should be read by believers also, for its showing that Christianity cannot recommend its theology to the modern world without cutting loose from untenable doctrines, e.g., the fall of mankind in Adam. It is rather novel to hear a Presbyterian say that "the demand for the formal deification of Jesus seems to be at bottom an unspiritual demand." Another remark deserves equally profound reflection, viz. In the doctrine of the Immanence of God seems to be ample compensation for any apparent loss we may incur in our theory of the Person of Christ."

66

are

Selected Studies in the Life of Christ. By Laura H. Wild. Illustrated. The Fleming H.. Revell Co., New York. 6x9 in. 123 pages. $1. Both in design and execution this is a work of no small merit. The forty "Studies" arranged for forty weeks, each day having its assignment, in which there is recourse both to Christian literature and Christian art as bearing upon the topic in hand.

Selections from Plato. By Lewis Leaming

Forman, Ph.D. The Macmillan Co., New York. 44×64 in. 509 pages. $1.90.

Shakespeare's Life and Work. By Sidney Lee. The Macmillan Co., New York. 5x71⁄2 in. 231 pages. 80c.

An abridgment, prepared primarily for students, of Mr. Sidney Lee's admirable biog raphy of Shakespeare, which presents the most condensed and thorough study of all the facts and traditions connected with Shakespeare which has yet appeared. The volume is supplied with a particularly full index, and is likely to be of great service to students.

So: or, The Gospel in a Monosyllable. By Rev. George Augustus Lofton, D.D. The Fleming H. Revell Co., New York. 434X7 in. 230 pages. $1.25. This title refers to the emphatic so, "God so loved the world" (John iii., 16). The writer presents the Gospel as conceived by the strict Evangelicals of former generations, and with a profoundly earnest conviction that later modifications of their views have been only for the worse; e. g., doubt of the endlessness of future punishment he reckons as one of the chief obstacles to the conversion of the world. Soul in Bronze (A). By Constance Goddard

Du Bois. Herbert S. Stone, Chicago. 44×7 in. 312 pages.

Vivacity in style and rapid movement in plot make this novel readable. In places it is a little hectic and overwrought, but as a whole it is above the average of the fiction now pouring forth so rapidly.

Soul's Meditations (A). Compiled and Arranged by Mrs J. H. Root. Bonnell, Silver & Co., New York. 334x6 in. 189 pages.

This seems almost a unique volume in devotional literature; it certainly is likely to be of infinite help to various classes of people. As the Rev. James Huntington says in his preface, so we would say, that the book is, above all, sincere. It is a book in which "the gaze is as straight as that of a marksman along his rifle-barrel, with no side glances towards a possible audience." We would specially commend those meditations on subjects connected with death, under such captions as "It is

Sown in Corruption," "The End of Those Things," etc.

Story of a School Conspiracy (The). By Andrew Home. Illustrated. W. & R. Chambers, Philadelphia. 54X72 in. 328 pages. $1.25. As exciting as underground passages, French spies, attempts to wreck trains, and hairbreadth escapes can make a boy's existence. Story of Teddy (The). By Helen Van-Anderson. The Alliance Publishing Co., New York. 54X7%1⁄2 in. 115 pages. 50c.

Studies Scientific and Social. By Alfred Russel Wallace. Illustrated. The Macmillan Co., New York. 2 vols. 5x8 in. $5.

Mr. Wallace, although he must now be not very far from fourscore years of age, shows no abatement in strength as a thinker. His range of subjects is remarkably versatile, as is shown conclusively by the topics treated in these two volumes, in which are gathered many of his best contributions to reviews. and its twenty or more papers are grouped The first volume is purely scientific in subject, under "Earth Studies," Descriptive Zool

ogy,'

‚""Plant Distribution,” “" Animal Distribution," "Evolution," and " Anthropology." The second volume is of a more miscellaneous character; it has an equal or larger numand political topics. These latter essays ber of papers on sociological, educational, abound in sound democracy and humanity; whether one agrees or not with Mr. Wallace in certain positions taken (as, for instance, about land nationalization and abolition of interest-bearing funds), it is impossible not to admire the spirit shown, for instance, in the very title of the last paper on "Justice, Not Charity, as the Fundamental Principle of Social Reform." Seriatim consideration of the

positions taken is impossible at this time, but

it

may be said emphatically that these books (despite some possible vagaries) represent the intellectual thought of one of the leaders of the last half of the century just closing. Study of Christian Missions (A). By William

Newton Clarke, D.D. Charles Scribner's Sons,
New York. 5×7%1⁄2 in. 268 pages.

