latter. Bushnell saved himself by greatly mitigating an already modified Calvinism. Dwight, Taylor, Fitch, and Goodrich had made marked "improvements" on the grim old New England theology, and Bushnell advanced still further beyond the New Haven theologians, continuing the revolt against intolerable doctrines, the tough predestinationism and over-total depravity. Dr. Munger thinks the Unitarian protest against the tritheism and the pessimistic anthropology of the New England Calvinists was amply justified, and considers the question why Bushnell did not join the moderate Unitarians. It does not seem to us, any more than it did to Bushnell, that he belonged among the Unitarians, though of course the modern Unitarians were nearer to him than were the older Arians. Bushnell escaped tritheism by submerging the humanity of Jesus in his deity. Rejecting Grotius's "governmental theory" of the atonement, he anticipated Royce in setting forth the doctrine of a suffering deity-God actually suffering with and for men. But what Bushnell meant by "the moral view" of the atonement was not the "moral influence" of it, but an attempt to take the atonement out of the region of legalism and apply it to the moral realities of life itself. He tried to free the doctrine from its legal and mechanical slavery. The criticisms on Bushnell were evoked not by any denial of fundamental Christian doctrines, but by his venturing to express his faith in them under formulas and philosophic explanations somewhat different from those assumed to be canonical. The theological situation in which and upon which Bushnell worked is pictured thus by Dr. Munger: "The bequeathed contention of Edwards had already more than half yielded to Arminianism and modern thought. What would follow no man knew. Relief was needed at four points: First, from a revivalism that ignored the law of Christian growth; second, from a conception of the trinity bordering on tritheism; third, from a view of miracles that implied a suspension of natural law; and, fourth, from a theory of the atonement that had grown almost shadowy under 'improvements,' yet still failed to declare the law of human life." Bushnell believed in liberty and practiced charity, but of liberalism he had a dread, even of the very word. While not holding that every man who calls himself a liberal, or rejoices in the epithet, is therefore off the balance, he yet said that the man is on the way to be, and, holding on under that flag, certainly will be; that there is a losing element in the type of the word liberal; and that no man or denomination of men can make a flag of that word without being injured by it. He noted that Jesus, though so abundant and free in the charities of his life, had yet the more than human wisdom to assume no airs of liberalism. In this book we get not only Bushnell, in a sympathetic interpretation, but Munger, who sees all things from his own interesting and significant standpoint which is continually revealed. The great Hartford preacher was an active, original, and reconstructive thinker, a religious teacher of delicate spiritual insight, and a poet with large imaginative visions.

Reminiscences, 1819-1899. BY JULIA WARD HOWE. Crown 8vo, pp. 465. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Price, cloth, $2.50.

From memory and diary combined Mrs. Howe makes one of the most engaging of books. Its narratives and portraitures are from a range of eighty years of intercourse with a wide circle of notable persons at home and abroad. Dr. Howe said of his wife: "She is not a great reader, but she always studies." She calls herself "a student," and says that she chose for her motto, "I have followed the great masters with my heart." Her advice to busy women, full of household cares, is, "If you can command only fifteen or twenty minutes a day, read the Bible with the best commentaries, and daily a verse or two of the best poetry." Goethe's motto was, "Time is my inheritance, time is my estate." Over the fireplace in Rudyard Kipling's Vermont home are the reminding words, "The night cometh, in which no man can work;" and the night of death almost came to him when he was only thirty-four. All manner of sprightly and entertaining chat makes Mrs. Howe's reminiscences lively. Governor John A. Andrew was a Unitarian, but prized the truly devout spirits wherever he found them. He delighted in Father Taylor's Methodism; he used to say, "When I want to enjoy a good warm time I go to Brother Grimes's colored church." A quaint old physician of Mrs. Howe's childhood spoke of "a fellow who couldn't go straight in a ropewalk," and once exclaimed, "How brilliant is the light which streams through the fissure of a cracked brain!" Mrs. Jameson, being inquired of as to the comfort of her winter in Canada, replied: "As the Irishman said, I had everything that a pig could want." Mrs. Howe being invited to tea at Carlyle's house was set down to a repast of toast and a small dish of stewed fruit, which her dyspeptic host offered with the words, "Perhaps ye can eat some of this. I never eat these things myself." Reference being made to a proposed movement for the disestablishment of the Scottish Church, he blurted out, sarcastically, "That auld Kirk of Scotland! To think that a man like Johnny Graham should be able to wipe it out with a flirt of his pen!" Charles Sumner was mentioned, and Carlyle said, "O, yes; Mr. Sumner was a vera dull man, but he did not offend people, and he got on in society here." Comparing Sumner's eloquence with that of Wendell Phillips, Mrs. Howe says that the two were dissimilar in natural endowments. Phillips had a temperament of fire, while Sumner's was cold and sluggish. Phillips had a great gift of simplicity, and always made a bee line for the central point of interest in the theme. Sumner was recondite in language and elaborate in style, a student who abounded in quotations. In his senatorial days a satirical woman referred to him as "the moral flummery member from Massachusetts, quoting Tibullus." Mathematics always remained a sealed book to him, and his old Harvard professor once exclaimed, "Sumner, I can't whittle a mathematical idea small enough to get it into your brain!" Sumner was frequently the victim of rogues of various kinds. The members of his

