dividuals, that does not find an application and develop a significance for all time."

The book is handsomely printed and has an interesting, attractive look. Since the days that Thomas à Kempis prepared "The Imitation," there have been few volumes that would seem to appeal to so large a body of readers. Those within and without any organized system of Christianity will recognize the well-trained literary faculty that has enabled the author to make his book so well balanced a piece of compilation. (Randolph. $1.50.)

THE LOG SCHOOL-HOUSE.

THE third volume of the Fiction Series for Young Readers is a tale of the pioneers of the great Northwest, the scene being laid near the Columbia River in Washington, so lately the vast territory which has now become a State. Young people will delight in the realistic descriptions of Indians and other dangers bravely fought against by ear, ly settlers. The author of the "Zigzag Journeys" thoroughly understands interesting youthful sympathies. The illustrations by J. Carter Beard and E. F. Austen add snap and sparkle to the events they picture. (Appleton. $1.50.)

THE FIRST AMERICAN SENATE, BY A MEMBER.*

So meagre are the official reports of the doings of the First Congress after the adoption of the Constitution that Mr. Maclay's journal must always be of great historical value. The author was the short-term Senator from his State, Robert Morris being his colleague. He was a man of means and character, a lawyer by profession and the legal representative in America of William Penn's descendants. He had some experience in legislation when elected to the Senate, for he had been a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly and also of the Supreme Executive Council of his State. While Senator he recorded in his journal each evening the proceedings of the day, and these records, many of them voluminous, give the book its value.

Mr. Maclay was an earnest anti-federalist-so earnest that his editor intimates that he, instead of Jefferson, should be regarded as the father of the Democratic party. He was not, however, in any sense a leader. His only prominence seems to have been in the character of an objector. He opposed almost every measure that had in it money or honor for any one. Even Hamilton's plan for supplying the government with money for current expenses seemed iniquitous, because some one would make a little money by handling the loan; of Hamilton himself Mr. Maclay says nothing good, but the first Secretary of the Treasury has many to keep him company; indeed, on laying down the book the reader will be of the impression that the nation must have been going to the dogs in 1791, for nobody was honest and patriotic but Mr. Maclay, and he was retiring to private life. At bestial badney"-whatever that may have been-his own colleague, Robert Morris, "is certainly the worst blackguard I ever heard open a mouth." General Schuyler, the courtly Senator from New York, "seems the prototype of covetousness;" Hamilton is base, and as for John Adams, the author seems unable to look at him or think of him without bursting with vituperation. To Washington he at first accorded right motives, but afterwards wrote: "Does he really look like a man who enters into the spirit of his appointment? Does he show that he receives it in trust for the happiness of the people and not as a fee simple for his own emolument?" A week later he writes: “If there be treason in the wish, I retract it, but would to God this same General Washington were in heaven!" The New York delegation wished this city to remain the national capital. So "these New Yorkers are the vilest of people; their vices have not the palliation of being manly.”

* Journal of William Maclay, United States Senator

From these excerpts it will be seen that Mr. Maclay was not a man whose personal opinions of men and affairs can have any value. From this book he appears to have been narrow, susHe picious and a poor judge of human nature. seems also to have suffered from rheumatism, indigestion and homesickness-maladies which Behave weakened greater minds than his. tween his opinions and his facts, however, a broad line must be drawn, and his book must become and remain an authority on much that was done and said by our First Congress under the Constitution. (Appleton. $2.25.)-N. Y. Herald.

HISTORY AND CIVILIZATION.

As

MR. MORRIS does not attempt to write a history of civilization, but in a careful, concise review of the information mankind now possesses, he offers an outline of the course of human progress from savagery to the civilized state, and endeavors to indicate the philosophic induction by which we may hope to eventually establish the science of human social development. he says in the preface, his aim is to enable the reader to gain some general conception of what man has thought and done in his long march down the ages, and this aim he reaches in the most direct and satisfactory manner. No book heretofore published in English answers this purpose or comes anywhere near it. Mr. Morris has the field to himself so far, and it will be many a long year before his abundant and fruitful labors will require to be supplemented by further summary statements of later observations.