While Dr. Clarke's preceding publications have gained wide attention for what he has yet to say, we wish to say of this last work of his that no more valuable publication on its subject is known to us. He has done well to dedicate it "to the pastors of America," for on them depends the leadership of the churches in a wise and effective missionary interest. It is for them to learn early the most pressing of the truths inculcated in this book, that the transformation witnessed in every other field of thought and action is progressing, last of all, in the field of missionary motive and endeavor. It is just this which makes what is called "the crisis in missions" inevitable, since, as Dr. Clarke says, “a time of transition is never a time of conspicuous immediate power." Feeling certain that Christ will bring forth in Oriental nations new forms of life to supersede those which for his sake we gave them, Dr. Clarke sees threatenings of a coming storm in the mission fields, unless missionaries trust to the essential divinity of the central

message of the Gospel, in loyalty to the principle that God "fulfills himself in many ways." Synthetic Bible Studies. By James M. Gray, D.D. F. M. Barton, Cleveland. 6x94 in. 217

pages.

This is an excellent scheme of study for those who think it wiser to study the Bible in the uncritical way that was universal at the beginning of the century, rather than in the critical way which Christian scholarship is bringing in at the end. Bible teaching that finds in the Edenic "coats of skins" an intimation of salvation through the blood of Christ, and in the book of Daniel a forecast of history till the millennial advent, we regard as in these days worse than useless.

Tale of the Little Twin Dragons (The). By
S. Rosamond Praeger. Illustrated. The Macmillan
Co., New York. IIx834 in. 58 pages. $1.50.
Tar of the Old School (A). By F. H. Costello.
Illustrated. Dana Estes & Co., Boston. 5x7 in.
363 pages. $1.50.

A story that will interest readers who love adventure, whether young or old. It describes the fortunes of a Yankee barque and the exploits of its crew among the Corsairs of the coast of Barbary and later at other ports. The story glows with deeds of daring and hand-to-hand encounters.

Three Years with the Children. By Amos R. Wells. The Fleming H. Revell Co., New York. 42x74 in. 282 pages. $1.25.

Things a Boy Should Know About Electricity. By Thomas M. St. John. Published by the Author, New York. 5x78, in. 179 pages.

Tiny Tunes for Tiny People. Composed by Addison Fletcher Andrews. Words by Albert Bigelov Paine and Others. Illustrated. The Dodge Publishing Co., New York. 9x12 in. 69 pages. $1.50.

True to Himself. By Edward Stratemeyer. Illustrated. Lee & Shepard, Boston. 5x7% in. 280 pages. $1.

The story is related by the boy himself, one Roger Strong, who, with his sister Kate, finds himself alone in the world and under a cloud, owing to the father having been thrown into prison on a false charge. The boy's struggle to obtain a foothold is graphically described. This is the third volume in the **Ship and Shore" series by this author. Two Boys and a Fire. By Edward Augustus

Rand. Thomas Whittaker, New York. 5x71⁄2 in. 112 pages.

Uncle Terry: A Story of the Maine Coast. By Charles Clark Munn. Illustrated. Lee & Shep ard, Boston. 5x7 in. 365 pages.

A sensational, somewhat vulgarly written story. Uncle Terry, who "takes some comfort livin' an' tries to pass it along," is a pleasant char

acter.

What Did the Black Cat Do? Guess! By

Margaret Johnson. Illustrated by the Author. Dana Estes & Co., Boston. 81x63 in. 81 pages. 75c. Families which rejoice in a black cat as a member do not always know what he will do; but this book for small children tells, in a number of short stories with printed letters and cunning little pictures in the text taking the place of some words, the deeds, both kind and mischievous, of a big black cat with a red bow.