family would say, "It is about time for Charles to have his pocket picked again." When, in the savage and dangerous fifties, a decade before the civil war, friends in Washington advised Senator Sumner that it would be wise for him to carry a pistol, his old mother said, "Why, he would only shoot himself with it." Wendell Phillips's orthodox faith was greatly valued among the antislavery workers. One day Theodore Parker was on the street arm in arm with Phillips. Edmund Quincy, seeing them, cried out, "Parker, don't you dare to pervert that man! We want him as he is!" Hegel's saying about his own lectures is quoted: "One only of my pupils understood me, and he misunderstood me." Secretary Chase asked Mrs. Howe what she thought of a life-size painting representing President Lincoln surrounded by the members of his cabinet. She replied that she thought the President's position rather awkward, and his legs out of proportion in their length. Chase laughed and said, “Mr. Lincoln's legs are so long that it would be difficult to exaggerate them." Mrs. Howe went with Governor and Mrs. Andrew and James Freeman Clarke to call on the President. After the party had taken leave and was well out of Mr. Lincoln's hearing, Clarke said, "We have seen it in his face; hopeless honesty; that is all." At that time few were praising him. Many were saying, "He a president, indeed! Why does he not do this, or that, or the other? Look how this war drags along! Look at our many defeats and rare victories!" The charitable believed he meant well. Governor Andrew's faith in him never wavered. Mrs. Howe tells how she came to write "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." It was first published in the Atlantic Monthly and gradually found its way to the camps, where the soldiers sung it to the already familiar tune of "John Brown's body." "As the war went on," she says, "it came to pass that Chaplain McCabe, newly released from Libby Prison, gave a public lecture in Washington, recounting some of his recent experiences. Among them was the following: He and the other Union prisoners occupied one large, comfortless room, in which the floor was their only bed. An official in charge of them told them one evening that the Union arms had just sustained a terrible defeat. While they sat together in great sorrow, the negro who waited on them whispered to one man that the officer had given them false information, and the Union army had, on the contrary, achieved an important victory. At this good news they all rejoiced, and presently made the walls ring with my 'Battle Hymn,' which they sang in chorus, Chaplain McCabe leading. The lecturer recited the poem with such effect that those present began to inquire, 'Who wrote this Battle Hymn?' It now became one of the leading lyrics of the war." Theodore Parker considered Emerson "not a philosopher, but a poet lacking the accomplishment of rhyme." The face of Mrs. Howe at seventy fronts the title-page of this bright book of memories. Many audiences have found it impressive to hear this gifted woman recite her own "Battle Hymn of the Republic."