It will prove astonishing to readers not well acquainted with the wide and scattered literature of the subject, to find with what intensity of interest Mr. Morris makes his inquiries appeal to the general understanding, or rather with what success he shows how deeply interested the human mind is in these departments of knowledge when opened by a scholarly hand and illuminated by the lights of intelligence. He seems to have traversed the whole domain of historic research and to have gathered therefrom a rich harvest of material relating to human progress in every department of the world's affairs: the birth and growth of communities and nations, of languages, of the arts and sciences, of commerce, of religions, of law, and of social orders. As an indication of the extent of ground gone over to collect this material it may be said that Mr. Morris cites nearly a hundred different authorities directly referred to.

Mr. Morris has a firm command of hardy, homely English, and his style is a model of nervous, accurate, swift-moving composition. He is

clay, A.M. D. Appleton & Co., New York.

purpose, and he constantly and consistently sacri

fices elegance to directness, but he is a master o the art of literary expression and uses it with perfect freedom to drive straight at the mark he is aiming for. His work is a contribution to the sum of general knowledge of distinct value and of permanent importance. It is published in two fair volumes of clear print, making the best examples of standard library issues yet received from the Chicago press. (Griggs. 2 v., $4.) -Philadelphia Telegraph.

THE FUTURE OF SCIENCE.

M. RENAN has done a thing which few men would dare to do, in publishing a work which he wrote nearly fifty years ago, not long after he separated from the Catholic Church. The origin of the work was really in an effort to frame for himself some satisfactory principles with which to fill the place vacated by the dogmas of the Catholic Church which he had laid aside. He was never willing to live without positive conceptions. In abandoning the dogmas he had ceased to believe he did not cease to think that man had a religious nature which must receive satisfaction. He knew that man stands in close relations with the universe, and especially with all his own past. Hence he drew up in those early years this full and comprehensive statement of his view of man in the unfolding of his life from generation to generation. He shows in this early production the promise of the breadth and power he has shown in his maturer years. His literary felicity, though not in full bloom at the time he wrote this work, is foretold on every page. The quality of style and thought which, in his later work, keep you reading almost beyond your will, are here in the process of development. Renan's style combines, in a singular degree, gentleness and strength. There is no roughness, no ungentlemanliness, no coarseness about it. But he has the strength of a sevenfold cord. Weakness of expression is far distant from his pen. It is interesting to compare this work with his later writings and watch his thought and style in the making. In substance the book contains his well-known view that the history of man is all in all to science, and that science must view man in all his works in all ages, as well as in all his qualities and relations, high and low, physical, moral and religious, before it will be true science and raise man to his proper vantage-ground. The work, therefore, has importance in itself considered, as well as in its relation to a great literary career. "However much and wisely or the reverse," says Renan, "I may have modified my habits of style as regards exposition, as little have I changed my fundamental ideas from the moment I began to think for myself. My religion is now, as ever, the progress of reason-in other words, the progress of science." (Roberts. $2.50.) -Public Opinion.

LORNA DOONE AND THE COWBOY. MR. R. D. BLACKMORE has sent a poetical preface to be prefixed to the new American edition of his famous tale, "Lorna Doone," which Messrs. Harper & Brothers are bringing out. It takes the form of a dialogue between Lorna and a "Gentleman from the West," part of which we give :

LORNA.

"It seems but yesterday that I was here,
A lambamong the wolves, a stricken deer;
But now I am the Queen of hill and dale,
And every cottage welcomes Lorna's tale!
No gift was this, no power the rest above,
But simply that I loved what others love-
The warmth of heart no frosty airs can chill,
The strength of justice tempered by good-will;
A simple life that follows Nature's bent,
And flows melodious with its own content;
Where men think less of coronets than corn,
And gather all they need where they were born.
Brave wanderer of the West! if thou art fain'
For peace like this, accept my pastoral strain."
GENTLEMAN FROM THE WEST.
"Fair lady, thanks! But not for that I roam!
Of rustic bliss too much I hear at home."

LORNA.

"Then if the works of God be thy delight,
That look their best when man is out of sight,
Thy longer power of mission I allure
With length and landscape of the Western moor-
Dark hills that wend in russet waves away,
Green valleys melting into vapors gray,
The sun that walks the golden heights, the bloom
Of velvet shadows sleeping down the coomb,
The banks and brooks that by their music earn
Fair coin of primroses and plumes of fern-
Then rest thy brains with these delights, and share
All the brown vigor of the mountain air."