Wilkinson's Foreign Classics in English. Six Vols. "Greek Classics" (Preparatory Course). "Greek Classics" (College Course). "Latin Cias sics" (Preparatory Course). "Latin Classics" (College Course). "French Classics" and "German Classics." Funk & Wagnalls Co., New York. 5x8 in. These six volumes constitute a helpful library. means from studying Greek and Latin, French Too many persons are prevented by lack of had the energy to pursue studies already and German. Too many, however, have not begun so as to read anything in these languages. Whether unfortunate or lazy, such persons will welcome the volumes which do the work for them. Professor Wilkinson's volumes are not "ponies," literal translations of the classics often used in college to help in quick work. The volumes are not even text-books, but that does not lessen their value as supplementary reading to college students-a value to students and to others doubled by the editor's illuminative comment. His instruction is not concentrated, in a long preface or appendix, but sandwiched on every page between wise selections of representative passages from the classics.

William Herschel and His Work. By James Sime, M.A., F.R.S.E. (The World's Epoch Makers.) Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. 5x7 in. 263 pages. $1.25.

Perhaps never was a man placed in stranger environment for his life-work than a grave organist and concert-director from Hanover amidst the trifling, gadding, gouty, and bloated sojourners at Bath. The organist found contrast and relief in lofty pursuits. Not only did his noble profession claim him; even then he was working at what came to be a later profession, at "the ancient music of the spheres." The newest volume in the "World's Epoch-Makers" series describes this life and work. As Mr. Sime justly says, William Herschel stamped on his own age as well as on ours a loftier view of creation and of its Author than was ever before entertained. Herschel's biographer does wisely in allowing the astronomer and his contemporaries to relate their own impressions; the science and society of a century ago are thus the more vividly conveyed to us. Mr. Sime does well, however, to call attention to the fact that the William Herschel work may be enjoyed by mankind without such a strain on the understanding as must attend the more mathematical labors of his own son, or of Newton or Laplace. Particular interest attaches to astronomical research of a century ago, when, as Arago well prophesied, "the eye of the mind supplied the want of telescopes."

Young Gunbearer (The). By G. Waldo Browne. Illustrated. L. C. Page & Co., Boston. 54x8 in. 334 pages. $1.

This is the second in the series of Woodranger tales. The scenes are laid in Acadia during the period it was neutral ground. It also takes in the siege of Louisburg. The fabric being largely historical, it contains matter to interest old as well as young, espe cially as it covers the early life of a region which is a name rather than a reality to many English readers. It is full of adventure and interest, and is sympathetically told.

I. A Lawyer's View

To the Editors of The Outlook:

To the two views of the "Gospel Motive" presented in your current number a third may, it seems to me, be added, viz., "Or is it a Status?"

Many to whom the Life of Jesus is for the most part unattractive, and the Dogmas of Christianity for the most part unintelligible, admit without reservation that Jesus stands for a definite spiritual state, and perceive in the Christ status not only a solution of the problem of the relation of man to that Spirit whose image he is, but also trace to this same status a definite force whose natural laws tend to identify the image with the Substance whose shadow it is. Is it necessary to say that, in matters spiritual, status is the very acme of force-just as a state

of mind is the end to which all intellectual processes tend? May not the Gospel motif be the presentation of this status as a dynamic factor in man's spiritual evolution, rather than the contribution to his literature of a historical Life, however perfect, or of a dogmatic system to his dialectics, however subtile? C. G. G.

II. A Layman's View

To the Editors of The Outlook:

The two articles on the real nature of religion in the last issue of The Outlook interested me greatly. It may be of interest to know how each side of the argument affects the mind of a mere layman unacquainted with the technicalities of Scripture interpretation. The naïve view that such a person takes of the great question treated in the above-mentioned articles is not entirely without value, from the very fact that it is formed without the assistance of rules and formulas.

the Gospels is the human element in them, the simple story of the every-day life of the Master, told without any explanation or moralizing. Their grandeur lies in their simplicity. Not only are the facts not stated primarily as dogmas; it is plainly evident that many of the dogmas afterwards legitimately deduced from these writers themselves. I can hardly see how writings were absolutely unknown to the a stranger to the literature on the subject, in reading the Gospels for the first time, could form any other opinion than this.