Men and Things I Saw in Civil War Days. By JAMES F. RUSLING, A.M., LL.D., Brigadier General (by Brevet) United States Volunteers. 8vo, pp. 411. New York: Eaton & Mains. Cincinnati: Curts & Jennings. Price, cloth, $2.50. Reminiscences of personal experience in the War of the Rebellion, like those contained in the present volume, are of increasing value as the years go on. Whoever wore the blue in those stirring days and mixed in the battle should be heard with especial welcome-if, mayhap, he shall add from the point of a new perspective to a literature which cannot be too varied or too full. General Rusling has, therefore, earned the right to speak and to be heard. And especially is this seen to be the case when it is noted that many of the qualities which mark valuable history are discernible in his narrative. He has written, for instance though the remark is almost superfluous-from the standpoint of an unusually intelligent witness. As a graduate of Dickinson College, a professor in the Williamsport seminary, and a practicing lawyer before the war, he was already a man well equipped for observation, rather than a callow youth for whom only superficial judgments were possible. As a participant, besides, in much that he describes, his words take on a directness and vigor that is only possible in an old soldier's story. Many important campaigns and individual battles receive treatment at his hand, while various of the chief leaders in the great struggle are depicted in a series of fascinating pen pictures. These leaders are Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, and Generals McClellan, Burnside, Hooker, Meade, Thomas, Sherman, Sheridan, and Grant--under all of whom the author served or with most of whom he had personal acquaintance, and whose striking characteristics he thus had exceptional opportunities for studying. The chapter devoted to Robert E. Lee is particularly magnanimous and fortunate, and the following chapters on "Campaigning and Soldiering," "A Great Quartermaster," "The Angel of the Third Corps," and "Some Army Letters" are as valuable as they are interesting. As the reminiscences of an eyewitness these war memories thus have to repeat in other words what we have already intimated—a vivid, as well as a strong, quality. The scenes of other days are made alive, and one seems to hear again the roll of the drum and to see the glint of bayonets and of swords. For the new generation that has since come in its vigor upon the stage General Rusling has thus done a large service with his graphic pen. And to all its readers in future years the book will help to give an adequate idea of that momentous struggle which was waged to set a black race free.

MISCELLANEOUS.

The Life of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G. By JENNIE M. BINGHAM. 12mo, pp. 289. Cincinnati: Curts & Jennings. New York: Eaton & Mains. Price, cloth, 90 cents.

No one can read this biography and not feel himself in the presence of a great life. The determination of the Earl to lead a philanthropic

career, the volume tells us, was formed when as a schoolboy of fourteen he was walking down Harrow Hill and saw some drunken men carrying the body of an associate to its burial. "A fellow-creature was about to be consigned to his grave with indignities to which not even a dog should be subjected. Young Ashley exclaimed, 'Can this be permitted simply because the man was poor and friendless?' Before the sound of the drunken song had died away, he had faced the future of his life, and determined to make the cause of the poor his own." Under this incentive his long life, which closed at eighty-four, was uninterruptedly devoted to the interests of the needy. In greater details than may be quoted the author of the present sketch reviews the varied activities of the Earl, including his successful efforts to accomplish factory legislation, his labors to improve the condition of overworked children, his attention to ragged schools, his efforts to reclaim thieves, and his tender interest in the costers of London. For years he was President of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Having sacrificed all personal ambition for "fame and immortality," he used his high social position, his seat in Parliament, and his personal means only to further the causes of his suffering fellow-man, which so burdened his great heart. "The statute books showed," writes the author in conclusion, "that his service had benefited a population of two million and five hundred persons. He was the founder of a new order of nobility-an order of men who, inspired by his beautiful example and catching his sublime enthusiasm for the lessening of human suffering and for the salvation of humankind, are bringing in the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Is it too much to say that he was the greatest man England has ever produced?" For younger readers particularly the volume tells a rare story of humble faith in Christ and of consecrated usefulness, and none will read it without a new inspiration to noble service.

Journal of the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1792. Reconstructed by Rev. THOMAS BENJAMIN NEELY, A.M., D.D., Ph.D., LL.D., author of "The Governing Conference in Methodism," "The Evolution of Episcopacy and Organic Methodism," "Young Workers in the Church," "The Church Lyceum," ," "The Parliamentarian,” “Parliamentary Practice," etc. Pamphlet, pp. 56. New York : Eaton & Mains. Cincinnati: Curts and Jennings. Price, paper, 25 cents; sheep, 75 cents.

This pamphlet is of value to our Church in general, and of particular interest to all who care for the early history of the denomination. Dr. Neely's preface explains the origin and purpose of the pamphlet: "The attention of the General Conference of 1892 was called to the fact that the Journal of the General Conference of 1792 had never been published, and that the manuscript Minutes were not known to exist. The Journals of all the succeeding General Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States of America had been published in a uniform size, and it was deemed important that the Journal of the first Quadrennial General Conference, which was held in 1792, should, as far as possible, be reconstructed. The General Conference of 1892 therefore di