The epistles are more doctrinal, perhaps, but they were written usually to correct some particular error, and cannot be taken as a proof that their author considered doctrine more than life.

a

We are rightly coming nearer to the original meaning of Christianity as "religion"-religio, a bond or tie, a personal relation. It is, as Canon Holland says, "nothing but the relation of a son to a Father." 1 In such a relation, the son's belief in the existence of the Father is necessarily implied, but that intellectual belief is secondary in order of both time and importance, and is but a small part of the bond or ligamen that binds together the Father and his son. "There is nothing in Christianity," says Ruskin, "that the smallest child cannot understand."

Christianity, then, is a bond, a tie, an obligation, a personal relation, a friendship, a contact or communion of personalities, one divine, the other human. It tacitly implies the existence of the two personalities as a matter of fact for intellectual belief (though the belief would seem almost a necessity where the personal relation exists); beyond this hardly anything.

The bond of friendship brings an obligation of loyalty, with all that that involves, but it is a spiritual bond-a relation of friends; the one finite, ignorant, obedient. humble, loyal, anxious to learn; the other infinite, omniscent, compassionate, and all-helpful.

The intellect and reason are most useful in proving the reasonableness of "Lux Mundi."

religion, but they are a small part of the religion itself. "Christianity is not a theory, or a speculation, but a life; not a philosophy of life, but a living process."1 C. H. MCILWAIN.

Saltsburg, Pa.

III. The Fallacy of Clericus To the Editors of The Outlook:

The article by "Clericus " in your last issue defending the proposition that Christianity is dogma rather than life has been read and re-read by me with admiring surprise. So able a writer upon such a thesis is a factor to be reckoned with in present discussion. With no purpose to add weight to Dr. Abbott's cogent reply, I beg space for a word touching "Clericus's" statement, "It seems entirely beyond question that the distinctive note of early preaching was not a life at all, but a doctrine, a dogma."

The fallacy seems to be in limiting the content of the term life to the ethical value of Jesus' conduct. Life is always something more than conduct. Even Matthew Arnold, whose superappreciation of conduct has been criticised, assigns to it only threefourths of life. The distinctive note of early preaching was a new life which the believer received from him whose life was the light of men. Christianity was regarded by all its apostles as a communication of life from God. This communication had to be translated for Jews into a Messianic form, for Greeks into philosophic and æsthetic form, and for Romans into practical form. But all such translations were verbal. What we have in New Testament writings is both the effort and the effect of such translation-apologetics. In this phase of it the Gospel appears as dogma, but the dogma is of such sort, its defense so fervid, that the verbal form is translucent with imprisoned fire-the fire of a new life which can in no proper sense be described as dogma. In this distinction is one of the best illustrations of the definition of religion by Max Müller (given elsewhere in The Outlook) as consisting "in the perception of the Infinite under such manifestations as are able to influence the moral character of man."

The view maintained by "Clericus" takes Christianity out of the domain of prophecy-never dogma, but life-never 'Coleridge," Aids to Reflection."

aught but a communication from God which could burn in the bones-a savor from life to life-and reduces it to a tradition of the elders, and thereby, as it would seem, to absurdity.

Another point is this: The great question is not what the distinctive (verbal) note of early preaching was, but what was the motive with the Apostles for preaching at all. Notably it was their feeling of love that they had been wooingly and wonderfully loved by some one. By whom but Jesus? Now, what are the evidences of such love on Jesus' part? Not his "death," but the death of such as he! The death of their lover. And how could it have been known that he was their lover except by the quality of his life? If, as "Clericus" affirms, a death, not a life, conquered the world, how, furthermore, are we to account for the fact that those who were conquered began at once, and still begin, to live a life which can be described in no other way so faithfully or so felicitously as by calling it Christlike? In other words, how account for the persistence of the Christian type?

Methuen, Mass.

CHARLES H. OLIPHANT.

IV. Dogma for Life

To the Editors of The Outlook :

I have read the argument of "Clericus." I can but admire the clear, direct, and logical presentation and the spirit of candor and fairness which pervades it. To minds cast in another mold the conclusions to which the author, apparently with reluctance, comes, bring doubt and despair-the despair of an irreligious life. Christianity, then, is not the entrance into life, but the acceptance of a dogma. A better life, to be sure, results, but is not to be regarded as the chief end. Salvation is still deliverance from the conse quences of sin. The changed attitude of the soul toward God and man is but a secondary matter. If this is the inevitable conclusion of theological speculation, let us come back to what we can feel and see and know. Every man who hungers and thirsts after righteousness" instinctively feels that the worth of the men about him depends not so much upon what they believe as upon how they live. In every age the men who have most inspired their fellows are the men who

have lived most nobly. Against a faith which exalts itself and the advantages here and hereafter which it brings to the individual, above the life which that faith implants, both reason and conscience revolt. It seems to me a strange perversion of the teachings of Jesus, who said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly," to make the dogma through which that life is attained of more importance than the life itself. Fullness of life, as the spirit still teaches us, includes both love to God and love to man. That there can be any greater thing than this is not in accordance with the words of the Master as I understand them. After all, is it only a different way of putting it? We work together to teach the dogma; "Clericus" for the dogma's own sake, we for the sake of the life that accompanies it. The result is perhaps the same. But the mischief arises because, in holding Christianity out to the world as a dogmatic creed which in some important respects is mysterious and incomprehensible, thousands are turned away.

Educating the Filipinos To the Editors of The Outlook:

L.

Lieutenant-Colonel James Parker, U.S.A., with a few companies of soldiers, holds an isolated province in southeastern Luzon, Philippines. Under him are over fifty thousand people. For nearly a year he has not only kept the peace, but directed in the education of these. The churches are open, and, following the example of our soldiers, the natives attend. In every town a school has been started. I send two extracts from letters just received from Colonel Parker. In them he makes an appeal to me. I feel, and think you will also, that this work ought to be known. It is simply illustrative of what I know other officers are doing single-handed. It will take a year for the Commission to formulate and set in motion its educational plans. Meanwhile shall not this preliminary work go on with our help? Colonel Parker is an alumnus of Rutgers College and of West Point. He is a son of Cortlandt Parker, of Newark, N. J.

J. R. D. "These people are most ambitious for education. They are also most desirous

of a knowledge of English, or' Americano,' as they call it. They have the most wonderful ideas concerning the United States; their imaginations are inflamed with stories of our wealth, our energy, our power, and the prowess of our soldiers here; the liberty of our Government confirms them in these ideas. The great dream of the average Filipino is to see America.

"It is our great superiority that brings secretly a great delight to the Filipino when allowed to call himself an Americano, and makes him so anxious to learn our language, adopt our customs, buy cur goods, wear our clothing. In one of the schools I have established here the children, taught two hours daily by a soldier, orally (for I have no books), have learned in six weeks over five hundred English words, and can even sustain a short conversation, their accent being clear and distinct. Nowadays, as I ride about my province I am saluted at every door by little childish voices piping up, “Goodmorning, Colonel." I stop and speak with them in English. They answer me proudly from their little store of newly acquired knowledge, and as I ride away they always cry out, "Good-by, Colonel." The boys are all our friends. They play with the soldiers and talk to them. There is no use for Spanish here any longer. Only those who received an unusual education can talk and read Spanish. The children should be taught from English school-books, and well taught. edge of Americano' will make them quickly Americans."

A knowl

"Things are gradually progressing here. We have mayors and police in all the towns of the province, and schools. I detail a soldier to teach English in each school, and the children are making great progress. On account of the confusion of dialects, Bicol, Visayan, Ilolan, and Tagal, the text-books have always been Spanish. I trust that the Commission will not allow this system to be perpetuated. I propose that in the schools of this district the children shall learn geography, history, and arithmetic in English, as they desire to do. The difficulty is text-books. If I only could get a lot of illustrated American primers! It is a glorious opportunity. By teaching these children to read English, in five years there will be a